scott wrote:night_tools wrote:...does anyone else have any hot tips for a total novice?
These days, my line of thinking is that the single most important aspect of playing a stringed instrument, and one that it seems nobody ever really talks about, is to learn how to control the muting of strings. I think it's the number one most important thing, *especially* if you're playing with distortion. Chords that don't use every single string, chords that skip strings, these can be some awesome motherfuckers. But if you accidentally let that D string ring out while you're playing a B Major chord, it might kinda sound like ass. Learning to use a finger to fret a note on one string, and simultaneously prevent an adjacent string from ringing out, is really important (i think) if you wanna move beyond playing barre chords or open chords. Even power chords with the root on the 5th string, if your 6th string is ringing out, you may be destroying the integrity of what you're setting out to do.
This is a zillion times more crucial with bass, where any ringing string, if not deliberate, is likely to make your parts sound like serious butt.
Muting strings when you're not playing them. The sooner you get a handle on that, the better, I think.
Aside from that very direct suggestion, I would also recommend that any player of stringed instruments, starting right now, and for the rest of their life, do these general type of things:
Learn how the instrument works, physically. What happens if you fret a note directly between the two frets? How about if it's super-close to the lower of the two frets, or the higher one? How does this affect the sound? What happens if you pick closer to the bridge, or closer to the neck? What about if you change the angle at which you hold the pick? Is there a difference in sound between the tiny E string (the 1st string) when you play it open, versus the 5th fret on the 2nd string, versus the 9th fret on the 3rd string, versus the 14th fret on the 4th string, versus the 19th fret on the 5th string? How crucial is this to the sound of the note, even though they're all the exact same note?
Learn how the instrument works, electronically. What happens if you use just a neck pickup, or just a bridge pickup, or both at the same time? And what effect does the choice of spot where you're picking have when using one pickup or the other or both? What happens when you turn your tone knob all the way up, and volume almost all the way down, or tone all the way done and volume all the way up, and everything in between? When you physically tap the instrument, does that tapping sound come out of your amp? What about if you tap on the pickups directly? Is this something you wanna use as part of your playing, or something you wanna avoid, or is it not an issue at all with your particular instrument?
Learn how different gain settings affect your general sound. With low gain, if you play two notes together that are only one fret apart (i.e. an open B string and the 3rd or 5th fret on the G string), how does that sound? How about with tons of gain/distortion? What happens if you play open chords with a clean sound, versus a heavily distorted sound? What about if you play complex chords that are kinda dissonant, clean vs distorted? What effect does distortion have on sustain? How about feedback? Does your instrument produce feedback that is dependent on your physical distance from the amp, or it doesn't matter where you are it always squeals, or it never squeals no matter what?
Learn how picking dynamics and fret-hand finger pressure affect your sound. If you play really soft, or play really hard, do you hear a difference in the quality of the sound? What about the pitch? Plug in a tuner, and play an open string... play it super-softly, and super-hard... see any difference in the pitch showing up on the tuner? What about with fretted notes, if you fret them very softly, with a light touch, or if you crank down really hard? See a difference in pitch? How is that stuff gonna affect what you're doing, when you play? How about when you're tuning? If you pick softly while you tune, and then pick hard when you play, are you ever gonna actually be in tune?
I'm not telling you what happens here based on my experience, but these are the sorta things that over the years I've come to realize have a big effect on tone and in-tune-ness and whatnot.
A solid state amp might not exhibit a lot of difference in tone based on picking dynamics (or it might) and a tube amp might be more responsive to dynamics (or it might not). Who knows? Try them out, if you can. Take your instrument to a guitar store and try out an amp that's known for good distortion sounds, and see what happens if you pick really softly versus really hard, versus everything in between. Maybe with one amp, it makes no difference, but with another, it makes a huge difference. Learn the combination of your instrument, and your amp, and see how you can work it. Some day, you'll have a different guitar or different amp, and things will change. But always get to know the setup you're playing through, as well as you can.
This is the kinda stuff that I think is key. If you have an interest in learning every facet of the instrument, that's a great thing and it's gonna help you discover stuff. Approaching the instrument with an angle like, "what does this do, what does that do, how does this work, what does this affect" and all that, over time you'll learn *your* way of playing guitar. There may not be any universal rules about "always play using your fingertips on the strings, not the sides of your fingers", but there are general guidelines like that. You'll find them all over if you look for books or websites or whatnot, I suspect. But the most important thing may well be to just learn everything *your* way. Ask your own questions, and find your own answers.
And very importantly, keep a spirit of always challenging yourself, always learning new stuff, always trying something that you think "I can't do this" or "this is too hard" until you can eventually do it. And be patient with it. If you only ever stick with what you already know, and what you can already do, that might work for you just fine. Or, you might end up bored, or saying stuff like "I passed my musical peak X years ago", which is a damn shame. Some of the best and most rewarding songs, for me, are the ones where the first time I tried to play a part, I couldn't do it for shit. And after 50 times, I was more comfortable with it. And after 100 times it was easy, and there was a new challenge on the horizon. The way it is for you now, where it's maybe hard to do much of anything, or lots of stuff is difficult for you to do the way you'd like, that is something where in time you'll be able to play all kinda shit just like you'd like to. But if you always challenge yourself, and always have parts that bring you back to where you are in the beginning, where you are trying to do something you currently cannot do, that's gonna be really rewarding over time.
Contrary to what some people might suggest, I think there is *always* a new challenge on the horizon. Initially, the challenge is to play the fucking guitar at all, to get notes out of it, to play chords, to pick/strum rythmns. Maybe later the challenge is to find *new* chords or rythmns. New rythmns are something that I think damn near any guitarist would benefit from pursuing. For me, there was a point where simplifying was the new challenge. Learning to say the most with the fewest notes. And following that, revisiting trying to play faster, or slower, or more difficult, or whatever... There's always something you haven't done before, or something you can do better.
And some day, maybe you hit a point where you're all "been there, done that". And then you can go ahead and look for alternate tunings, ones that you find on the net that somebody else used, or just go ahead and make up your own. And at that point, just about every rut you've fallen into, chord-wise, it's out the window, and nothing at all works like you've come to take for granted. And you have to learn all new stuff, and you'll play chords you've never played before. And you'll hear new voicings. And then when you go back to a normal tuning, you can try and find ways to pull off those same voicings, or similar, and you'll find yourself playing chords you never played before.
It's a neverending journey, if you're lucky. A spirit of openness to learning new things, and asking new questions, that's key. And persistence, and patience.
Also, there's a thing I call "the curse of the guy who plays alone in his bedroom too much". He only plays alone, for years, and then when he tries to play with other people, in a band, he has a really hard time with it. First off, playing alone, he never learned to lock into someone else's rythmn. I think that's one of the most important things of being in a band, is for people to lock together. Second, when he's playing alone, if he duffs a part he's trying to play, he starts over from shortly before the duff, or he just skips a section or adds a section in. That can work in band, but usually doesn't. Something I think you can only learn by playing in a band, or playing along with a cd or whatever, is how to fuck something up, and jump right back in, locked in, as quickly as you can. You never learn that if you just play alone in your bedroom, playing along with nothing but your own mind.
Watch out for that, and don't let yourself become that guy. I've seen it with a few different people, friends and bandmates of mine over the years. Nip that shit in the bud, and play with other people as soon as you can, even if you're not totally comfortable with that situation, just do it with people you feel comfortable around in general. It's good news.
If playing is causing you anything more than a really mild physical pain, then you should probably stop. If it's a matter of establishing your callouses on your fingers, that just takes time, and you should just be prepared to rip the shit out of your fingertips for a good while, until they become rock hard. Everybody has to deal with that, including and especially bassists and drummers. Develop your callouses as quickly as you can, and that means playing until you rip your fingers up, and maybe they turn a little white, or a lot white, as they're ripped, and maybe they have dark lines from where the strings rub, or maybe they don't. But don't be afraid of that shit, and just keep on trucking through it. Maybe it takes a few weeks, or a few months, but eventually with regular playing, you get your callouses, and they fucking rule.
But if it's joint pain, or muscle pain, that's different. Figuring out the proper ergonomics for your playing, that's really, really, really, really, really, really, really important. This is your body, your ability to pick up a coffee cup, or to rub somebody's shoulders or whatnot. If you play with your instrument too low, you can waste your fret hand wrist. If you try and stretch your fingers on your fret hand more than they're ready for, you can pull a tendon or ligament or whatever the hell it is. Pushing your physical limits is a great thing, but do NOT overdo it when it comes to joints and tendons and shit. If you have any suspicion that you're hurting your limbs, you should study up on ergonomics and learn what positions are gonna be good for you and which ones aren't. There
have to be resources for this, on the net or in paper print or whatnot, I'm sure, though I don't know what they are.
Believe it or not, the thickness of your pick, and in what position you hold your pick, and how tightly you grasp your pick, this can be a big deal. I have a friend who just discovered that if he plays bass with a lighter pick, his wrist doesn't flip out and hurt like it used to. He was all talking about how he needs to see a doctor, because the pain and cramping was getting out of control... and all it took was to try a little lighter pick, which he naturally found himself grasping less rigidly, and things got way better.
You're not gonna know all the answers to this stuff in any short amount of time, unless you're like some kinda superhuman or something. It takes time. Everything takes time. It's worth it. But if you keep it in you mind from early on, you'll find yourself developing really good habits, rather than bad ones. And after playing for years, the habits that you've developed can be very hard to change, as much of playing is just thoughtless muscle memory. It's the time you spend developing the techniques that determines what you do down the road, whether you know it or not. So the earlier you evaluate your pick technique, your fret technique, your use of pressure or force with each hand, the better you'll be down the road.
A lot of this stuff probably won't mean shit to you for months, if you've *just* started. I think the beginning for most of us was exactly what you've described... learning a couple/few chords, learning to play a song you know and like... that's very normal. Developing technique is something that you start doing from the very first moment, but I think people usually don't realize it until many months or even years down the road.
Playing guitar can be very, very fucking rewarding. If you can keep yourself unburdened with a sense of "I am no good" or "I am the best" or any of that shit, you'll be the better for it. Whether or not you're good or bad, if you wanna play guitar, you
really want it, then that shit doesn't matter. I think I spent a good number of years thinking I sucked, comparing myself to my peers or even to famous rock musicians I liked... and eventually I said "who cares, I am as good as I am". It doesn't matter how you stack up to other people, it only matters how you stack up to your own potential. If you're always on a quest to achieve whatever is your greatest potential, then you are all set.
The only book I can recommend is "Zen Guitar", which is not about techniques or how to judo chop people's faces, so much as it is about what I'm getting at here, the spirit of your approach, and your attitude and your posture as a musician and artist. I read it through one time, probably 10 years ago, and though I can't quote any of it, I know I got a lot out of it, as a player and as a person. Highly recommended.
