i know some chords, i know some scales...now what??

peacocoa

this is probably a dumb quesiton but i'm just feeling kind of stuck. I feel like i need to take that next step to become a serious guitar player but i don't know what that step is. I think the natural thing to do would be to start playing with some other musicians but any suggestions beyond that? thanks in advance to this stupid question.

nothing_man_92

Best thing to do is to start challenging yourself! Learn some songs easy at first and then try harder things as you go along. There is no better feeling then nailing a song you've been working on for a few days.

DewieCox

Learn some songs you've always wanted to learn.

Some basic theory comes in pretty handy. A few different scales, understanding how certain chords are made, some different time signature stuff.

Hone in on a sound and learn to hone in different sounds. As long as you play within your skill level this is the most important to me.

Stove

Start playing with other people is a must if you want to evolve as a musician. When I first start messing with guitar I would learn songs I like. That way you learning new techniques and chords depending on what songs you want to play.

LukinFan

Check out this thread: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=158515

Lots of great songs that are nice and easy for a beginner (I still consider myself one as well)

Also, check out Marty Guitar Jams on Youtube - can't remember the actual name, but you should be able to find it. He walks you through everything and has tons of songs. Great teacher

peacocoa

thanks for all the info everybody. maybe i should clarify a bit though. i've been playing for a few years off and on. I consider myself somewhat of an intermediate player. give me some songs and tell me the chords and i can play it, but...i just don't feel like a guitar player. i feel like a guy who can play a few songs on the guitar. I thought this might be a common experience for guitar players. so how do i take that next step? again, it's probably a stupid question. especially since i think i know the answer...practice. but i feel like when i practice i'm just playing songs i already know and not really advancing. so how do i challenge myself? what kind of theory do guitar players need when there's so much out there? i just feel like something is missing. again, i thought this might be a common experience and i was looking for some advice from some folks who have been there before.

rollings

peacocoa wrote:

this is probably a dumb quesiton but i'm just feeling kind of stuck. I feel like i need to take that next step to become a serious guitar player but i don't know what that step is. I think the natural thing to do would be to start playing with some other musicians but any suggestions beyond that?

No. You answered your question.

SalJam

peacocoa wrote:

thanks for all the info everybody. maybe i should clarify a bit though. i've been playing for a few years off and on. I consider myself somewhat of an intermediate player. give me some songs and tell me the chords and i can play it, but...i just don't feel like a guitar player. i feel like a guy who can play a few songs on the guitar. I thought this might be a common experience for guitar players. so how do i take that next step? again, it's probably a stupid question. especially since i think i know the answer...practice. but i feel like when i practice i'm just playing songs i already know and not really advancing. so how do i challenge myself? what kind of theory do guitar players need when there's so much out there? i just feel like something is missing. again, i thought this might be a common experience and i was looking for some advice from some folks who have been there before.

I am in the exact same boat as you.... I've been playing for 3 years and I'm stuck. I don't have time to take lessons (wife, two kids, job) so i just mess around with the stuff I already know and that doesn't help. I need to set time aside and learn some scales and practice.

jopetto75

I've been playing for 5 years this is a one of the greatest joys I have ever endured, one of the hardest to master.
Thats why I get so frustrated and just want to smash it into pieces. Maybe I am my own worst critic thats what keeps me motivated there is so much to do so many sounds to create. I am still searching for that style that I can call my own. Yet another motivating factor just keep jamming is all I know to tell you. That and learn to play the blues try to pick a Stevie Ray song and get that down to a T, hope to be of some kind of help
"just jam just jam pearl jam" Jeff A

DewieCox

peacocoa wrote:

thanks for all the info everybody. maybe i should clarify a bit though. i've been playing for a few years off and on. I consider myself somewhat of an intermediate player. give me some songs and tell me the chords and i can play it, but...i just don't feel like a guitar player. i feel like a guy who can play a few songs on the guitar. I thought this might be a common experience for guitar players. so how do i take that next step? again, it's probably a stupid question. especially since i think i know the answer...practice. but i feel like when i practice i'm just playing songs i already know and not really advancing. so how do i challenge myself? what kind of theory do guitar players need when there's so much out there? i just feel like something is missing. again, i thought this might be a common experience and i was looking for some advice from some folks who have been there before.

I would say playing with others and learning more to the songs than "gimme the chords and I can play it". Learn all the little intricacies that make those same chords that everybody uses sound different from band to band. You'll start seeing that stuff pop up in your playing more and more as you progress, and voila you're developing an individual style.

deftones

Get some tabs from giventowail and play along with the cd. Also download some backing tracks (there are some pearl jam as well) and play. Makes practicing more interesting and fun.

deftones

I play the guitar on and off for almost 20 years. I even quit for some years. This September I decided to take lessons. The progress I had these 6 months is more than the one I had all these years. So I would recommend taking lessons aswell if possible.

sleeplikeadog

Start a band

RedMosquito22

If you can't find others to play with(which is the best idea start fiddling with garage band. you can at least jam to drum beat patterns. I started back in the day with a drum machine with its own amp(which you could also get). It's really easy to get stuck when it is just yourself.

Also start listening to music you may not usually listen to or haven't listened to in a while. Some ideas could spring from that.

Gardenparty

write music

acutejam

So it hasn't been explicitly said, so I'll say it:

Get a Binder, Fill it With Chord/lyrics and Tablature, keep adding to it. Sounds like you have one, but just wanted to put that out there, I have song books, and print outs and what not, but I didn't start getting pretty good until I just made a binder of photocopies and printouts of all the songs I know -- and my practice sessions were page-by-page, consistent, every time. Add harder songs, add popular songs you normally wouldn't gravitate to....

And yes, lessons -- I started in High School in the garage, played for 20 years then my wife gave me lessons. In six months I progressed faster than in the 20 previous years. I had played some gigs in college, six song sets, and still get the high school garage jam band together.

But I can sit at a campfire (with the binder) and entertain friends for hours now. I now have a different binder of just lyrics that I pass around the campfire as a live kareoke act. I get invited to a lot of poker parties now, "and bring the guitar man!" Hilarious fun!

And record yourself. Get a Sony PCM M10 or cheap field recorder and record yourself. Use GarageBand or something and start multi-tracking yourself. And then, watch the bulletin boards at the music store or join a local jam night, or try an open mic night....

kbuchholtz

Lessons are going to be key here. I'm in same boat as you. Can play on some chords, know the pentatonic pretty OK. But I don't know what to do with all of it. I tell my teacher, I can play songs but I can't play music. So he suggested I pick a genre and start working on that. We've started with blues. He gone through to show me some different chord progressions in 12 bar blues and corresponding scales to play with 'em. I got myself a looper, record the progressions and fiddle around with the scales. A teacher can also show you some little turn around tricks and runs that you can play around with.

I'm at the same wall, and working on this blues stuff has been fun. Only been a couple weeks, but it's fun again.

Good luck.

DriftingByTheStorm

peacocoa wrote:

thanks for all the info everybody. maybe i should clarify a bit though. i've been playing for a few years off and on. I consider myself somewhat of an intermediate player. give me some songs and tell me the chords and i can play it, but...i just don't feel like a guitar player. i feel like a guy who can play a few songs on the guitar. I thought this might be a common experience for guitar players. so how do i take that next step? again, it's probably a stupid question. especially since i think i know the answer...practice. but i feel like when i practice i'm just playing songs i already know and not really advancing. so how do i challenge myself? what kind of theory do guitar players need when there's so much out there? i just feel like something is missing. again, i thought this might be a common experience and i was looking for some advice from some folks who have been there before.

i've been in the same broat as you for probably 10 years, man ...

i think i learned Corduroy first, then probably Alive ... then most of The Who's "Tommy" ... and about a million others between then and now (including, from early on, just about all of Appetite for Destruction, MINUS the solos, lol ... they're out ta GET me!!!!!!!!!) ... and i still consider myself to "pretty much still suck" as a "guitar player", but consider myself "okay" at repeating bland-to-moderately-bland cover versions of some songs, or at least some song fragments.

Ask me to "jam" and I will probably walk to the fridge and hand you some strawberry or grape.

The best real and real "easy" advice i can give you is to learn new songs in fits and bits, but then take time to go back to ones you "thought" you'd "mastered" and re-read the tab. re-listen to the song. find the harder bits, and try to play those. try to play it all together without straight-up sucking.

also, for me the most important part was PLAYING SOLOS.

Go play alive about 10 times in a row, and REALLY TRY to get that solo down.
Go get GuitarPro5 (or 6now?) and download the alive tab for it.
replay it on like 75% speed (or 50% even) and keep trying.
Get your tone down ... turn up the reverb ... turn up the master volume ... crank the gain ...

i say this because, although like you, i "knew some scales" ... i didn't really know SHIT about HOW to USE them ... and although I could learn small parts of some solos, it was still foreign, and I understood not the relation between the scale and the chord.

The more you start developing the ability of your hand to find the right note by rote, and for your ear to DISCERN the right note by intuition ... the more your ability to improvise (with a pentatonic scale, or otherwise) with chording, chord fragments, riffs, fills, and all will improve as well. chords ARE melodies, which ARE scales, and scales ARE solos. its all just how you look at it.

Some other good "easier"-ish pentatonic solos off the top of my head:
Glorified G
Yellow Ledbetter
You Shook Me All Night
Sweet Home Alabama (ok not THAT easy, but fun to work on)

To put it another way:
once you stop focusing so much on chord strumming and "learning songs" (which to me usually means learning the basic CHORD structure for the song) and work on learning single note patterns (and also "doublestops", and bending, sliding, and hammering them on and off) you will eventually start to "see" your "way" out of the forest and all the trees, and what seemed always like the "chore" of "learning a song" will start to become the joy of "learning to play". I found the easiest way to learn this was to just start trying really hard to learn solos. even if i sucked for ages at it. once i got over my fear of soloing, and learned to actually be somewhat-not-so-inept at it ... I suddenly stopped being bored with "learning songs" all the time, and started actually having fun moving my hands around the fretboard.

peacocoa

thanks again everybody for some great advice. i really thought i was asking a dumb question but it looks like there are a lot of people in my situation. anyway, here's what i've done so far based on everybody's suggestions - I've gotten myself a binder to fill with the songs i like to play, i've found a dude to jam with, and i've signed up for lessons even though they are a little more expensive than i would like ($50/hour).

sheri zona

I agree with watching Marty's vids on Youtube. He covers a lot of PJ stuff too. The guy is a little cheesy but he grows on you

I think after I nailed down a few basic things I started playing around with different tunings, like drop d for example (lots of early 90s stuff used drop d) and just tackling those solos.

I got my first electric guitar for xmas when I was in the sixth grade. 24 years later I am pretty decent but still can't read music to save my life. Just keep going!!!

DriftingByTheStorm

I'd wait on taking lessons ...

Just spend the next 3 months working on this:

http://www.911tabs.com/link/?6700098
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XB6opQ6ldyE

You won't understand it now.
But in three months your ass will be shaking, and thanking me.
Come on and give your mind a ride.