Guitar Playing: The Next level

Smaegol · Unread post by **Smaegol** » Fri Dec 12, 2003 9:01 am

Hello,
I can play alot of DMB songs, but I cant do the real hard ones like Crush or Say Goodbye.

My goal is to be able to play Say Goodbye and Why Georgia by John Mayer. However.. for some reason, no matter how much I practice, I just cant seem to get to that next level. Does anyone have any suggestions or things that helped them open up and get over that hump? I practice till my fingers are numb but it just seems like something in my technique maybe.. I dunno. The DMB songs that I can play I can play very well (I can even play ants well) but I dunno... Im getting frustrated and hopeless. Just cant get to that next level.

Do song books from the store help any more then tabs on the internet do? Maybe Ill try that.. or maybe Ill take some advanced guitar lessons.. I need help with scales and solos too..

subotai · Unread post by **subotai** » Fri Dec 12, 2003 9:03 am

It sounds lame but all I can say is pratice. It just takes time I think.

heathcliff · Unread post by **heathcliff** » Fri Dec 12, 2003 9:09 am

find some people to play with (better than you). That has helped me a lot.

ryopan · Unread post by **ryopan** » Fri Dec 12, 2003 9:12 am

heathcliff wrote:find some people to play with (better than you). That has helped me a lot.

this is a big one. you learn so much from just jamming w/ other folks.

also, play along to the cd as best you can. thatll help w/ the rythm. did you see the videos kanter has up. i havent but i hear they are pretty good. dunno. good luck and keep pluckin away.
ryan

subotai · Unread post by **subotai** » Fri Dec 12, 2003 9:17 am

Yeah jamming with other people helps a lot too.

EnFuego · Unread post by **EnFuego** » Fri Dec 12, 2003 11:42 am

what is it about the songs that are giving you trouble...the strumming, the chords? People around here are pretty helpful, and a lot of the time you can get somebody to post audio clips of songs or parts of songs. Lessons aren't going to hurt you at all and it will help to learn some scales, even if its just to practice your fingering (that sounds pretty bad), but I'm sure you can find a lot of scales online. Give me a PM and if you want I will try to tab out some scales for you.

Dancing Ants · Unread post by **Dancing Ants** » Fri Dec 12, 2003 12:29 pm

You need to feel it. It will come to you. You're overthinking it. Just sit back, listen to a D&T version of Say Goodbye, then sit down and play it. It will come.

t41 · Unread post by **t41** » Fri Dec 12, 2003 2:12 pm

say goodbye isn't one of the tougher dmb tunes is it? i thought that was the stone, rhyme and reason (getting it right) and trippin billies

paywad927 · Unread post by **paywad927** » Fri Dec 12, 2003 3:07 pm

t41 wrote:say goodbye isn't one of the tougher dmb tunes is it? i thought that was the stone, rhyme and reason (getting it right) and trippin billies

different people have difficulties with different songs. what may be easy to you, me, or someone else might be hard for some people. i know i had trouble at first with a couple songs that other people thought were easy.

and i think dancing ants gave some pretty good advice.

MWR · Unread post by **MWR** » Fri Dec 12, 2003 6:41 pm

Sounds like your having problems with rhythem. Crush and Say Goodbye are both pretty easy mechanically speaking but the rhythem can be a little hard to follow. Songs like Ant's (Stone, R&R) however require more dexterity but the rhythem is really straight forward. My advice would be to listen to a Dave solo version and really concentrate on playing it like him. Take each section of the song seperately and don't get ahead of yourself. A lot of times the way you hear it in your head isn't the way it is. Hope this helps.

koreanDMBfan · Unread post by **koreanDMBfan** » Fri Dec 12, 2003 10:56 pm

i thought say goodbye is pretty easy, but crush is quite tricky with rhythem and stuff... also tripping billies verse is pretty hard... wish website has the video for that one, too...
team up with a DRUMMER. it helped me alot when i was in korea...
make you turn your volume up so you can hear yourself.

Ranting Thespian · Unread post by **Ranting Thespian** » Fri Dec 12, 2003 11:18 pm

t41, who is the lefty guitar player in your avatar? The rest looks like dmb, but both dave and stefan are right handed.

Smaegol · Unread post by **Smaegol** » Sat Dec 13, 2003 4:36 am

THanks for all the help.. you're right I was just getting ahead of myself. Ive picked up the first part of "Why Georgia" after about 1/2 hour of getting it down over and over. I bought myself a new Epiphone Les Paul for my birthday today so Ive been playing on that. I love it!!!

Have a question.. when you guys pick a riff say like this:

------------0--------
----------4----------
-------5-------------

do you do it all in a downward motion or do you pick down-up-down? I am in the habit of trying to always pick down all the time, and Im sure thats a bad habit...

Man, with this new Les Paul, the first thing I did was turn up the amp and just jam the hell out of LIOG. God that is so fun to play....

dmfollower · Unread post by **dmfollower** » Sat Dec 13, 2003 5:19 pm

You know, i used to downstroke all the notes when plucking. Then one day, i was learning the intro picking to "tonight tonight" by the pumpkins and i just couldn't get it to sound right until i saw a live version and noticed that he did upstroke on some of the notes. Now, i don't know anything about theory or whatever but if you downstroke a note and then upstroke one you'll notice the difference.
So, yes.
I would downstroke the the 5+4 and upstroke the 0.

DustyDave · Unread post by **DustyDave** » Sat Dec 13, 2003 5:37 pm

dmfollower wrote:You know, i used to downstroke all the notes when plucking. Then one day, i was learning the intro picking to "tonight tonight" by the pumpkins and i just couldn't get it to sound right until i saw a live version and noticed that he did upstroke on some of the notes. Now, i don't know anything about theory or whatever but if you downstroke a note and then upstroke one you'll notice the difference.
So, yes.
I would downstroke the the 5+4 and upstroke the 0.

You got a very good point there , there is a big difference in downstrokes and upstrokes , and i think thats definetly what Dave does , i was just listening to an acoustic version of it , and i will say its exactly like you just described it

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Guitar Playing: The Next level

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