What is the thing or things you have done or are doing that has benefitted your playing the most?

Is it learning jazz-theory, regular theory, playing 5 hours a day - whatever bring it up.




What is the thing you appreciate the most you have done for your guitarplaying? The thins that has made you a drastically better guitarplayer?

Doing ALOT of triplets/ gallops. Can do them longer, easier, and more precise now.

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I practice my scales more than i used to and i now have a better understanding of the fretboard and i can recall scales better.

Also working with my trem picking and my picking hand overall, i feel in more control of what i'm doing and i can trem pick for a long time now consistently and smoothly even with skipping strings and such like.

But as in the whole time playing guitar- powerchords simply. When i have my fingers pointing skywards, my index and 4th finger form the 'powerchord shape' naturally. I fucking love 'em and i couldn't imagine just playing barre and major chords

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Learning a few scales.. that helped so much for playing in general, and improvising.

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good point BFB learning scales can improve improvisation, I have noticed that more so recently than at any time before.

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Fast tremolo picking and string skipping.

BUt the most was palm muted fifths and fourths

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I've done several things that has dramatically changed my playing.

A few months after I started playing, I started to hold the pick with about 2mm showing. This made tremolo picking, triplets and artificial harmonics so much easier.

I shortened my strap so the guitar sat higher. This made the the higher frets a lot easier to hit and my playing overall improved greatly.

I learnt scales, runs and sweeps with a metronome. Starting slowly and building up 5-10 bpm each time. This is mainly the reason why I can bust out shredding solos after only playing 2 1/2 years. With out using a metronome, I've learnt to play the first 40 seconds of Stabwound, albeit a bit sloppy, but with relative ease.

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i kinda learned, necrophagist - extreme unction (without solo)
wich improved my alternate picking alot, only problem is, i lost my fast sweeps there still fast but i use to sweep like a fuckingmaniac (not to show of but for real)

then again i can alternate through arpegios pretty wel now

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Pentataonic scales, that's like all I do now days.

learned every note in each key throughout the neck, helps break the habit of playing in position

practicing different types of scales and learning different chords and notes along the fret board so now whenever i play i know what im doing and what i can do next.

Theory has greatly benefited my playing. Learning different scales, learning each 'mode' to those scales. Learning major, minor, and diminished arpeggio shapes. Learning how to sweep. Oh yea and the biggest benefit... Intervals!!! Also, being able to loop some basic rhythmic samples to improv to has greatly greatly benefited my playing. It's showed me how to piece all these techniques together into a smooth flowing melody.

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as Seve420 said, shortening my guitar strap helped me a lot, you can reach the upper frets so much easier Erm, learning very rough scales, but i just mess around on the 12,13,15 and 17th frets of the top 3 strings for solos, hah Oh and practising pinch harmonics for ages until i got them, now i can do 'em all the time

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yeah shortening my strap done the same for me, those solos dont seem as hard now.

One thing i'd love to do is the pinch harmonics i've tried and tried and i've read all the posts about how to do 'em, but they just don't come off for me That would make me a very happy guitarsit if i could learn to do them properly.

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Dont just learn a scale in 1 position or 2 or 3, learn it in every position on the neck. Like, I learned the g major scale(also the e minor scale) and all its modes from the 3rd fret all the way up to the 15th fret and then do that scale up and down on each single string. Play that shit for like an hour a day, burn that shit into your mind. Then after like a month, you'll solo in e minor and be able to play a solo anywere on the neck cause you know every freakin not in that scale ,everywere. It freakin works. That was the all time best investment of my time I have ever done on the guitar. By the way, Rusty cooley taught me that, I used to take lessons from him here in houston. His playing is to linear for my taste but his practice tips a awsome.

And oh yea, when you wanna learn the harmonic minor scale then you just change 1 note in the scale and you've got it.

learning how to sweep has made my solo's much cooler.

Endurance has been the only real problem in the early days. After an hour I was wiped out.
I suppose pushing harder and harder is all that can be attributed to getting past that aspect.

Endurance? I didn't know playing guitar was considered strenuous

When you first picked up a guitar, you could play a 2 hour set and your fingers didn't ache at all?

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Oh my fingers would hurt...but "wiped out?"

power chords can really wear you out!

I'm not speaking of endurance like running a race or carrying tons of cinderblocks.
I'm speaking to the fact in the early days my hands were extremely weak compared to now. My left hand would become very sore in under an hour....now I can jam until I'm simply done...however long it is.

Also...you prob have much stronger arms/wrists and fingers than I so it's something you prob never noticed.

I began an extreme analysis of like three college ruled pages of exotic scales. . . I have to say Harmonic minor was my favorite. . . still use it, but I've found a new love for Algerian/Hungarian minor. . . . Other than that, I did a few of the exercises that Batio recommends and my playing still went up a bit. The most major thing for my playing in the past was definitely learning formulas for scales and chords and learning how to interpret them. . . It saved my neck. . . . Okay, I'm not that great but eh, it helped.

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I think, learning some scales, learning whole songs, learning the beginning to concerto, and this: http://www.mysongbook.com/tab-tab_l...ature=49012.htm

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doing sweeps with a metronome. 6 string/3 string/5 string/4 string. and combining them together. also lifting weights. less weight more reps. so about 15lbs plenty of times

Well like three months ago i started to use my pinky alot more and that helped me play many riffs and solos that i couldn't do before. And also i started to practise alot of sweeps.

ohh yea i forgot that having a girl friend helps alot too, for insperation and other things.. *cough* lol