Musicians

Last edited Wed May 15, 2013, 10:29 AM - Edit history (2)

and you will see that the amount of time you can play will keep increasing to some extent. Guess a lot of it has to do with "old battle scars" and such. I never really physically hurt myself in the form of any broken fingers, arms, etc so I don't have a lot old battle scars to hinder my playing. If I have my fingers calloused up nicely then I can play for 12 hours at a time and have done so on many winter days.

Also as you go along this path of learning to play the guitar that you are learning a lot at once and it will also become easier to learn new stuff once you can do things like hit the right string without looking, memorize your scales, etc. at this point your learning will increase per practice setting dramatically and you will be able to focus on "making music".

Music is a language. Go at it like you are learning a new language. Think back to one of your kids or when you were a kid and how slow the process really is! You start with words, then come sentence fragments, then complete sentences, then you grab a pencil and start to learn how to write it down. In the first 9 years you have managed to get the basis/structure down and understand what language is about.

Music is a language, make no mistake about it. You are in essence "talking" or "singing" through the medium of an instrument.

On to a great training aid:

If you have not, go download this software (tabeledit), you can download the free "TefView" and listen to tab until your heart is content:

http://www.tabledit.com/


I do not know what is available in the form of "blues" out there, but there's plenty of bluegrass stuff and other stuff out there. Just for talking purposes go download "Blue Railroad Train" from here:

http://www.freewebs.com/guitarmantabs/


Now you are able to "hear tab". You can go into "midi", then to "midi options" and change the BPM and slow it down, you can even click on the little red square while it is playing, it will stop and then you can highlight a section and then it will only play it. You can find these files everywhere on the web in the form of scale practice, songs, licks, etc. and I suggest that you use this resource out there.

So now for "Blue Railroad Train". I can take this file that someone worked out "Tony Rice's Break" and play it through tabledit and in 4-6 hours have it down enough to play it slow and not have to look at the file/listen...have it barely memorized. From there it will take another 100 times or so to get it up to speed. Then I will record with a USB mic the rhythm backing in audacity (if you are gonna take the time required to become a lead guitar player then do not over look the rhythm section) and then I will play the lead maybe 50 times over the rhythm backing track I created through and then I feel confident enough to play it with a group or in public.

Your learning curve for this may be a month or more to be able to do this. But your learning curve will decrease with time.

OH and here is Tony Rice playing blue railroad train live for your reference (you can really see his playing when he takes his break around the 3:00 minute mark).

Now, those 5 guys on stage are all pretty much prodigies with their respective instruments, make no mistake about it, all of their lives from the age of 5 or 6 has been dedicated to playing an instrument and they all are disciplined in multiple genre's so don't think for one minute that these guys just fell off the turnip truck like you and I.

EDIT ADD:

On Fatigue:

It's pretty common for folks at your level to put a damn "strangle hold" on an instrument as you have not developed the forearm muscles, strengthened your fingers, etc. so once you get your technique down you will find that you will be able to fret some easier or "lighter", this will increase your playing time. It's almost like a runner training for a 20 mile marathon who has never ran before....gonna take a lot of time doing 1-3 miles a day in order to work up to 20 miles at once..will take a year or maybe two to condition their body....you should expect the same thing to happen over time in conditioning your hands/arms/fingers in playing an instrument.