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[Brother Android]

So I started recording myself playing live instruments for the first time after a very long break just a couple of days ago, and I am terrible; just very shaky and inconsistent (as in, unable to play the same thing in a way that sounds uniform very many times in succession) and microphone-shy. This has been my problem my entire life really, I've rarely recorded anything of any level of polish simply because even at my most perfectionist I'm only willing to try the same guitar part for at most a few hours.

Basically, my problem is not that I am incapable of doing stuff but that I am inconsistent. Also, my ability to use a pick is extremely limited; I used to only play soft acoustic guitar things, but that feels pretty lame sometimes so I'd like to branch out. With this in mind, can anyone recommend some practice techniques?

So yeah, this is a general thread for giving/getting practice techniques, on any instrument (guitar is just the one that applies to me).

[AdamB]

Oh man, practicing of the instruments, my favourite topic! One thing i'd like to ask is when you say inconsistent, do you mean as in you're not playing the same thing tice, or that your not keeping a good tempo? If your having problem with tempo then i will be the guy that says what everyone elsewould say, and that is to use a metronome. I had terrible problem with timing not to long ago so i started playing to a click track and forcing myslef to pay as much attention to the click as iw as to the instrument it realy does help.
Keeping concistent with what i'm playing is another problem i recently worked out, i could sit down with a melody in my head start playing it, and 10 minutes later the melody is completley different! The way i got over this of course was to get over my disdain for writing music and to start writing out and adjusting my music accordingly.
As far as actualy practicing the instrumets themselves tohugh, i always like to give myself a couple months before getting any real training or anything to teach myself (which can sometimes be counter productive cause i pick up a whole host of bad habits). And when i'm comfortable with an instrument the only ways i ever realy practice is by rying to mimic what someone else has done and figuring it out, or by sitting down and improvising for a few hours, which is how i come up with my own technique.

[mixzed]

I try to learn a new song every two weeks or so. I usually just go on youtube find a song I like and try to play along with it until I've got it down. First time I did this it took a month to learn the song, now I can learn a song in about a week if I have the time. It gets easier the more you do it. I have to say that my playing skill increased far more than just reading books and doing scale/mode exercises.

[Brother Android]

I try to learn a new song every two weeks or so. I usually just go on youtube find a song I like and try to play along with it until I've got it down. First time I did this it took a month to learn the song, now I can learn a song in about a week if I have the time. It gets easier the more you do it. I have to say that my playing skill increased far more than just reading books and doing scale/mode exercises.

This sounds probably more enjoyable than most other practice techniques, so why not I guess.

And yeah, I should play with a metronome... I need to get one with a volume control though, mine is terrible.

[Captain_404]

Playing with other people, especially people who are better than you, will teach you more than you can ever learn alone. If you can, find some friends who are willing to just jam for fun on a regular basis.

While I'm certainly no great guitarist by any stretch of imagination, but I do know that if I never had other people to play with I'd have outright quit long ago out of frustration.

[s0]

This sounds probably more enjoyable than most other practice techniques, so why not I guess.

And yeah, I should play with a metronome... I need to get one with a volume control though, mine is terrible.

That was my old guitar teacher's approach as well (I took lessons for 2 years then continued on my own). I'd tell him what song I wanted to learn and he showed me and taught me and taught me whatever techniques/scales/modes etc. were needed for it. I think it's more fun (and more useful) to see how these things might be used in an actual piece of music rather than just learning them without any context.

As for the metronome thing, tapping your foot during playing helps too.

[Triplefox]

When I played trumpet(ages ago) tone was always a big issue, and most of the work I did to improve it was with fundamental exercises(breathing, tonguing, long notes, short notes). It usually wasn't a huge issue to "find" the note as on a polyphonic instrument, but big jumps and extremes of pitch range presented a big problem, and I never practiced diligently enough to do high C's or pedal tones very well. (But the few who do go all the way on range can do

).

When doing etudes or songs I used the metronome very often, doing a lot of work at slower speeds; if I didn't have a good idea of how it should sound I would sometimes sequence the notes on the computer. The etudes were usually the meat of the practice - musically interesting, but also really challenging.

Occasionally I would record myself, and I think this would be more important if your goal is specifically to get a "recordable" sound - just constantly practice as if you were in the studio!

[Brother Android]

Occasionally I would record myself, and I think this would be more important if your goal is specifically to get a "recordable" sound - just constantly practice as if you were in the studio!

Yeah, I think the issue is maybe not being used to actually playing into a microphone; I feel really nervous the whole time i'm doing it even though that is really silly, and hence I make mistakes I never make otherwise.

[StanManX]

For me, I've found that as long as I make some time every day, I will improve. I've been pretty bad about guitar practice recently, but I've been making a point to draw something before I go to bed each night, and I've improved quite a bit in that area. It's the same when I put the same kind of effort into the guitar -- even ten minutes a night can have a huge impact if it's every night. Yeah, more time is better, but it's easier to expand a 10 minute habit than it is to create a 60 minute one.

That said, I wholeheartedly agree with the metronome, jam buddy, and song-learning suggestions. Do what you can and don't be afraid to shake things up if you feel like you're stagnating.

[MagicalMelon]

This is a great thread, glad to see such an important and oft-eschewed topic discussed here. As far as any brass instrument is concerned I want to emphasize the importance of the long tones that were mentioned earlier in the thread. I always view them as a challenge to kind of "beat my high score" with range and tone uniformity. Basically, if you have problems with range, long tones are the answer to controlling the higher and lower extremities of that range. Once you get the ability to play the notes consistently, I do exercises kinda similar to the ones you practice for state auditions. Starting on the note you want to work on as an "anchor note" and go down chromatically every other note (i.e. returning to the anchor note on the downbeats) {also always work on octave jumps, they're super-nifty once you can do them quickly}. Once you start to practice like that it becomes a sort of speed run for the exercise. That's how I view it at least, it makes it more bearable for myself .

As far as consistency, always practice as if you are performing, bad habits come from laziness in practice time.

Hope I was able to help!

[supershigi]

I completely agree with the suggestions about learning new songs in order to improve.  When I was a kid, I learned to play the piano by ear because there were so many pieces of music I wanted to play outside of what I was learning in piano lessons.  Since I couldn't get the sheet music, I just figured it out on my own and learned a lot in the process.  When I decided to pick up guitar, I would choose a song I liked and learn just the chords in that song.  Then I'd practice until the song was completely smooth and move onto another.  If there's a section that you keep messing up on, drill it -- play it over and over again until you can play it 5 times in a row perfectly.  If you mess up even on the 4th time, go back to 1 again.