Suppose you got good physical skills on the guitar now along with some knowledge of guitar scale sequences, arpeggios, and good rhythmic skills, the question is how are you going to use these skills in a creative way so that you can make music that flows? There are several aspects or issues that need to be addressed and it may take years to develop your creativity. However, listening is a good place to start, not just for guitarists but for every sort of instrumentalist.
Now when we say listening, as aspiring musicians or well-accomplished musicians (or guitarists) we don't simply mean playing a recording and then simply appreciating it and senselessly dancing to it, do we? When we listen we do it in an intelligent way and the result is we even make our selves even more intelligent, at least in the context of guitar playing and music.
So why then is it helpful for us to listen in a way that is described above to numerous artist of various styles?
- It can help you develop your own style. This is what successful recording artists mean when they talk about influences. For example, Mr. Rock Star gets one particular style that he likes from Influence A, another from Influence B, and yet another from Influence C and so on. And then he combines all these styles and makes this combination his own. And to cap all these, your very own style... and there you go-- you become an original-sounding artist.
- It trains your ears. This is were the art of transcribing comes in. For the benefit of those who not know what transcribing is: It is simply learning a song or a passage in any song and know how to play it on whatever instrument is used in that song or passage. For example I listen to the intro to Sweet Child O' Mine and then try to figure out how to play it on the guitar as accurately as possible. When I have been able to figure this out, I have just transcribed it. And now I simply have to practise it many times so I can play it in real time. Get the picture?
- It allows you to set a new standard and get to that level. Do you remember in part 1 of this article where I mentioned how I started with Nirvana and Green Day songs and improved to playing Sepultura songs? I did not mention there that I've even improved to playing Metallica, Skid Row and Pantera songs in just a few months after that. Doing this just keeps on opening new possibilities, things that you never thought and heard of before and you just keep on improving. The only danger in doing this is that this can overwhelm you. But it's all up to you, would you rather allow these things to break you?... or make you? Take these things as inspiration. "All battles are first won and lost in the mind."-- Joan of Arc
- It can become the marinade of inspiration. Learning to play guitar can at times be frustrating and daunting. I have many times experienced this myself especially the times when I got stuck on something that I was trying to learn and master. What I did was to put the guitar aside for a while and just go back to where I first started-- the songs and artists that made me want to learn guitar. I listen to them again and again and that fresh feeling of desire to learn guitar just as when I first decided to learn suddenly comes back. And it's amazingly refreshing and serves as the propelling force to keep on learning and improving! Just marinate yourself and absorb all the good stuff.
Click Here!
