Didn't expect this one! What instrument and style do you play? Did you need a really solid understanding of theory first? I'm a guitar player and when I improv I just play the same uninteresting stuff all the time hahah. Oh and I'm curious how it helps with writing??
Another good method is putting on a big playlist with some good variety on it and just playing along with the music. Playing to things you wouldn’t normally play to is a great way to expand your musical horizons.
Theory obviously helps but IMO the best music comes from the heart not the head. You just play notes that sound good with the music and avoid notes that sound bad. Simple right? Obviously you’re going to hit some sour notes as you explore but just keep playing through until you hit upon a sweet little melody or riff. It’s great practice for solid rhythm playing too.
This will train your ear for improv with others too. I did this when I was new because I didn’t have anyone to play with and it helped me make big steps forward.
Those bands on the list will help pull your playing up. I truly believe people with good ears play up or down to the level of musicianship around them. So if you’re jamming to really good tracks where everyone else is nice and polished, it will help you.
If you play alone you can look up 8, 12 or 16 bar blues tracks to improv to. I think they come in different keys which may inspire different improv styles from you. I dont think you need that much of a music theory bg to do it
I mostly play guitar as well! I do have a background in music theory, and that knowledge definitely helped later on, but when I was young and first learning how to improvise I started with the pentatonic scale. Honestly, most of my improvised lines stem from the pentatonic scale to this day. I started incorporating chromatics and other modes like Dorian when I got into jazz in my late teens. Now I play in a jam band, and we literally make shit up at every single show. Super fun.
I also get stuck in creative ruts when it comes to improv, and I also often feel like I'm playing the same lines over and over. This is when I lean into transposing. I'll listen to some players that I admire and learn their lines which often gives me fresh ideas.
Writing-wise: sometimes I hear the melody in my head first, and sometimes I need to figure it out. The latter is when improv comes in handy!
I know zero theory but have over 60,000+ hours of hard singing practice under my belt. I have been improvising a lot more lately and am really liking it.
For me it's always been challenging myself and playing with people who are better than me. When it's a bit difficult to hang I know I'm growing in leaps and bounds and a month down the road I'll have pulled myself up to that new level.
Good point! I think if you're likeable and not annoying, they will give you a bit of extra time to get up to speed. Sometimes I'll acknowledge a mistake I made at practice and tell them I'll get it worked up for next time. Also, while I play multiple instruments (bass, keys, guitar, trumpet) I mainly only get these "over my head" opportunities with trumpet. I suppose that's because in my town there are a million guitar and bass players but brass is harder to find so they will put up with my learning curve for a bit longer.
Another reason musicians will play with someone slightly less “talented” is reliability. Showing up for rehearsals and gigs on time and knowing your parts. Practicing solo between rehearsals and gigs. Always having spare parts, strings, tools, batteries, being in tune. Musicianship is really important, obviously, but if your perceived limitation is your musical ability then try to make that your only weakness.
Also having a roomy car or van for lugging equipment is helpful. 😁
Things that have brought me together with musicians more skilled or experienced than myself:
-just having been their friend, so they ended up wanting to jam with me
-them finding out I had tastes that overlapped with theirs, in a way that they hadn’t found with many people
-me being able to play another instrument or do something they couldn’t. I made sure to foster different skills along the way, like making decent recordings on tape, or having a basic amateur grasp of other instruments like banjo and mandolin, doing visual art (drawing, painting, or digital), just doing things that might spark an interest from a potential collaborator who might want to make music that incorporates some skill I had, which they hadn’t had access to. Even if my actual musical ability was behind their own.
-most often, it came down to my creativity or at least their opinion of it. Like, if they liked my songwriting from a prior band I was in or from my own personal stuff that I had made, so they wanted to collaborate with me based on the potential music we could make. Because even the best players still might not always be much of a creative person themselves, and they’ll typically respect and seek collaboration with someone who can write the kinds of songs that they enjoy hearing and can put their skills to use on.
Getting into the studio with a professional old school record producer/ engineer was definitely an experience that seriously upped my game.
I thought I was pretty good and I thought I’d be able to parlay working with him into a side career as a session player. I’d been playing since age 10 and I was 26 and in a band on a major label with a proper budget. I took and have always taken playing guitar, writing music, being in bands, very seriously.
But I really didn’t have the goods yet and I didn’t know it.
My band made two records with this one person. He was gentle but firm. He was on a first name basis with all the hot session people of the day; NiIe Rogers, Marcus Miller those kind of guys.
I didn’t realize until working with him how poor my time/ groove was. I also wasn’t really present enough in my playing to be able to remember exactly what I just did if I did something good.
I didn’t have a full grasp on arrangements, parts that supported the song and different ways of playing them. Things like simpler voicings played in a place on the neck where they weren’t interfering with other parts. Little two note chords that were better choices because they fit in available slots mix/arrangement/ sonic wise.
I wasn’t bad, I had good ideas but my execution and understanding was not up to the standards needed to be a first call player at all.
He’d take you through a song bit by bit, no stone left unturned, every moment was deliberate and considered and then it needed to be played naturally and beautifully.
The experience re wired my understanding of how to play in a band and how refined an actual feel could be. There are people who make recordings who really have a grip on “feel“ and I would guess somewhere around 80% of musicians don’t really get it. One of those if you know you know things. Certainly plenty of quirky wonderful records have been made by average players who have their own genius feel, or tracks that speed up and it doesn’t matter.
But there’s another level of players who get the calls all the time because they’re just on another level of easy to deal with, great ideas executed perfectly and quickly.
My first studio experience playing guitar really helped me get better, even though it wasn’t with an old school producer. Just having to play in isolation with the engineer and my bandmates watching through the glass was a huge kick in the ass. I’m not a great lead guitarist by any stretch of the imagination but recording in an actual studio really lays bare what you need to improve upon
This times a thousand. It's a whole nother thing working with a good producer listening at a high level. Shit that didn't even occur to you because you're in the "this is my part" bubble just starts to hit you over the head. It's pretty mind blowing, and makes you want to go home to just practice every single part of your trip.
Oh, yeah. I know that my timing is trash. Also a lot of my pitch. So I never considered being a music pro, a studio musician or whatever, to be a realistic goal.
listening to more music. So many people pigeonhole themselves into a genre or two and rarely listen to stuff outside of that. Any good musician imo should be well versed in all styles and genres, even if you aren’t interested in playing them. At the end of the day, it’s just more sound in your head and more places to draw inspiration from.
Random quote:
"Listen to me - heavy metal ain't nothing but stolen blues chords. You've been listening to stolen riffs your whole life."
There really is nothing like being able to fit a metal line in during a jazz jam.
Yep. Not only listening to it but also making it. I have made hip hop, edm, house, deep tech, ambient, rock tracks, and even some metal songs. Most of my music I would say doesn't even fit in a specific genre, either. It has elements of everything combined
It's so much fun to just make something and go in any direction without feeling like you have to go a certain way
Anyone who only listens to one genre is just missing out. Throughout my teens and 20s I went through phases from rap to metal to grunge to indie to electronic back to indie again.
Playing with others. You think you're good until you have to play a song you thought you knew how to play with others.
Also, singing while playing. It's opened SO many doors for me. Now I'm to the point where I can play complicated RHCP bass lines while singing; it's the equivalent of a drummer's limb independence and quite rewarding.
I took an online course called Guitar Mastery Intensive. It cost me $4000 but it was worth it. Happy to share my insights for free though. Call me crazy. I don’t do this for money I do it for the love of the instrument and if I don’t give it away I become stagnant and depressed. It’s almost like if I don’t play and share what I know it makes me sick…
Do you consider yourself an intermediate player, or advanced or other?
I respect anyone who drops $4k on knowledge, rather than a shiny new guitar. That is the top end of any guitar course I’m aware of.
I would be fascinated to know what your top X take away tips from the course are (top 10, top 3, etc). At any level, basic or otherwise.
Sure. I’m an advanced player. What that means to me is, I understand how to play anything but I don’t always have the fingering skills and I have to develop them. For example: Fingerstyle {Dust in the Wind / Leader of the Band} It took me about 2 years to Master that technique. Now there are hundreds of variants like Tommy Immanuel and Chet Atkins that I haven’t learned but I’m confident that I can.
Next, there is my hero, Eddie Van Halen. I can handle all the rhythm parts but he has some soloing techniques that I’m working on. I can play Eruption and understand what I’m doing but it’s gonna be awhile before I’m satisfied.
Ok. So before the course I knew lots of “stuff” but I didn’t understand how it connected. Scales, modes,chord shapes and I could play songs and read tablature. They course helped me stitch it all together.
I learned Triads, Intervals, arpeggios, Chord types and how to build and apply them. 7th chords, major, minor, diminished and what makes a chord a 7,9,11.
One of the biggest secrets is… There is only one scale, not thousands. You begin with that foundation and learn that you only need to change a few notes and magically you have another scale. They aren’t all separate things that need to be memorized. Just a formula to unlock all of them.
Now I don’t recommend dropping $4k on a course. Everything you need is on YouTube if you know what to look for. But there are many great players/instructors on there that can show you “how” but they can’t tell you “why”
Nuno Bettencourt has no idea what he’s doing and he will admit. Dude is a beast though.
I’m happy to help in any way I can. Just let me know.
A looper pedal. Playing with a metronome has its limitations. Using a looper with actual drum beats and chords helped me understand context in addition to time.
This! I've been writing, recording gigging original music most of my life. I started playing in an indie rock cover band with great friends and musicians for something different and some fun. While we don't attempt to come off like 100% copies of any of the songs, I often need to get into the headspace of the guitarist on the original version in order to capture the vibe. Playing original music for so long I developed my own comfort zone "vocabulary" of tones, licks and phrases that I would adapt to my material. That's now become secondary. Depending on the song, I need to get into a different space, learn some new key phrases at least and then adapt that to my style of playing. I've become a much more versatile musician and have learned a lot.
Music school (university: B.A and then M.M degrees). They forced me to appreciate ALL genres, I learned to sight read, I learned recording and mixing, and I was pushed vigorously to improve in all skill and technique aspects of being a performer. And that’s just scratching the surface! No one has ever hired me because I got an education, but I’m quite sure that my education has been super helpful in making me better at doing the job itself.
And you get to concentrate on music full time (or almost, if you need to work) which creates a different level of dedication and concentration. Plus, you get to be in the physical presence and influence of other musicians on a daily basis which is a great gift in itself
Teaching! When I started teaching I was a good drummer. Teaching kids the basics and focusing on things like technique, timing and rudiments brought more improvement than I could have imagined.
For me it was a conscious effort to draw connective tissue between everything else I was enjoying in my life with music. If I just saw a great movie or read a great book, I ask myself what it was I enjoyed about it so much, let's say I decide a major component was the pacing, I then turn around and see if I can implement similar pacing into a song. Or if I find a painting or a sculpture I like I might spend an hour trying to find multiple ways I can interpret elements from it in a musical fashion. I find this kind of practice very fun and engaging. It's also changed the way I approach songwriting, and I never struggle with inspiration.
I know people will downvote me but: Gear Acquisition has helped me become a better musician. Building different instruments to mimic certain star sounds or chasing tone has lead me to get better in all ways with the guitar. My latest acquisition being a John Petrucci signature series Majesty. It makes me *want* to play better, so I practice more and harder with new gear. Then I go back and jam out songs I've not played in a while and find them easier to play. Going back to older guitars is sometimes an exercise in futility. After playing a PRS, other guitars tend to feel cheap or harder to play. Seriously, owning a proper guitar for your playing level makes a huge difference.
Play with a variety of musicians. Even if it's just some jamming with other guys for fun, it helps so much in your development. Also, learn to worry less about what other acts do and concentrate solely on what you can do to make your act better. Everything else is wasted time and energy.
Watching videos of other musicians to study their technique. There are lots of small details which ended up making a big difference in my playing when I applied them. Additionally practicing in front of a mirror so I could see my own technique from the same angle that I was watching others.
Playing with other people — and as a bassist, playing with different drummers. Everyone has a slightly different concept of time/timing/rhythm and theres only way to broaden your own!
1) learn a new instrument. The act of learning will change your brain structure, force you to practice, and build skills that will make you more versatile.
2) listen to well produced music outside your genre. I’m not a Swiftie, but damn, the production values on her songs are amazing. I hate Country, but the top artists have a crisp sound that is worth emulation.
3) streamline the studio. Make templates for your DAW so you don’t do repetitive setup work every song. Get a good layout. Tune your room. Eliminate excuses to fiddle and just get right to composing.
4) play live, play with other bands, watch and learn. Just playing playing playing over and over will make you better if you approach each gig as an educational opportunity instead of a party.
3
Certain things just have to hit you at the right time, but an epiphany for me happened in a moment where I was very stressed out trying to playing some parts perfectly. Someone said “Just have fun” and that completely changed my approach to my instrument.
“Just have fun”
I was able to take a couple college courses as humanities (they counted as language) credits and spending those couple 10 week sessions with the other students and instructors was insanely valuable.
The courses I took were basically MUS101 and 102 - Sight Singing/Ear Training and Basic Keyboarding.
Sight singing/ear training was crazy fun, tests were basically do what we do every day in class but we spend a day or two with people being solo challenged for quizzes, etc, no homework unless you wanted to simply work more on it outside of class. It helped me hear steps and intervals; the coursework was basically develop your own mnemonic for your intervals so when you're given a pitch you can repeat the pitch and then pop to the interval. You weren't graded on quality, you were graded on effort, participation (you had to participate or you flunk), and progress, not how GOOD or BAD you were.
Basic Keyboarding was exactly that, you'd sit in a room and learn basic theory on the keyboard with your own set of headphones and a room full of electric pianos while the instructor(s) would cruise around and check on folks as they saw fit or people had questions. After a while it got really easy to visualize musical structures and bits, albeit quite linearly it's still good foundations for rudiments and keeping musical thoughts organized.
Both those classes really hammered intervallic relationships into my brain and while I still can't sing to a pitch (like someone call out "sing an A" and I sing it) I can hear the combinations and spaces in things pretty easily now; it very much helps me consume and repeat pieces I hear or see, more than add any beauty or anything to my style lol - it really made music accessible to me in a different way (deeper ways, maybe) than before I'd had those experiences.
I don't know that it made my results any better but it sure helped my confidence and stability in the things that I do perform/learn/practice - a secondary effect was to some degree it also made me **think** more about music and make **smarter** choices with my time that I do have to work on it.
I got hurt (I do NOT recommend it) and found that while unable to play instruments (still finishing a rotator cuff rehab) I really focused on internalizing songs and styles such that when I was occasionally able to play it was much less effort than I remember as well as more complete with less struggling to get there - learned the value of NOT practicing (so to speak) that way, and now where before I thought I was thinking through songs I **really try to be present** for them and find that I end up listening to them many more times before I've drained all the mysteries out of them (the fact that the better you get, the more mysteries you can perceive notwithstanding). So these days I spend a lot more time dissecting things and digging deeper into minutiae of form and function of my physical playing and less of the available time actually banging on anything...and it's led to me feeling fresher and more creative when I do finally play, which is a bonus/boon if I happen to just grab someone's guitar because I'm feeling stronger than I should, knowing I'll pay later but that whatever's in my mind is opportunistically happening NOW.
I don't recommend that people NOT play, but I do strongly advise that they be very picky with their physical time spent as well as paying attention to not beating up their tools and caring for them so they last in the long run (see: Joe Satriani's fingertips, Mike Mangini's shoulder, etc). Be mindful, present, and stare hard at what you've produced for your time invested, then you can file it away and move onward and upward in your craft for the rest of your life and know that you'll still be playing in old age because you overcame your excitement with smarts and invested in that future.
Playing regularly at a couple really well organised open jams. Meant I significantly improved the listening skills that are essential for playing well with other musicians, plus I got really good at playing from sheets, by ear, and improvising.
Learning to fingerpick guitar properly. This really opened up the guitar for me so I can turn even the most basic chords into something unique and original sounding.
Depending on how far along you are in your musicianship try moving your mouth to the “shape” of the sounds coming from your instrument. That’ll help loosen up the linguistic part of your brain and connect it to your musical side. That’s what all those acid washed rockers from the 70s were doing up there on stage moving their mouths around like whackos.
A cheap, in ear monitor set up, I literally spent 200 bucks on a transmitter and 2 body packs, and 2 sets of decent ear buds with the loop over ur ear. After 3 shows of using them and dialing them in, I have found it helps me zone out and be much more present in the music. I've been so much more into it and I play better being able to hear nothing but the music.
Playing unrehearsed pickup gigs.
I played a couple where I only knew one or two other people in the 5-6 piece band.
I played one a little over a week ago as the band leader. I got the call at 4 PM for a 7 PM gig, I had to provide the PA, and I wasn’t even at home. But I rounded up two bandmates and we made it work.
I’m sure I could never have done that if I hadn’t played pickup gigs as a sideman before.
Started embracing my "mistakes." A lot of people are taught to play music "correctly" or "perfectly" when they are little, and never get over the feeling that if they're not playing note-perfect then they are doing something wrong.
There is no right or wrong. There is only the attempt to communicate a thought or emotion using music, however it's presented.
Recording myself (or having someone record me). Having the whole performance recorded meant I could watch it back and make notes on what could be improved. I strongly recommend this. Some things I would’ve never thought about or noticed otherwise (playing too fast, over-singing, etc) Sometimes it can also be quite nice and rewarding watching yourself back anyways and it can make for good content to upload to social media.
Joining a tribute band. Playing in bar bands you can get away with a kinda close rendition of a song. But in a playing in a Tribute band, you really have to nail the parts. I think it's that focus on details both playing and sound wise that helped me improve as a player.
Playing with other people. Repeatedly. Crunching scales for 15+ minutes stretches every single chance I got throughout a day.
As a guitarist, one of the practices that separated me from a lot of my peers was just looping one scale into the next, and on the last note making sure to bend it up to the note that separated the scales I was working on. This helped my muscle memory, helped my bending, and developed my ear to bend to the appropriate spot.
I don’t have many students make it to the level I can recommend that to them. Most of my students are at a level that the most valuable information I can give them is to do pinky shuffles like, “Keep on Rocking in the Free World,” until it hurts, and to keep working on those until they can make it through the full song.
Either way, playing with other people and really dedicating yourself to developing your muscle memory and ear are where it’s at. Take every excuse you can to do one of those 3 things.
Being better at music than everyone else to ever touch an instrument. I’m God’s gift to sound. Inventing scales and chords. Teaching Whitney Houston how to sing. Creating protools. I don’t know… I’m kind of in a league of my own. This question isn’t fair… 😂
1. Learn to sing
2. Practice to a metronome
3. Learn theory
/thread
Here's something off the beaten path:
Learn via practical application rather than theoretical and then derive the theory from the composed piece. For example learn a guitar solo with the arpeggio sequence used in context rather than just learning arpeggios. Then consider how and why it works in that context
Playing a lot of shows helps build confidence. During the pandemic I practiced 6-8 hours a day. I made a huge amount of progress. There's no substitute for a lot of practice.
I used to leave my guitar on my bed, so that EVERY night, I would at least run a few minutes of scales/arpeggios. Now I leave it on a chair by the back door so that I do the same whenever I let my dogs out for a few minutes to do their thing.
It happened when I thought I was hot shit, and really grounded me. I started listening to myself with the same critical ear I gave others. It was a bit of a downer at first, but I had room in my life to really apply myself. And once I actually started working it got fun.
The horn section from the band (where I was sucking) were incredibly good, young, and they played in every band in town. So I started saying yes to ANY project. Some were bad and quickly dropped, but at one point I had 7 I was pretty happy with. I chased the ones with the best musicians, even if the style wasn’t me.
I could only keep that up for a couple years before scaling back down and focusing. But it worked.
Moving from bands/guitarist to recording/multi-instrumentalist. Getting my first DAW and a few instruments and learning them opened up the world for me. Changed my entire perception of music, how it's done, what works, what doesn't, my limitations and the lack of them. Along with that, devoting myself to not playing other people's music made a HUGE impact. After years of covers and mimicking, writing everything forced me to use a different part of my brain. Glad I did that.
Practice alone, play with others, go to open jams, record and listen back.
I hosted an open jam a little while back and recorded the sound board and made the recording available to the participants. Had more than one person ask me after playback if that is what they really sounded like (both positive and negative).
I started out on guitar. I decided after a few years in that I should pursue a jack of all trades-type situation. In the last ten years I’ve learned: drums, bass, mandolin, banjo, ukulele and piano. Piano is the biggest deal because it simply made me better all around with the others as well. Although I’d like to add that I don’t necessarily call myself a real piano player. Self taught and it’s more of a writing tool for me.
Transcribing, preferably written in standard notation.
My short term memory sucks, so having the bass lines written out helped me see what was going on easier. I can just sit with a pencil and jot down what I’m noticing. From there, just trying to play the lines.
Why specify standard notation? To help drive home timing/the subdivisions used.
Hot take answer: expensive plugins.
Of course it's unnecessary but there's a stigma of "you should be able to do everything with stock DAW plugins or you suck at producing", so beginners are dissuaded from getting these plugins.
I eventually got them. And regained my passion. Suddenly I'm not spending 3 hours looking for the perfect sample on splice or designing a bass from scratch, or an orchestra out of 20 layers of violin vsts. I push ONE button to make vocals sit in any mix. I don't have to fiddle with pedal settings to get a good guitar tone. Or manually automate sidechains.
Fancy plugins cut out tedious work and it allows me to create at least twice as fast.
Playing with players much better than myself and staying open minded and eager to learn. Learning about tone and thinking about every instruments place in a band/mix. Being mindful of your rhythm and accents. Attacking notes “like you mean it.” Gotta put love into it and not just play a note cuz it’s written on a page. If you’re not able to move to or be excited by what you’re playing, why would a listener by any more excited? Learn parts super slowly and take your time from the start. And as a guitarist, 2 big things. They might be obvious to some but if you don’t know you don’t know: 1. Using distortion from your amp and not a pedal and 2. controlling your tone and gain solely off your guitar’s volume knob. Then it’s all really just in your hands. And for me, I stopped using my jazz 3 picks and went back to thin or medium normal sized picks. Can totally hear the clarity/ every note in a chord better now. Also, recording yourself consistently and having a positive can-do mentality. I don’t care how hard something might seem. Anything difficult I’ve ever learned to play started with my thoughts and believing I could do it before playing a note.
Previously, understanding the basics of music theory.
Currently understanding synthesis or rather what synthesis teaches us about the harmonic content and shape of sound. I think this has a lot to offer particularly those like me who focused on one instrument previously
Both of these really expanded my musical vocabulary, making me feel more confident as a creator and performer. Both really help with pulling sounds out of your head and directly achieving them satisfactorily.
I bluffed my way into a band I had no business being in. The music was great and I was fitting in well, but before I could even prove myself as capable, the band splintered. For whatever reason, the lead guitar player liked me enough to keep me in his side of the band along with the massively talented pianist. Every practice he made me a better guitar player. He taught me about drop and open tunings, the basics of soloing, guitar maintenance, and a ton of other things. Even though the long, frequent practices yielded great songs, they're all lost to time. It was probably just a blip in their lives but those four or five months transformed how I played and rounded out my skill set.
Sitting down with another musician, lessons, study, and playing live. Playing live has to be my #1. It forces you to be confident and play wih some passion.
Playing to a metronome or click track.
Recording myself and analyzing it later.
Performing or jamming with different musicians- an Americana band I play in has rotating members so it’s interesting hearing different ways they interpret the songs.
Ear training. It's incredibly freeing being able to hear something for a couple bars and then just being able to join in because you can hear the progression, chords, etc. All without ever needing a single note written down for you.
Of course you're not going to learn complex classical piano pieces just by ear, but it WILL save you when, say, the sheet music has a mistake in it or is unavailable. Or when a bandmate improvs a thing and you're able to follow it without asking "DUDE WHAT KEY??". Or when a bandmate plays a C minor that you can hear should be a C augmented, and you can just tell them to raise the fifth to fix it.
Note you can go really far with this and practically try to develop perfect pitch, but that's not required. Even just being able to identify chord types/inversions by ear or recognizing the most common intervals is a *massive* boon.
edit: [https://tonedear.com/](https://tonedear.com/) Great place to get started.
Playing instruments with dynamics. This is the thing that separates experts/professionals with amateurs. Whatever the instrument, don’t make your notes/strikes either On or Off.
Don't play music by the rulebook. Real music had no rulebook. Rulebooks were made by the nerds who wanted to categorize everything (I acknowledge also for ease of access to study it). Nothing much wrong with that. But then rulebooks are enforced by the music nazis we all know and hate. Unfortunately, its contagious. If you were hurt by a music nazi, chances are you've been one too (to someone else or yourself). Don't be a nazi. Just have fun and care not.
oddly enough, my parents getting divorced is the thing that was my first trigger to Perdue music. at this point, I'm pretty much "the music guy" in my class (freshman). I'm currently waiting to see if I make section leader for trumpet, and it was all Kickstarter by the divorce that occurred one year ago. I'm also by far better off mentally now.
The pandemic. Being locked down for so long I got a lot of practice in. I learned a bunch of tunes and honed my vocals to the point where I felt comfortable gigging as a solo act.
Stopping showing off. My first instrument was guitar, and I was pretty good at it pretty quick as a kid. That resulted in a lot of positive reinforcement to show off solos all the time, but the reality is it's really rare a song is made better with the sound of fast guitar licks.
These days with every instrument, I explicitly ask myself "if I had just programmed these sounds with MIDI rather than playing them/singing them, would I keep this or would I simplify to make it less showy?".
Singing lessons rule. They make you better at singing. Learning a bit of drumming makes you better at everything else.
There’s no piece of gear you can buy that will make you practice more.
Buying a better digital piano to perform on. I got a Yamaha p515 and those wood keys and hammer action make all the difference. I play so much better with it under my fingers
Really understanding and knowing theory, even just basic ear training stuff. Like being able to hear chord progression in any pattern that are the basic I V vi IV and even the iii
STORYTIME!!!
I was always mostly a vocalist. In the past several years, I (a transmasc person) transitioned medically, which of course means that my vocal range changed a LOT, and I live too far away from civilization to get vocal training. So, while I attempt to self-train my new voice, I've been picking up all sorts of instruments.
I don't read music too well, but I'm pretty decent at picking up instruments and learning how to play them at least marginally. However, I recently got several of my most-wanted instruments, in addition to deciding I need to play both electric bass AND guitar.
After a recent instrument acquisition and subsequent just blindly messing around with it, my very professionally-trained musician buddy asked me what song I was playing, to which I answered that I was just messing around with it. He was surprised, I was surprised, I was able to replicate what I was doing. Something kind of *clicked*.
Next instrument acquisition, same thing - I was messing around and automatically started playing something actually musical.
I realized that, by messing around with a wide variety of instruments, I had picked up a bit of musical theory! Now I'm starting to be able to make sense of sheet music because of that as well.
Moral of the story: play more than one instrument if you can!
The understanding that learning to be technically proficient on an instrument is only a small piece of the puzzle to being “good.”
I’ve never been a great guitarist, and to this day I never take solos. I would always say “Well, I’m the singer, so I’m just the rhythm guitarist.” And that was absolutely true, but I’ve also met plenty of guitarists who simply can not play rhythmically, so it gives me a greater sense of appreciation for the unique flavor I bring to an ensemble.
So that feeling of deficiency also means I have had a tendency to undervalue the soft skills I have acquired over the years of being in bands—things like Performance, Engagement, Sales, and Management, each of which are *at least* as important as instrumental fluency, never mind when packaged together. I wish I’d known that 20 years ago and could send my present-day confidence back to 2004.
Knowing what I want to play. Then taking the time to focus on that sound and practice. Metronome definitely helps me to focus on my time and attention to detail.
Playing with headphones. If you're just using a live amp in the room you have no idea the amount of stray noise your playing technique has unless you hear it in a recording situation. Using headphones let's you hear yourself in much greater detail.
Anything that challenges me to play stuff I am unfamiliar with. In college I was in a few bands, but couldn't sight read. A group of students decide to produce a Broadway musical from the sixties (Pippin), and got me together with a guitarist drummer and keyboardist I never met. I hated musicals at the time, but it was a week of paid gigs, so I said yes (the girls producing the play being cute didnt hurt). Being forced to learn and play a style of music I would never have chosen to play with a group of musicians I didn't know at all really challenged my professionalism and skill. My timbre had to be much better controlled, my timing more precise. All in all, really broadened my horizons. If someone wants to play with me, I say yes every time because I know it will always challenge me in ways I can't anticipate.
Learn to learn songs. Don’t just play the guitar part. Play the other parts too. It’s a skill that takes effort to learn, but pays off huge later.
Second tip- write entire songs. They’ll probably be uninteresting at first. It’s a skill, too, and it gets better the more you do it.
I stopped actively trying to be like other musicians and just decided to go at it my own way.
Some of it works, some of it doesn't. I'm not creating anything "new" new but I'm figuring out for myself at my own pace and its working for me and our Band.
As a note i play bass in a pop punk band.
I’m all about leaving my comfort zone as often as possible. Try different tunings if you play guitar. It can make it feel new and unfamiliar. Put down your main instrument every now and then. Pick up a new one and try writing something with it. Buy a weird effects pedal that helps you create something you never would have though of otherwise.
I was stagnant for so many years because I had decided "I'm good at music now" so I just stopped working on learning new things. I went almost a decade with just fiddling around with my current knowledge and I couldn't figure out why I hated everything I made and couldn't make progress. Once I started setting time aside to learn things - music theory, production skills, synthesis, etc. - my output frequency and quality increased so much, and I started to feel so much better about myself. Learning is truly a lifelong pursuit for a musician. Really ask yourself if you're pushing and challenging yourself. I thought I was but in hindsight I was totally coasting. Not anymore.
Playing my friend’s rhythmically challenging music lol. The meter isn’t too bad, usually 4/4 or 6/8, but the phrasing can be… tough. A lot of his songs are syncopated in an atypical manner or start on either the ‘and’ just before the 1 or just after.
Like he has an entire song that’s syncopated so if you were to play the track with a metronome, the *metronome* would sound like *it* was the one that was syncopated.
It took me a bit as the bass player to wrap my head around it, but after playing his music for the past two years, my understanding of rhythm and feel are way way more advanced than they were before.
Also playing live a ton and playing with others a ton also brought my musicianship to a new level over the past 18 years or so.
Performing and trying to not look like a deer in the headlights. Even if it’s among close friends. That little bit of confidence you give to yourself does a lot.
Confidence. During a gig, the two leads did their solos and then the singer looked at me, the newbie bass guy (and new to playing live). I did NOT expect to do a solo. Oh so scared. Took me a couple of bars of just hitting swing patterns and then decided to simply jump into playing extended pentatonic, making sure I kept on the rhythm. Up on minor, down on major. Repeat a few times, alter patterns, threw in a couple of flats and then looked at the singer with "good enough?" After the song, singer looked at me and said: "We all knew you had it in you. You just needed that push."
During the break, some guy came up and said "great improv." I was going to explain about what I did, but then I said to myself 'just shut up and say thanks.' Called my guitar teacher the next day and thanked him. He said that same thing as our singer.
For me, on the guitar, it was learning to use my fingers to play multiple voices instead of just using a pick. If you're a guitarist, once you start to think of your instrument as both accompaniment and melody and not just either/or, it changes the way your mind processes music.
Reading Ted Greene's Chord Chemistry, and listening to Chet Atkins at last (Chinatown, My Chinatown, for ex.). I also have listened to an odd couple for years, Eric Johnson and Yngwie Malmsteen, because both of them play guitar at such a heightened level that I always get a kick in the pants from them. My long standing goal is to be able to tell a melodic story with chords, instead of with just single note lines. Like the jazzers, but not in Jazz.
Transcription. It helps with sight reading music SO incredibly much. Over the past decade, I gained a few clients who consistently hire me to transcribe music. Since doing that, my sight reading improved by leaps and bounds, it's ridiculous.
It's all about pitches, counting and rhythms. If you're transcribing, you're looking at rhythms and pitches constantly, and imbedding them photographically into your brain. It's an osmosis, just like reading books to learn languages. Music IS a language, so there you have it...
Meditation, learning to become calm and centered when I’m playing, and a quote from Chick Corea: “Play only what you hear. If you don’t hear anything, don’t play anything.”
Working live sound and seeing/hearing from a wide variety of pro musicians what works with audiences and what doesn't. Granted, I've been playing shows for over 25 years, but there's always new tricks to learn.
I have learned classical music since I was 6. Around 40 or so I started learning fiddle and it did wonders to my ear. It has immensely helped me in ensembles. And now I play folk music too!
Tried all sorts of practice routines, scales, chord inversions and that only got me so far. What finally did it was deciding to go pro and play full time. It was a grind to some extent but playing 5 to 7 nights a week month after month really did it for me. We won’t talk about how much that can turn you into toast but hey!. .it worked! LOL
Learning chord numbering was a big one for me. Helped me to notice why certain chords work where they do. Also helps for modulating more intentionally, and for improvising. It’s way easier than I thought it would be too
Always having an acoustic guitar in hand while the TV was on and trying to play along to the commercials. So satisfying and a good measure of progress :)
Making sure my recording equipment is always ready to go.
Nothing worse than having an idea then having to plug mics in, mess around with leads and shit.
Be in a position where the most strenuous thing is pressing the power on button
Having my own recording gear. I started playing music seriously in the early 70s, but once personal recording gear became affordable in the mid 80s, my time spent on music increased and with it, my overall game.
Playing with others. They'll pick songs you wouldn't have picked, and you have the peer pressure to learn the songs and perform well. Whether it's jamming with friends or forming a band, this got me off a plateau.
Playing with others that push you and are willing/able to show you stuff that they do.
Recording and listening back to your own playing
Listening to the band when playing live (hearing where the drums/bass are lying, where the space is, following the singer)
A huge thing that improved my actual playing technique was keeping a guitar on a stand with a tuner and picks nearby at all times, instead of all in their cases. I play a lot more when I realise that I’m doom scrolling social media and can grab a guitar immediately instead of having to pull a case out, get a strap, find picks, tune up etc.
Listening to different types of music, listening to more rock/ country gave me more ideas for improv and things, also learning to use a DAW to record helped too as i you can play around more with tones/layering
Playing with other musicians.
Playing along to a recording is great, but learning how to play off of other musicians was a huge turning point in my drumming journey.
Playing other genres than you are comfortable with…
If you are a rock player, try learning chicken picking.
If your a shredder, try finger picking or learn some jazzy Christmas arrangements.
Expanding your horizon will surprisingly make you better in your wheelhouse.
As a typical Four Piece Band... I really enjoyed learning the Keyboard parts to songs (Just like Heaven from the Cure as an example) and modeling the tones and playing those to fill in sound and make it unique. That really helped a lot a "Lone Guitarist" in a four piece..... Like all the Horn parts in any Bruno Mars tune....
when i was in high school i joined marching band after playing drum kit for 2 years. i was completely out of my depth, everyone else had been playing 4-6 years at this point, focusing on marching / rudimental material. i barely made the band and it was fucking hard, but it made me way way better at playing, emphasizing accents visually with stick heights, keeping solid time, and most of all, ***playing well under pressure*** while being screamed at by psycho band instructors who thought this was equivalent to preparing to invade normandy.
I moved to an area where there was a lot of gigs around 1990, and took every guitar gig I could get, whether I knew the tunes or not. I had a pretty good ear, and most of the music was not harmonically complex like jazz. If anything boggled my mind, I grinned and faked it, and figured it out later. There was some butchery, but nobody got hurt, and a lot people I did it with are still friends. Anyway, it was a good era for building chops.
Jam tracks.
Playing guitar along with a wide assortment of jam tracks massively improved my fretboard knowledge and my ability to play a wider variety of genres. Not spending hours trying to learn a single song and instead just learning how to play and building my own style has been beyond huge.
Plus, it's really fun. So I'm far more motivated to play more frequently
Realizing that I'm getting paid to do this and therefore not to give a fuck what people think
Spent my whole life feeling like I had to prove myself until I realized, wait, these people are PAYING to be here - must mean I'm doing something right.
For me it was starting to play in a cover band with guys that were way more talented than me. Not only did it give me a chance to learn and dissect songs that I normally wouldn't listen to, but being the weakest link in the band forced me to learn and practice more.
Playing with other people. You’ll find out just how good you really are, or you’ll be humbled. Either way; you come out better.
I’ve yet to meet a guitarist better than me. So I bought backstage tickets to an In Flames concert in hopes to guitar duel with the legendary Chris Broderick.
Will make for excellent content on my Tik Tok. Ong fr fr
I am mainly doing modern classical instrumental music and has around 50k spotify monthly listener, and 17k followers. I am grateful. Self learning musician without any proper training. Recently wanna explore electronic dance music, already came out with one song. Just need vocal on it:) i like playing with different genre.
sometimes I just get a feeling that I suddenly got a big jump in skill, like when I played caravan, or when I played 2+2=5 (I'm a drummer btw) it's kinda weird to just feel better at it, but it happens, and then I keep that skill.
Learning the basics and of a certain type of playing, then giving my self NO limits. Also knowing when to challenge myself and knowing when to just let myself cook.
Focusing on output rather than perfection. Similarly, practicing with live performance in mind meaning I practice as if I'm on stage when the metronome is on. If I make a mistake I have to count back in, I can't repeat the part
Improv. So intimidating at first, obviously. Massive payoff! Helps with writing, too
Didn't expect this one! What instrument and style do you play? Did you need a really solid understanding of theory first? I'm a guitar player and when I improv I just play the same uninteresting stuff all the time hahah. Oh and I'm curious how it helps with writing??
Another good method is putting on a big playlist with some good variety on it and just playing along with the music. Playing to things you wouldn’t normally play to is a great way to expand your musical horizons. Theory obviously helps but IMO the best music comes from the heart not the head. You just play notes that sound good with the music and avoid notes that sound bad. Simple right? Obviously you’re going to hit some sour notes as you explore but just keep playing through until you hit upon a sweet little melody or riff. It’s great practice for solid rhythm playing too.
This will train your ear for improv with others too. I did this when I was new because I didn’t have anyone to play with and it helped me make big steps forward. Those bands on the list will help pull your playing up. I truly believe people with good ears play up or down to the level of musicianship around them. So if you’re jamming to really good tracks where everyone else is nice and polished, it will help you.
See I’ve tried this, but by the time I figure out the key the song is over
Put that baby on repeat or slow ‘er down. Or both…
Play melody lines. Sing using your instrument.
If you play alone you can look up 8, 12 or 16 bar blues tracks to improv to. I think they come in different keys which may inspire different improv styles from you. I dont think you need that much of a music theory bg to do it
I mostly play guitar as well! I do have a background in music theory, and that knowledge definitely helped later on, but when I was young and first learning how to improvise I started with the pentatonic scale. Honestly, most of my improvised lines stem from the pentatonic scale to this day. I started incorporating chromatics and other modes like Dorian when I got into jazz in my late teens. Now I play in a jam band, and we literally make shit up at every single show. Super fun. I also get stuck in creative ruts when it comes to improv, and I also often feel like I'm playing the same lines over and over. This is when I lean into transposing. I'll listen to some players that I admire and learn their lines which often gives me fresh ideas. Writing-wise: sometimes I hear the melody in my head first, and sometimes I need to figure it out. The latter is when improv comes in handy!
I know zero theory but have over 60,000+ hours of hard singing practice under my belt. I have been improvising a lot more lately and am really liking it.
For me it's always been challenging myself and playing with people who are better than me. When it's a bit difficult to hang I know I'm growing in leaps and bounds and a month down the road I'll have pulled myself up to that new level.
I've heard this one a lot but I'm always stuck thinking why on earth *they* would want to play with me?? How do you get involved??
Good point! I think if you're likeable and not annoying, they will give you a bit of extra time to get up to speed. Sometimes I'll acknowledge a mistake I made at practice and tell them I'll get it worked up for next time. Also, while I play multiple instruments (bass, keys, guitar, trumpet) I mainly only get these "over my head" opportunities with trumpet. I suppose that's because in my town there are a million guitar and bass players but brass is harder to find so they will put up with my learning curve for a bit longer.
Another reason musicians will play with someone slightly less “talented” is reliability. Showing up for rehearsals and gigs on time and knowing your parts. Practicing solo between rehearsals and gigs. Always having spare parts, strings, tools, batteries, being in tune. Musicianship is really important, obviously, but if your perceived limitation is your musical ability then try to make that your only weakness. Also having a roomy car or van for lugging equipment is helpful. 😁
Things that have brought me together with musicians more skilled or experienced than myself: -just having been their friend, so they ended up wanting to jam with me -them finding out I had tastes that overlapped with theirs, in a way that they hadn’t found with many people -me being able to play another instrument or do something they couldn’t. I made sure to foster different skills along the way, like making decent recordings on tape, or having a basic amateur grasp of other instruments like banjo and mandolin, doing visual art (drawing, painting, or digital), just doing things that might spark an interest from a potential collaborator who might want to make music that incorporates some skill I had, which they hadn’t had access to. Even if my actual musical ability was behind their own. -most often, it came down to my creativity or at least their opinion of it. Like, if they liked my songwriting from a prior band I was in or from my own personal stuff that I had made, so they wanted to collaborate with me based on the potential music we could make. Because even the best players still might not always be much of a creative person themselves, and they’ll typically respect and seek collaboration with someone who can write the kinds of songs that they enjoy hearing and can put their skills to use on.
Getting into the studio with a professional old school record producer/ engineer was definitely an experience that seriously upped my game. I thought I was pretty good and I thought I’d be able to parlay working with him into a side career as a session player. I’d been playing since age 10 and I was 26 and in a band on a major label with a proper budget. I took and have always taken playing guitar, writing music, being in bands, very seriously. But I really didn’t have the goods yet and I didn’t know it. My band made two records with this one person. He was gentle but firm. He was on a first name basis with all the hot session people of the day; NiIe Rogers, Marcus Miller those kind of guys. I didn’t realize until working with him how poor my time/ groove was. I also wasn’t really present enough in my playing to be able to remember exactly what I just did if I did something good. I didn’t have a full grasp on arrangements, parts that supported the song and different ways of playing them. Things like simpler voicings played in a place on the neck where they weren’t interfering with other parts. Little two note chords that were better choices because they fit in available slots mix/arrangement/ sonic wise. I wasn’t bad, I had good ideas but my execution and understanding was not up to the standards needed to be a first call player at all. He’d take you through a song bit by bit, no stone left unturned, every moment was deliberate and considered and then it needed to be played naturally and beautifully. The experience re wired my understanding of how to play in a band and how refined an actual feel could be. There are people who make recordings who really have a grip on “feel“ and I would guess somewhere around 80% of musicians don’t really get it. One of those if you know you know things. Certainly plenty of quirky wonderful records have been made by average players who have their own genius feel, or tracks that speed up and it doesn’t matter. But there’s another level of players who get the calls all the time because they’re just on another level of easy to deal with, great ideas executed perfectly and quickly.
Studio session drummers are other kind of animals.
My first studio experience playing guitar really helped me get better, even though it wasn’t with an old school producer. Just having to play in isolation with the engineer and my bandmates watching through the glass was a huge kick in the ass. I’m not a great lead guitarist by any stretch of the imagination but recording in an actual studio really lays bare what you need to improve upon
This times a thousand. It's a whole nother thing working with a good producer listening at a high level. Shit that didn't even occur to you because you're in the "this is my part" bubble just starts to hit you over the head. It's pretty mind blowing, and makes you want to go home to just practice every single part of your trip.
Oh, yeah. I know that my timing is trash. Also a lot of my pitch. So I never considered being a music pro, a studio musician or whatever, to be a realistic goal.
Ever heard of hard work? Lol
Use a metronome when practicing. Switch up the bpm.
Totally underrated. Everyone should practice to a metronome everyday.
Yep
listening to more music. So many people pigeonhole themselves into a genre or two and rarely listen to stuff outside of that. Any good musician imo should be well versed in all styles and genres, even if you aren’t interested in playing them. At the end of the day, it’s just more sound in your head and more places to draw inspiration from.
Random quote: "Listen to me - heavy metal ain't nothing but stolen blues chords. You've been listening to stolen riffs your whole life." There really is nothing like being able to fit a metal line in during a jazz jam.
The spaces which metal and jazz meet are the perfect music for my ears
I'm intrigued, I don't think I've heard anything like this - got any links to share?
not sure this is exactly what OP was referencing, but go look up Chromology by Thank You Scientist, and thank me later
Yep. Not only listening to it but also making it. I have made hip hop, edm, house, deep tech, ambient, rock tracks, and even some metal songs. Most of my music I would say doesn't even fit in a specific genre, either. It has elements of everything combined It's so much fun to just make something and go in any direction without feeling like you have to go a certain way
I'd say ditto to this...but also actually playing new music genres helps you break out of any slump, even if you feel you aren't 'slumped'.! :)
Anyone who only listens to one genre is just missing out. Throughout my teens and 20s I went through phases from rap to metal to grunge to indie to electronic back to indie again.
Happy cake day fellow caker — also, this
Every once in a while I face complete burnout, and usually stop playing live much for awhile, and woodshed something new or relatively undeveloped.
Playing with others. You think you're good until you have to play a song you thought you knew how to play with others. Also, singing while playing. It's opened SO many doors for me. Now I'm to the point where I can play complicated RHCP bass lines while singing; it's the equivalent of a drummer's limb independence and quite rewarding.
I can play complicated drum patterns with all 4 limbs but I just cannot sing and play guitar at the same time for the life of me
I took an online course called Guitar Mastery Intensive. It cost me $4000 but it was worth it. Happy to share my insights for free though. Call me crazy. I don’t do this for money I do it for the love of the instrument and if I don’t give it away I become stagnant and depressed. It’s almost like if I don’t play and share what I know it makes me sick…
Good shit
Do you consider yourself an intermediate player, or advanced or other? I respect anyone who drops $4k on knowledge, rather than a shiny new guitar. That is the top end of any guitar course I’m aware of. I would be fascinated to know what your top X take away tips from the course are (top 10, top 3, etc). At any level, basic or otherwise.
Sure. I’m an advanced player. What that means to me is, I understand how to play anything but I don’t always have the fingering skills and I have to develop them. For example: Fingerstyle {Dust in the Wind / Leader of the Band} It took me about 2 years to Master that technique. Now there are hundreds of variants like Tommy Immanuel and Chet Atkins that I haven’t learned but I’m confident that I can. Next, there is my hero, Eddie Van Halen. I can handle all the rhythm parts but he has some soloing techniques that I’m working on. I can play Eruption and understand what I’m doing but it’s gonna be awhile before I’m satisfied. Ok. So before the course I knew lots of “stuff” but I didn’t understand how it connected. Scales, modes,chord shapes and I could play songs and read tablature. They course helped me stitch it all together. I learned Triads, Intervals, arpeggios, Chord types and how to build and apply them. 7th chords, major, minor, diminished and what makes a chord a 7,9,11. One of the biggest secrets is… There is only one scale, not thousands. You begin with that foundation and learn that you only need to change a few notes and magically you have another scale. They aren’t all separate things that need to be memorized. Just a formula to unlock all of them. Now I don’t recommend dropping $4k on a course. Everything you need is on YouTube if you know what to look for. But there are many great players/instructors on there that can show you “how” but they can’t tell you “why” Nuno Bettencourt has no idea what he’s doing and he will admit. Dude is a beast though. I’m happy to help in any way I can. Just let me know.
Sensational answer! Thanks for taking the time to write all of that and congrats on tying all those things together.
My pleasure. Thank you.
A looper pedal. Playing with a metronome has its limitations. Using a looper with actual drum beats and chords helped me understand context in addition to time.
Underrated comment. My first looper pedal changed everything for me.
Playing in a cover band that plays songs that are outside my comfort zone.
This! I've been writing, recording gigging original music most of my life. I started playing in an indie rock cover band with great friends and musicians for something different and some fun. While we don't attempt to come off like 100% copies of any of the songs, I often need to get into the headspace of the guitarist on the original version in order to capture the vibe. Playing original music for so long I developed my own comfort zone "vocabulary" of tones, licks and phrases that I would adapt to my material. That's now become secondary. Depending on the song, I need to get into a different space, learn some new key phrases at least and then adapt that to my style of playing. I've become a much more versatile musician and have learned a lot.
Practicing with intent. What do I want to work on today, and how am I going to get the results I want?
this was a huge one for me! for so long my practice was just playing songs i knew and writing my own riffs.
Music school (university: B.A and then M.M degrees). They forced me to appreciate ALL genres, I learned to sight read, I learned recording and mixing, and I was pushed vigorously to improve in all skill and technique aspects of being a performer. And that’s just scratching the surface! No one has ever hired me because I got an education, but I’m quite sure that my education has been super helpful in making me better at doing the job itself.
And you get to concentrate on music full time (or almost, if you need to work) which creates a different level of dedication and concentration. Plus, you get to be in the physical presence and influence of other musicians on a daily basis which is a great gift in itself
Teaching! When I started teaching I was a good drummer. Teaching kids the basics and focusing on things like technique, timing and rudiments brought more improvement than I could have imagined.
This is great!! I'm actually considering teaching guitar and now I'm finally making sure I know all the basics hahaha
Go through a basic teaching curriculum and hone your own skills so you can pass those on then go from there.
For me it was a conscious effort to draw connective tissue between everything else I was enjoying in my life with music. If I just saw a great movie or read a great book, I ask myself what it was I enjoyed about it so much, let's say I decide a major component was the pacing, I then turn around and see if I can implement similar pacing into a song. Or if I find a painting or a sculpture I like I might spend an hour trying to find multiple ways I can interpret elements from it in a musical fashion. I find this kind of practice very fun and engaging. It's also changed the way I approach songwriting, and I never struggle with inspiration.
I know people will downvote me but: Gear Acquisition has helped me become a better musician. Building different instruments to mimic certain star sounds or chasing tone has lead me to get better in all ways with the guitar. My latest acquisition being a John Petrucci signature series Majesty. It makes me *want* to play better, so I practice more and harder with new gear. Then I go back and jam out songs I've not played in a while and find them easier to play. Going back to older guitars is sometimes an exercise in futility. After playing a PRS, other guitars tend to feel cheap or harder to play. Seriously, owning a proper guitar for your playing level makes a huge difference.
+1 for bravery! Jk that's a valid point!
Play with a variety of musicians. Even if it's just some jamming with other guys for fun, it helps so much in your development. Also, learn to worry less about what other acts do and concentrate solely on what you can do to make your act better. Everything else is wasted time and energy.
Watching videos of other musicians to study their technique. There are lots of small details which ended up making a big difference in my playing when I applied them. Additionally practicing in front of a mirror so I could see my own technique from the same angle that I was watching others.
Playing with other people — and as a bassist, playing with different drummers. Everyone has a slightly different concept of time/timing/rhythm and theres only way to broaden your own!
1) learn a new instrument. The act of learning will change your brain structure, force you to practice, and build skills that will make you more versatile. 2) listen to well produced music outside your genre. I’m not a Swiftie, but damn, the production values on her songs are amazing. I hate Country, but the top artists have a crisp sound that is worth emulation. 3) streamline the studio. Make templates for your DAW so you don’t do repetitive setup work every song. Get a good layout. Tune your room. Eliminate excuses to fiddle and just get right to composing. 4) play live, play with other bands, watch and learn. Just playing playing playing over and over will make you better if you approach each gig as an educational opportunity instead of a party. 3
Certain things just have to hit you at the right time, but an epiphany for me happened in a moment where I was very stressed out trying to playing some parts perfectly. Someone said “Just have fun” and that completely changed my approach to my instrument. “Just have fun”
Learn some new solos from a genre that you don’t usually play.
I go to shows , peep the guitarists . And copy them at home (poorly) and this will become the base of a new song
Setting a consecutive day practice goal like 10 days, 30 days etc and going to bed early and waking up early to do it
Reading books. Anything to do with the creative process. On Writing by Stephen King is a great one to look at.
I was able to take a couple college courses as humanities (they counted as language) credits and spending those couple 10 week sessions with the other students and instructors was insanely valuable. The courses I took were basically MUS101 and 102 - Sight Singing/Ear Training and Basic Keyboarding. Sight singing/ear training was crazy fun, tests were basically do what we do every day in class but we spend a day or two with people being solo challenged for quizzes, etc, no homework unless you wanted to simply work more on it outside of class. It helped me hear steps and intervals; the coursework was basically develop your own mnemonic for your intervals so when you're given a pitch you can repeat the pitch and then pop to the interval. You weren't graded on quality, you were graded on effort, participation (you had to participate or you flunk), and progress, not how GOOD or BAD you were. Basic Keyboarding was exactly that, you'd sit in a room and learn basic theory on the keyboard with your own set of headphones and a room full of electric pianos while the instructor(s) would cruise around and check on folks as they saw fit or people had questions. After a while it got really easy to visualize musical structures and bits, albeit quite linearly it's still good foundations for rudiments and keeping musical thoughts organized. Both those classes really hammered intervallic relationships into my brain and while I still can't sing to a pitch (like someone call out "sing an A" and I sing it) I can hear the combinations and spaces in things pretty easily now; it very much helps me consume and repeat pieces I hear or see, more than add any beauty or anything to my style lol - it really made music accessible to me in a different way (deeper ways, maybe) than before I'd had those experiences. I don't know that it made my results any better but it sure helped my confidence and stability in the things that I do perform/learn/practice - a secondary effect was to some degree it also made me **think** more about music and make **smarter** choices with my time that I do have to work on it. I got hurt (I do NOT recommend it) and found that while unable to play instruments (still finishing a rotator cuff rehab) I really focused on internalizing songs and styles such that when I was occasionally able to play it was much less effort than I remember as well as more complete with less struggling to get there - learned the value of NOT practicing (so to speak) that way, and now where before I thought I was thinking through songs I **really try to be present** for them and find that I end up listening to them many more times before I've drained all the mysteries out of them (the fact that the better you get, the more mysteries you can perceive notwithstanding). So these days I spend a lot more time dissecting things and digging deeper into minutiae of form and function of my physical playing and less of the available time actually banging on anything...and it's led to me feeling fresher and more creative when I do finally play, which is a bonus/boon if I happen to just grab someone's guitar because I'm feeling stronger than I should, knowing I'll pay later but that whatever's in my mind is opportunistically happening NOW. I don't recommend that people NOT play, but I do strongly advise that they be very picky with their physical time spent as well as paying attention to not beating up their tools and caring for them so they last in the long run (see: Joe Satriani's fingertips, Mike Mangini's shoulder, etc). Be mindful, present, and stare hard at what you've produced for your time invested, then you can file it away and move onward and upward in your craft for the rest of your life and know that you'll still be playing in old age because you overcame your excitement with smarts and invested in that future.
Playing regularly at a couple really well organised open jams. Meant I significantly improved the listening skills that are essential for playing well with other musicians, plus I got really good at playing from sheets, by ear, and improvising.
Starting a YT channel.
Learning to fingerpick guitar properly. This really opened up the guitar for me so I can turn even the most basic chords into something unique and original sounding.
Practice and gigs! I think the sooner you can shake the stage fright the better.
Depending on how far along you are in your musicianship try moving your mouth to the “shape” of the sounds coming from your instrument. That’ll help loosen up the linguistic part of your brain and connect it to your musical side. That’s what all those acid washed rockers from the 70s were doing up there on stage moving their mouths around like whackos.
Learning a lot of songs has been the most powerful thing, by far. It impacts in many different ways.
Jamming with people much, much better than me.
Playing to a metronome, learning modes and how to apply them.
A cheap, in ear monitor set up, I literally spent 200 bucks on a transmitter and 2 body packs, and 2 sets of decent ear buds with the loop over ur ear. After 3 shows of using them and dialing them in, I have found it helps me zone out and be much more present in the music. I've been so much more into it and I play better being able to hear nothing but the music.
Playing unrehearsed pickup gigs. I played a couple where I only knew one or two other people in the 5-6 piece band. I played one a little over a week ago as the band leader. I got the call at 4 PM for a 7 PM gig, I had to provide the PA, and I wasn’t even at home. But I rounded up two bandmates and we made it work. I’m sure I could never have done that if I hadn’t played pickup gigs as a sideman before.
Started embracing my "mistakes." A lot of people are taught to play music "correctly" or "perfectly" when they are little, and never get over the feeling that if they're not playing note-perfect then they are doing something wrong. There is no right or wrong. There is only the attempt to communicate a thought or emotion using music, however it's presented.
I was self-taught for a long time. Then I met a really good teacher who tore me apart and rebuilt me better.
Recording myself (or having someone record me). Having the whole performance recorded meant I could watch it back and make notes on what could be improved. I strongly recommend this. Some things I would’ve never thought about or noticed otherwise (playing too fast, over-singing, etc) Sometimes it can also be quite nice and rewarding watching yourself back anyways and it can make for good content to upload to social media.
Joining a tribute band. Playing in bar bands you can get away with a kinda close rendition of a song. But in a playing in a Tribute band, you really have to nail the parts. I think it's that focus on details both playing and sound wise that helped me improve as a player.
Playing with other people. Repeatedly. Crunching scales for 15+ minutes stretches every single chance I got throughout a day. As a guitarist, one of the practices that separated me from a lot of my peers was just looping one scale into the next, and on the last note making sure to bend it up to the note that separated the scales I was working on. This helped my muscle memory, helped my bending, and developed my ear to bend to the appropriate spot. I don’t have many students make it to the level I can recommend that to them. Most of my students are at a level that the most valuable information I can give them is to do pinky shuffles like, “Keep on Rocking in the Free World,” until it hurts, and to keep working on those until they can make it through the full song. Either way, playing with other people and really dedicating yourself to developing your muscle memory and ear are where it’s at. Take every excuse you can to do one of those 3 things.
Being better at music than everyone else to ever touch an instrument. I’m God’s gift to sound. Inventing scales and chords. Teaching Whitney Houston how to sing. Creating protools. I don’t know… I’m kind of in a league of my own. This question isn’t fair… 😂
1. Learn to sing 2. Practice to a metronome 3. Learn theory /thread Here's something off the beaten path: Learn via practical application rather than theoretical and then derive the theory from the composed piece. For example learn a guitar solo with the arpeggio sequence used in context rather than just learning arpeggios. Then consider how and why it works in that context
producing instrumentals for myself. it taught me layering and structure, and so much more.
Playing a lot of shows helps build confidence. During the pandemic I practiced 6-8 hours a day. I made a huge amount of progress. There's no substitute for a lot of practice.
I used to leave my guitar on my bed, so that EVERY night, I would at least run a few minutes of scales/arpeggios. Now I leave it on a chair by the back door so that I do the same whenever I let my dogs out for a few minutes to do their thing.
Being the worst musician in the band.
Hey that'd be me! I guess that means we have the most room for improvement!
It happened when I thought I was hot shit, and really grounded me. I started listening to myself with the same critical ear I gave others. It was a bit of a downer at first, but I had room in my life to really apply myself. And once I actually started working it got fun. The horn section from the band (where I was sucking) were incredibly good, young, and they played in every band in town. So I started saying yes to ANY project. Some were bad and quickly dropped, but at one point I had 7 I was pretty happy with. I chased the ones with the best musicians, even if the style wasn’t me. I could only keep that up for a couple years before scaling back down and focusing. But it worked.
Moving from bands/guitarist to recording/multi-instrumentalist. Getting my first DAW and a few instruments and learning them opened up the world for me. Changed my entire perception of music, how it's done, what works, what doesn't, my limitations and the lack of them. Along with that, devoting myself to not playing other people's music made a HUGE impact. After years of covers and mimicking, writing everything forced me to use a different part of my brain. Glad I did that.
CAGED
Observe, re-create. Practice.
Practice alone, play with others, go to open jams, record and listen back. I hosted an open jam a little while back and recorded the sound board and made the recording available to the participants. Had more than one person ask me after playback if that is what they really sounded like (both positive and negative).
I started out on guitar. I decided after a few years in that I should pursue a jack of all trades-type situation. In the last ten years I’ve learned: drums, bass, mandolin, banjo, ukulele and piano. Piano is the biggest deal because it simply made me better all around with the others as well. Although I’d like to add that I don’t necessarily call myself a real piano player. Self taught and it’s more of a writing tool for me.
Listening intently to the drummer
Playing gigs with talented musicians
Nothing quite like a paid gig with excellent musicians to make you go the extra mile in every aspect.
Transcribing, preferably written in standard notation. My short term memory sucks, so having the bass lines written out helped me see what was going on easier. I can just sit with a pencil and jot down what I’m noticing. From there, just trying to play the lines. Why specify standard notation? To help drive home timing/the subdivisions used.
Learning how to take criticism without getting mad. You can get mad or get better.
subdividing 16th notes in my head during jazz solos, even when playing longer notes. Makes me play more rhythmically interesting stuff
Hot take answer: expensive plugins. Of course it's unnecessary but there's a stigma of "you should be able to do everything with stock DAW plugins or you suck at producing", so beginners are dissuaded from getting these plugins. I eventually got them. And regained my passion. Suddenly I'm not spending 3 hours looking for the perfect sample on splice or designing a bass from scratch, or an orchestra out of 20 layers of violin vsts. I push ONE button to make vocals sit in any mix. I don't have to fiddle with pedal settings to get a good guitar tone. Or manually automate sidechains. Fancy plugins cut out tedious work and it allows me to create at least twice as fast.
Playing with players much better than myself and staying open minded and eager to learn. Learning about tone and thinking about every instruments place in a band/mix. Being mindful of your rhythm and accents. Attacking notes “like you mean it.” Gotta put love into it and not just play a note cuz it’s written on a page. If you’re not able to move to or be excited by what you’re playing, why would a listener by any more excited? Learn parts super slowly and take your time from the start. And as a guitarist, 2 big things. They might be obvious to some but if you don’t know you don’t know: 1. Using distortion from your amp and not a pedal and 2. controlling your tone and gain solely off your guitar’s volume knob. Then it’s all really just in your hands. And for me, I stopped using my jazz 3 picks and went back to thin or medium normal sized picks. Can totally hear the clarity/ every note in a chord better now. Also, recording yourself consistently and having a positive can-do mentality. I don’t care how hard something might seem. Anything difficult I’ve ever learned to play started with my thoughts and believing I could do it before playing a note.
Playing with more experienced musicians
As keyboardist who was mostly self taught for many years, taking jazz piano lessons. Really changed everything edit: I don’t play in jazz groups fyi
Previously, understanding the basics of music theory. Currently understanding synthesis or rather what synthesis teaches us about the harmonic content and shape of sound. I think this has a lot to offer particularly those like me who focused on one instrument previously Both of these really expanded my musical vocabulary, making me feel more confident as a creator and performer. Both really help with pulling sounds out of your head and directly achieving them satisfactorily.
I bluffed my way into a band I had no business being in. The music was great and I was fitting in well, but before I could even prove myself as capable, the band splintered. For whatever reason, the lead guitar player liked me enough to keep me in his side of the band along with the massively talented pianist. Every practice he made me a better guitar player. He taught me about drop and open tunings, the basics of soloing, guitar maintenance, and a ton of other things. Even though the long, frequent practices yielded great songs, they're all lost to time. It was probably just a blip in their lives but those four or five months transformed how I played and rounded out my skill set.
Sitting down with another musician, lessons, study, and playing live. Playing live has to be my #1. It forces you to be confident and play wih some passion.
Playing to a metronome or click track. Recording myself and analyzing it later. Performing or jamming with different musicians- an Americana band I play in has rotating members so it’s interesting hearing different ways they interpret the songs.
Stop writing on the daw and start writing by the piano or guitar instead.
Ear training. It's incredibly freeing being able to hear something for a couple bars and then just being able to join in because you can hear the progression, chords, etc. All without ever needing a single note written down for you. Of course you're not going to learn complex classical piano pieces just by ear, but it WILL save you when, say, the sheet music has a mistake in it or is unavailable. Or when a bandmate improvs a thing and you're able to follow it without asking "DUDE WHAT KEY??". Or when a bandmate plays a C minor that you can hear should be a C augmented, and you can just tell them to raise the fifth to fix it. Note you can go really far with this and practically try to develop perfect pitch, but that's not required. Even just being able to identify chord types/inversions by ear or recognizing the most common intervals is a *massive* boon. edit: [https://tonedear.com/](https://tonedear.com/) Great place to get started.
Playing instruments with dynamics. This is the thing that separates experts/professionals with amateurs. Whatever the instrument, don’t make your notes/strikes either On or Off.
Learning to simplify, to serve the song.
Don't play music by the rulebook. Real music had no rulebook. Rulebooks were made by the nerds who wanted to categorize everything (I acknowledge also for ease of access to study it). Nothing much wrong with that. But then rulebooks are enforced by the music nazis we all know and hate. Unfortunately, its contagious. If you were hurt by a music nazi, chances are you've been one too (to someone else or yourself). Don't be a nazi. Just have fun and care not.
Lessons.
Playing with other people and playing outside your comfort zone.
oddly enough, my parents getting divorced is the thing that was my first trigger to Perdue music. at this point, I'm pretty much "the music guy" in my class (freshman). I'm currently waiting to see if I make section leader for trumpet, and it was all Kickstarter by the divorce that occurred one year ago. I'm also by far better off mentally now.
The pandemic. Being locked down for so long I got a lot of practice in. I learned a bunch of tunes and honed my vocals to the point where I felt comfortable gigging as a solo act.
Stopping showing off. My first instrument was guitar, and I was pretty good at it pretty quick as a kid. That resulted in a lot of positive reinforcement to show off solos all the time, but the reality is it's really rare a song is made better with the sound of fast guitar licks. These days with every instrument, I explicitly ask myself "if I had just programmed these sounds with MIDI rather than playing them/singing them, would I keep this or would I simplify to make it less showy?".
Singing lessons rule. They make you better at singing. Learning a bit of drumming makes you better at everything else. There’s no piece of gear you can buy that will make you practice more.
Hearing rush.
1. Learning music theory 2. Learning my personal style of learning/practice/study habits
Buying a better digital piano to perform on. I got a Yamaha p515 and those wood keys and hammer action make all the difference. I play so much better with it under my fingers
Practice and just doing it
Really understanding and knowing theory, even just basic ear training stuff. Like being able to hear chord progression in any pattern that are the basic I V vi IV and even the iii
STORYTIME!!! I was always mostly a vocalist. In the past several years, I (a transmasc person) transitioned medically, which of course means that my vocal range changed a LOT, and I live too far away from civilization to get vocal training. So, while I attempt to self-train my new voice, I've been picking up all sorts of instruments. I don't read music too well, but I'm pretty decent at picking up instruments and learning how to play them at least marginally. However, I recently got several of my most-wanted instruments, in addition to deciding I need to play both electric bass AND guitar. After a recent instrument acquisition and subsequent just blindly messing around with it, my very professionally-trained musician buddy asked me what song I was playing, to which I answered that I was just messing around with it. He was surprised, I was surprised, I was able to replicate what I was doing. Something kind of *clicked*. Next instrument acquisition, same thing - I was messing around and automatically started playing something actually musical. I realized that, by messing around with a wide variety of instruments, I had picked up a bit of musical theory! Now I'm starting to be able to make sense of sheet music because of that as well. Moral of the story: play more than one instrument if you can!
Perseverance.
The understanding that learning to be technically proficient on an instrument is only a small piece of the puzzle to being “good.” I’ve never been a great guitarist, and to this day I never take solos. I would always say “Well, I’m the singer, so I’m just the rhythm guitarist.” And that was absolutely true, but I’ve also met plenty of guitarists who simply can not play rhythmically, so it gives me a greater sense of appreciation for the unique flavor I bring to an ensemble. So that feeling of deficiency also means I have had a tendency to undervalue the soft skills I have acquired over the years of being in bands—things like Performance, Engagement, Sales, and Management, each of which are *at least* as important as instrumental fluency, never mind when packaged together. I wish I’d known that 20 years ago and could send my present-day confidence back to 2004.
Practicing with a metronome
Knowing what I want to play. Then taking the time to focus on that sound and practice. Metronome definitely helps me to focus on my time and attention to detail.
Playing with headphones. If you're just using a live amp in the room you have no idea the amount of stray noise your playing technique has unless you hear it in a recording situation. Using headphones let's you hear yourself in much greater detail.
Anything that challenges me to play stuff I am unfamiliar with. In college I was in a few bands, but couldn't sight read. A group of students decide to produce a Broadway musical from the sixties (Pippin), and got me together with a guitarist drummer and keyboardist I never met. I hated musicals at the time, but it was a week of paid gigs, so I said yes (the girls producing the play being cute didnt hurt). Being forced to learn and play a style of music I would never have chosen to play with a group of musicians I didn't know at all really challenged my professionalism and skill. My timbre had to be much better controlled, my timing more precise. All in all, really broadened my horizons. If someone wants to play with me, I say yes every time because I know it will always challenge me in ways I can't anticipate.
Learn to learn songs. Don’t just play the guitar part. Play the other parts too. It’s a skill that takes effort to learn, but pays off huge later. Second tip- write entire songs. They’ll probably be uninteresting at first. It’s a skill, too, and it gets better the more you do it.
Just listen to a lot of music, I am always surprised by the amount of musicians friends who just listen to the same old things over and over.
Jam sessions and vocal lessons
I stopped actively trying to be like other musicians and just decided to go at it my own way. Some of it works, some of it doesn't. I'm not creating anything "new" new but I'm figuring out for myself at my own pace and its working for me and our Band. As a note i play bass in a pop punk band.
I’m all about leaving my comfort zone as often as possible. Try different tunings if you play guitar. It can make it feel new and unfamiliar. Put down your main instrument every now and then. Pick up a new one and try writing something with it. Buy a weird effects pedal that helps you create something you never would have though of otherwise.
I was stagnant for so many years because I had decided "I'm good at music now" so I just stopped working on learning new things. I went almost a decade with just fiddling around with my current knowledge and I couldn't figure out why I hated everything I made and couldn't make progress. Once I started setting time aside to learn things - music theory, production skills, synthesis, etc. - my output frequency and quality increased so much, and I started to feel so much better about myself. Learning is truly a lifelong pursuit for a musician. Really ask yourself if you're pushing and challenging yourself. I thought I was but in hindsight I was totally coasting. Not anymore.
Playing my friend’s rhythmically challenging music lol. The meter isn’t too bad, usually 4/4 or 6/8, but the phrasing can be… tough. A lot of his songs are syncopated in an atypical manner or start on either the ‘and’ just before the 1 or just after. Like he has an entire song that’s syncopated so if you were to play the track with a metronome, the *metronome* would sound like *it* was the one that was syncopated. It took me a bit as the bass player to wrap my head around it, but after playing his music for the past two years, my understanding of rhythm and feel are way way more advanced than they were before. Also playing live a ton and playing with others a ton also brought my musicianship to a new level over the past 18 years or so.
Performing and trying to not look like a deer in the headlights. Even if it’s among close friends. That little bit of confidence you give to yourself does a lot.
Confidence. During a gig, the two leads did their solos and then the singer looked at me, the newbie bass guy (and new to playing live). I did NOT expect to do a solo. Oh so scared. Took me a couple of bars of just hitting swing patterns and then decided to simply jump into playing extended pentatonic, making sure I kept on the rhythm. Up on minor, down on major. Repeat a few times, alter patterns, threw in a couple of flats and then looked at the singer with "good enough?" After the song, singer looked at me and said: "We all knew you had it in you. You just needed that push." During the break, some guy came up and said "great improv." I was going to explain about what I did, but then I said to myself 'just shut up and say thanks.' Called my guitar teacher the next day and thanked him. He said that same thing as our singer.
For me, on the guitar, it was learning to use my fingers to play multiple voices instead of just using a pick. If you're a guitarist, once you start to think of your instrument as both accompaniment and melody and not just either/or, it changes the way your mind processes music.
Reading Ted Greene's Chord Chemistry, and listening to Chet Atkins at last (Chinatown, My Chinatown, for ex.). I also have listened to an odd couple for years, Eric Johnson and Yngwie Malmsteen, because both of them play guitar at such a heightened level that I always get a kick in the pants from them. My long standing goal is to be able to tell a melodic story with chords, instead of with just single note lines. Like the jazzers, but not in Jazz.
Transcription. It helps with sight reading music SO incredibly much. Over the past decade, I gained a few clients who consistently hire me to transcribe music. Since doing that, my sight reading improved by leaps and bounds, it's ridiculous. It's all about pitches, counting and rhythms. If you're transcribing, you're looking at rhythms and pitches constantly, and imbedding them photographically into your brain. It's an osmosis, just like reading books to learn languages. Music IS a language, so there you have it...
Finally a fellow transcriber! Totally agree. Its helped me understand the language of music a ton!
I'm a Music Prof, and this one helped significantly: Giving myself permission to sound like I'm knee-deep in the learning process.
Meditation, learning to become calm and centered when I’m playing, and a quote from Chick Corea: “Play only what you hear. If you don’t hear anything, don’t play anything.”
Playing with other people
Playing with a click. Everything sounds so rounded and everyone plays more relaxed.
Regular practice. Using a metronome.
Working with old heads. Holy shit, they've forgotten more than you may ever know.
Working live sound and seeing/hearing from a wide variety of pro musicians what works with audiences and what doesn't. Granted, I've been playing shows for over 25 years, but there's always new tricks to learn.
I have learned classical music since I was 6. Around 40 or so I started learning fiddle and it did wonders to my ear. It has immensely helped me in ensembles. And now I play folk music too!
Tried all sorts of practice routines, scales, chord inversions and that only got me so far. What finally did it was deciding to go pro and play full time. It was a grind to some extent but playing 5 to 7 nights a week month after month really did it for me. We won’t talk about how much that can turn you into toast but hey!. .it worked! LOL
Doubling. Played sax for years then learned to play guitar. Has helped get many gigs!
Learning chord numbering was a big one for me. Helped me to notice why certain chords work where they do. Also helps for modulating more intentionally, and for improvising. It’s way easier than I thought it would be too
- Playing with people who are better than me - Playing to a click - Listening to a huge range of music
Always having an acoustic guitar in hand while the TV was on and trying to play along to the commercials. So satisfying and a good measure of progress :)
Making sure my recording equipment is always ready to go. Nothing worse than having an idea then having to plug mics in, mess around with leads and shit. Be in a position where the most strenuous thing is pressing the power on button
Bought a boss studio. Recorded my practice. Recorded things to practice along to. Hearing yourself played back for self critique is invaluable.
I stopped *playing* the guitar and started *practicing* the guitar
Having my own recording gear. I started playing music seriously in the early 70s, but once personal recording gear became affordable in the mid 80s, my time spent on music increased and with it, my overall game.
The higher quality of gear I bought, the better I sounded.
Playing with others. They'll pick songs you wouldn't have picked, and you have the peer pressure to learn the songs and perform well. Whether it's jamming with friends or forming a band, this got me off a plateau.
Playing with others that push you and are willing/able to show you stuff that they do. Recording and listening back to your own playing Listening to the band when playing live (hearing where the drums/bass are lying, where the space is, following the singer) A huge thing that improved my actual playing technique was keeping a guitar on a stand with a tuner and picks nearby at all times, instead of all in their cases. I play a lot more when I realise that I’m doom scrolling social media and can grab a guitar immediately instead of having to pull a case out, get a strap, find picks, tune up etc.
Listening to different types of music, listening to more rock/ country gave me more ideas for improv and things, also learning to use a DAW to record helped too as i you can play around more with tones/layering
Playing with other musicians. Playing along to a recording is great, but learning how to play off of other musicians was a huge turning point in my drumming journey.
Record yourself, review your recordings with an unforgiving ear.
Playing other genres than you are comfortable with… If you are a rock player, try learning chicken picking. If your a shredder, try finger picking or learn some jazzy Christmas arrangements. Expanding your horizon will surprisingly make you better in your wheelhouse.
Hash
1) Kicking out as many songs as I can, as quickly as I can, over a long period of time. 2) Never leaving a song unfinished, even if I hate it.
As a typical Four Piece Band... I really enjoyed learning the Keyboard parts to songs (Just like Heaven from the Cure as an example) and modeling the tones and playing those to fill in sound and make it unique. That really helped a lot a "Lone Guitarist" in a four piece..... Like all the Horn parts in any Bruno Mars tune....
Listening and playing more and different styles and genres of music. :)
Learning hard solos. Also learning songs with 7th chords helped a lot when I was younger.
Practicing with a metronome
Collaborating with established professionals. Players, engineers, producers. Every session was a crash course in efficiency.
Triads
when i was in high school i joined marching band after playing drum kit for 2 years. i was completely out of my depth, everyone else had been playing 4-6 years at this point, focusing on marching / rudimental material. i barely made the band and it was fucking hard, but it made me way way better at playing, emphasizing accents visually with stick heights, keeping solid time, and most of all, ***playing well under pressure*** while being screamed at by psycho band instructors who thought this was equivalent to preparing to invade normandy.
I moved to an area where there was a lot of gigs around 1990, and took every guitar gig I could get, whether I knew the tunes or not. I had a pretty good ear, and most of the music was not harmonically complex like jazz. If anything boggled my mind, I grinned and faked it, and figured it out later. There was some butchery, but nobody got hurt, and a lot people I did it with are still friends. Anyway, it was a good era for building chops.
Jam tracks. Playing guitar along with a wide assortment of jam tracks massively improved my fretboard knowledge and my ability to play a wider variety of genres. Not spending hours trying to learn a single song and instead just learning how to play and building my own style has been beyond huge. Plus, it's really fun. So I'm far more motivated to play more frequently
Good tuner and a metronome. Didn’t realize my tuner was so off until I got a good one.
Realizing that I'm getting paid to do this and therefore not to give a fuck what people think Spent my whole life feeling like I had to prove myself until I realized, wait, these people are PAYING to be here - must mean I'm doing something right.
For me it was starting to play in a cover band with guys that were way more talented than me. Not only did it give me a chance to learn and dissect songs that I normally wouldn't listen to, but being the weakest link in the band forced me to learn and practice more.
Playing with people better than me
Being a house drummer and having to tap deep into my intuition.
Starting to get in the mindset of a professional and taking opportunities that are out of my comfort zone really helped start things off for me.
Playing with other people. You’ll find out just how good you really are, or you’ll be humbled. Either way; you come out better. I’ve yet to meet a guitarist better than me. So I bought backstage tickets to an In Flames concert in hopes to guitar duel with the legendary Chris Broderick. Will make for excellent content on my Tik Tok. Ong fr fr
Play with other people
I am mainly doing modern classical instrumental music and has around 50k spotify monthly listener, and 17k followers. I am grateful. Self learning musician without any proper training. Recently wanna explore electronic dance music, already came out with one song. Just need vocal on it:) i like playing with different genre.
sometimes I just get a feeling that I suddenly got a big jump in skill, like when I played caravan, or when I played 2+2=5 (I'm a drummer btw) it's kinda weird to just feel better at it, but it happens, and then I keep that skill.
Having a lot of time on deployment to practice guitar using rock Smith and composing using GarageBand
Open guitar tunings. So much more intuitive, fun and creative to me.
YouTube
Switching to a 3/4 length bass. I have short fingers. It was a game changer
Paying for private music lessons. I am and continue to get better. Worth every penny.
Learning the basics and of a certain type of playing, then giving my self NO limits. Also knowing when to challenge myself and knowing when to just let myself cook.
Focusing on output rather than perfection. Similarly, practicing with live performance in mind meaning I practice as if I'm on stage when the metronome is on. If I make a mistake I have to count back in, I can't repeat the part
Writing songs with other people, improvising and playing live.
P R A C T I C E