I’m curious if anyone has done anything that is a new direction from their usual progress in guitar?
For me I played a couple open mics with country music. I was trying to learn the audience and last week they responded better with country than my usual punk rock and power ballads. The lesson was learning the audience and responding with songs they know.
This week I’m trying to play a whole song with all power chords to eventually get built up to all barre chords. My hands can’t take it too well but I’m determined to do at least one. I’m learning “Glycerine “ by Bush. F5-C5-D5-Bb5 for the most part. May take some extra time because my first run I did the verse with power chords and switched to open chords at the chorus. Trying to expand to mix on power or barre chords, but it’s a chore.
I’ve been learning a song that has me spanning 4 frets for the chords I need to play. My hand feels spread out pretty wide and it’s a challenge for me to get all notes to ring cleanly.
Same song has me playing a chord that’s requiring me to play the low root w/my pinky.
The chords in this song also must move smooth. Each of these chords are having me have to move to a total different grip than it’s previous chord.
I’m finding it hard (especially to make it a smooth change). And I been playing a while too. Just never attempting anything like this before though I guess.
It’s also requiring me to play barre G (partial) and barre C. While I’ve been aware of these for a while, I’ve not played a song that required me to play it total cleanly.
4 months into this song and I still ain’t got it right. Close, but no cigar.
I’ve been writing songs and using AI production. I’m just scratching the surface, and have a ways to go. Lots of new directions to take as the tech expands and becomes more useful.
I’m currently obsessed with triads. Learning heaps and finding getting to where I can fret them quickly and cleanly to be quite the challenge. In that regard it’s like I’m back to being a beginner again. It’s fascinating to me how many different places chords can be voiced on the fretboard using triads. Sticking to the 4 higher strings at the moment.
Some years ago I took a guitar lesson with a teacher with the goal of learning to solo. He said at the time it was important to learn the chord tones for all the chords but didn’t really give any guidance as to how.
Came across a youtube video a few months back that explained when you strum any chord, if you take one of the root notes and slide up four frets you have the 3rd, then one string higher and back 2 frets (unless it’s the B then back 1 fret) and you have the 5th, then 5 frets higher and you have another root note. That’s been a real game changer for me, now I can find the chord tones easily for all the major chords, open or barre. Woo hoo.
Next comes what to do with all that new knowledge. haha. While I do some pentatonic stuff at the new root note position, it’s really triads that are grabbing me at the moment.
That’s awesome. I had a private instructor for a while a couple years who taught me to solo and scales . I’m still not great at it but I eventually need to pull it off the shelf to step up to the next level.