Technical List Question

1

Hi,
My teacher has recently stopped lessons with me due to how busy he is for a while, so I have 6 months to do some independent study.
I’m going to start with a bit of a deep dive into some of the Technical/Technique parts of my playing that I (and assume lots of people) neglect. I’ve made a list below of some of the things I plan to work on. My question is - can you suggest anything I’ve missed that you think would be useful to tackle that will make guitar playing easier in the future?

Triads - knowing where they are in all inversions, how to link them to play chord progressions, descending through the scale diatonically

Arpeggios - ascending and descending through the CAGED shapes from all root notes, improvising and playing with the shapes

Pentatonics - Major and Minor, knowing where the root notes are, linking between the patterns, improvising

Scales - Learning the full major and natural minor scale shapes, scale sequences and scales in 3rds etc.

Chords - playing chord progressions in different ways with a variety of different chord types

Legato - improve my pull-offs to play runs

Not all of this at once obviously, and a lot of stuff on this list I ‘sort of’ know, but it’s getting the knowledge at my fingertips in a jamming situation.
Many thanks and any advice appreciated.

2

Guess this very much depends on where you are at right now and what you have covered already.

:sunglasses:

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3

This is a fair comment

4

One huge thing missing from your list is songs. Learn, play , develop songs.
:sunglasses:

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5

Thanks - yeah I have a list of songs I’m working on too - this is just the technical side of my practice schedule

6

But techniques need to be applied or what is their point.
:+1:

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7

Add dynamics (the aggression of string attack) to your list. This is useful no matter what style you play.

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8

just a few things that I need to work on, they may or may not be relevant to the styles you play:

string bending, vibrato, alternate picking, improving picking speed, using double stops, using slides, string muting (both palm and with fretting hand), transcribing

9

And what you consider to be your strengths and weaknesses. If you’re taking in person lessons and there is going to be a gap of 6 months can the teacher not provide you with a schedule of things to continue to work on and consolidate along with a schedule of things to work on in preparation of the lessons resuming.

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10

Something I’ve been doing lately is learning and playing 3 note 7th chords known as shell voicings. What’s been a real ear opener for me is putting the shapes together (similar to triads) on the fretboard and opening up a whole world of intervalic sounds.

The bonus on top of this is when I play these forms I have the underlying diatonic scale shapes/forms visualized around them and can play any colour extension I wish. It’s a really great sound with 3 and a 4th note or so on top.

Completely opens up a whole new palette for me, and I have a long way to go.