don't seem to get any better on guitar

[Jerome Allen]

Bruce Bouillet...nice

I also recommend trying out the Mel Bay Complete book. I often tell my better students that if they can play through that entire book perfectly, then they can consider themselves an accomplished guitarist. I leave a copy on my living room coffee table and play through parts of it a few times a week. For me, what makes it work is...I pretend Steve Vai is sitting 2 feet in front me of me watching and listening to every single note I play. I have to play through every piece 10 or 11 times in a row absolutely perfectly. And since Steve Vai is right there, no mistake will go unnoticed. If I miss 1 note or there's some extraneous string noise, or improper muting on the 10th time through, I start all over again. Not only does it help with learning to read music, but I've found it also helped improve my picking accuracy, muting technique, left hand flexibility, ect. I'm a big Chet Atkins and Doc Watson fan, so playing through those "old style" pieces are actually fun for me.

 

[TDePaul1313]

Bruce Bouillet...nice

He is one of the best to me! So uderrated as a player.....I have friends that ask me, Hey who's that guy again that played w/ Paul Gilbert?

 

[rupe]

Here...learn this and your right hand will be better for it:

 

[metalmaniac93]

Here...learn this and your right hand will be better for it:

Roy Clark smokes as does a lot of the old country and country rock players like Doc Watson, Chet Atkins, Sppedy West, Jimmy Bryant, James Burton, and Scotty Moore to name a few!!! I wish I had the patience to sit down and learn this stuff.

 

[stompboxfreak72]

Get Jack Zucker's " Sheets of Sound " book and go straight to chapter 2. Its a pentatonic chapter and there are a boatload of examples and many of them involve sweep picking pentatonic shapes. Its Eric Johnsonesque and yet not. I started working on this in 2007 and it has paid off huge dividends and changedvmy playing. It makes you view the guitar and the shapes you use in a refreshing light.

I have been playing for 27 years and improvement is harder and harder to come by especially playing rock music. I still make big leaps but they take longer to develop now.

 

[IceMan]

This may sound a bit antithetical to what most people are saying.....but take a little break from guitar for a bit. Put it down for a couple weeks and do some other things or go on vacation. Then come back and dive into something new in terms of style or what others have suggested in this thread. Sometimes we get so involved and hell-bent on guitar/music that I think we get a sort of 'writer's block'. It's good to just step back every once in a while and then let the anticipation of playing build up then use that new-found urge to play to dive into some new material. Even pro players take some time away re-charge the batteries................

 

[Heritage Softail]

Taking a break isn't a bad idea.

But when you come back, pick up a Dire Straits book. Knopfler is a master at phrasing and putting feeling into simple passages. It sounds like speed and complexity alone is no longer gratifying.

 

[snowdog]

That Roy Clark video was bad ass.

 

[Spaceboy]

I recently changed picking techniques and its really seemed to open up something for me. I usually pick holding the pick three fingers, it's how I've always played. But I got interested in chicken pickin' which made me have to get used to holding with two fingers so that the middle is free. Well even if I'm not doing that style, holding the pick like this seems to glide over the string better instead of digging in how I used to.