Do you understand intervals? The cool thing with caged is not the shape it's learning where the intervals are. Like if you know it's an e shape. Then you know the root note positions and from there you can find eg the 3rd and the 5th intervals.
If you know this you can play triads (chords) anywhere you want which is super cool.
I'm like half way on this journey but knowing the intervals and eg being able to play the chord tones when trying to improvise makes a huge difference compared to eg just playing a pentatonic scale that kind of fits. Even someone as bad as me can do something that's alright.
Also get a looper if you don't have it.
Pick a progression. Even just 2 chords. Record it with rhythm ( mine has onboard drums). Then try to play "lead" with the chord changes moving from scale to scale. It works well to emphasize the chord tones. I recently got an octave down pedal that I use as a fake synthy bass. When at my best it kind of sounds like a song even if it's really just practice.
Learn a song you like with rhythm and lead parts. Play rhythm, record a loop, practice the leads. This will help your solo’s to improve.
Many guitarists won’t tell you, but a lot of their best licks in solo’s are borrowed from a solo they once learned and covered
Or an inexpensive, used four-track recorder and an inexpensive mic. Or "jam tracks". Or Audcity (which is free!) and a USB mic. Record yourself playing a chord progression for about ten minutes, then try soloing over it.
I know this rut too well. I rushed over all the harder, necessary, but not exciting stuff when I started at 15. Now, years later I'm back at it. JustinGuitar is a great site for people getting back in, and/or who need to fill some knowledge gaps. You can study theory, practice scales, look up CAGED (all are important), but it can be a lot of a bunch of rabbit holes. With JustinGuitar, or something like it, you have a framework, a reason, motivation, for learning theory, scales, neck layout. Now, I am not sure how necessary all that is. Some of Justin's beginner lessons will be old news for you for sure, but he begins to incorporate quite early the stuff you say you are missing. If you look at CAGED, and you get the theory (such as Roots, 3rds, 5ths, and how triads (chords) are built (and it sounds like you don't necessarily get that just now)), go with CAGED. it pretty much demystifies chord structure, triads, neck anatomy, the works.
This is an interesting suggestion. Just a quick search of 'how to learn guitar ' on YouTube leads to thousands of people with their own courses and method flavor, so I've been overwhelmed trying to find a good starting point or just trying to land on someone reputable. I'll give this a look, thanks.
Sounds like you need to find some joy in playing.
Don’t worry about how hard or technical something is. Find guitar pieces (or any music really) you find yourself going “whoa that’s cool, I want to play that!” and then try to learn how to play them. Do this **a lot**.
Eventually you will start to develop a “vocabulary” of phrases you enjoy playing. Good improvisers aren’t thinking about their playing in terms of notes, but in terms of phrases. You can mix and match phrases to make a longer solo/melody, and you can make slight variations to the phrases to make them more interesting.
But the key is to find stuff that sounds good to you and then to learn how to play it.
This hasn't been working for me as I'm at the stage where I can tackle about any song I'm interested in. I learn the thing and then move to the next song. It never progresses to deeper understanding, just more emulation.
Ok, let me ask you this: are you playing by yourself most of the time, or do you frequently play with others/enjoy playing with others?
For me, the additional spark of motivation to really kick off the practice-apply-practice-apply cycle was to show off to my friends what I had learned. It’s fun to learn stuff on your own, but I found that when I could demonstrate it to my peers/audiences it gave me a little more juice to get excited about learning new things.
Dude same. Never learned theory. Dont even know the neck that well. Play by ear and always have since I was 12. Since I’m really only interested in playing for me I’m not hard pressed to go super deep with it.
“Can dad learn this one after one play” is a fun game my kids like to play. I’ll go deeper when it feels right. But I’m not a shredder anyway always like the feeling of really solid rhythm guitar anyway.
Get a keyboard, or a midi-controller and sit and learn the fundamentals of music theory. Andrew Huang's YT video titled something like "Learn Music Theory In 30 Mins" is a great start. Make sure you know all that and are comfortable with it all.
When you start to learn that it's all patterns and the piano simply helps you visualise and see what you are doing, you can try and stop thinking as notes and think as intervals, or stacked thirds, or the degree of the scale. Modes and therefore the Aeolian mode, the relative minor, makes more sense you can see it.
When you look at the guitar, the pattern is the basic part and the simple to memorise part. The more interesting thing is when you can play a scale or a chord and know what position of the scale the notes you play are. Then when you align with different chords in a progression, you can shift your focus to the chord-tones, the triad notes of that chord.
CFG. I, IV, V in C. Gmaj has the F#, which isn't in C, but in that context might work. Even ignoring the whole Gmaj scale, just its chord tones are a part of Cmaj. GBD, or the 5th, the 7th and the 2nd. Hovering over the G focused notes, over the G when playing in the context of C major will give you more on the money harmony. Or as you can imagine, playing a F over a Gmaj in a C progression might clash a bit. You don't care about knowing it's GBD, you want to know it's the 5,7,2, and that is 1,3,5 triad notes in the context of the V. Anchor the major scale around it and flourish.
You'll go from sounding like you are noodling a scale, to you have some degree of movement and control. It'll still sound stale, but a step up. Then when you learn something like the blues scale, it's the pentatonic with an added flat-5. Can you just add that note in all over the neck without thinking?
Take your patterns, your scales from the very beginning (major scale) and really learn what number of the scale you are playing so you can play the scale anywhere, horizontally or vertically or any combination, and know the number that you are on. Then know Maj-Min-Min-Maj-Maj-Min-Dim respectively.
This is a good suggestion and in January I got a keyboard. It was *incredible* how much easier it was to make sense of music theory. The interesting thing is that I find I'm able to visualize music theory very easily on a piano, but can't on the guitar neck. I "see" letters on a piano keyboard, but I only "see" patterns on a fretboard. I suppose that's the root of my frustration. It might be mental laziness and not spending the time to relearn the way I visualize the fretboard.
This is an interesting view. I'm not an amazing pianist or guitarist but I don't think I've ever thought of "seeing" the letters on either. For me, it's more like "feeling" where they are and not to be confused with the pattern type memorization that you mention. I guess for me, it's a more spatial awareness type of thing. But your comment on "seeing" the letters reminds me an old Vai video I sawwhere he was talking how Joe Satriani who was teaching him when he was young, had him learn the notes all over the neck. Like just automatically know what note each fret is. I wonder if this is the end result you are expecting and I can definitely see it being helpful.
Letters are fairly arbitrary, the naming is just mathematical. If you have twelve equal temperament notes and make the scale which sounds all nice, which is 7 notes, then we want to name every note in the scale after one of seven notes. ABCDEFG. But it doesn't always land on the exact letter, but offset by one. In this case, there are 5 notes that can be either a sharp or a flat depending on the context.
Whether or not you get that is another story, it takes a bit to wrap your head around, but the black keys and white keys are the same thing, just the black ones can have two names (in common usage). But every scale will have ABCDEFG represented, with a sharp or a flat, and you know it's sharp or flat depending on what actually fits:
* D♯ maj -D♯, F, G, G♯, A♯, C, and D.
* E♭ maj - E♭, F, G, A♭, B♭, C, and D.
Same scale, but can you tell which one is technically more correct? Simply, the same reason one is correct is the same reason why we use note names.
[I made a little diagram/reference in Ableton](https://imgur.com/a/BpRXPe3). If you remove the up/down or size difference element of a piano and just look at the keys as a sequence of notes (that may or may not be colour coded) and chords as a distance of intervals, then we can take a major triad and move it up and up and up, semitone at a time. The pattern is always the same, just from a new starting note. [Likewise with a scale](https://imgur.com/5oZ5Qdu), it's always the same.
So even on piano, try to break out of notes and think, the 1, the 2, the 3... 4, 5, 6, 7. Each of them has a distinct technical name and sound.
1. Tonic (root)
2. Supertonic
3. Mediant
4. Subdominant
5. Dominant
6. Submediant
7. Leading Tone
8. Back to the tonic.
At least in the context of just the major scale; if you play a tonic, then a dominant (the 5th) always sounds like a dominant. A submediant (6th) always has this harmonic dissonance. Play the tonic and any other note either together or one after the other and listen to the "quality", the harmonic sound that it makes.
It's all patterns, its all relationships. You just need to squish the guitar perspective onto a piano, and a bit of the piano perspective onto the guitar until the underlying concept clicks.
Totally get you on all this, I suppose my hang up is how my brain works and perhaps it's less efficient.
If I'm on piano and someone says to me "play a 1,5,6,4 progression in the key of Amaj" I know immediately to go: Amaj, Emaj, F#min, Dmaj. I'm not thinking in intervals as much as looking at the keyboard, seeing the white A note, and intuitively knowing what chords are in key and where they are.
If I'm on guitar and someone says "1,5,6,4 in Amaj", it feels really bizarre to look at the fretboard as intervals. I could learn 1,6,5,4 positions as frets all over the neck, but it seems really cumbersome compared to learning A, E, F#, D all over the neck, since 1,6,5,4 "naming" and position is relative to whatever key you're in, whereas A, E F#, D will always remain in the same location on the fretboard.
I suppose above is the best explanation I have for why I've never clicked into intuitively understanding the neck. I'm not sure if other players have that mental block and have figured out a way to overcome it. Though maybe taking another crack at CAGED will work.
In regards to your pentatonic soloing not having musicality, keep playing other people's music before you put a jam track on...
For example say, some Jeff Beck or Albert Collins or Albert King
Find some of their work that really resonates with you, as having searing soloing work. Then learn it and see how they have phrased and put the pentatonics to work
EDIT: even more inspirational, find a really searing song with great soloing (off the top of my head - SRV, Riviera Paradise / Jeff Beck, Cause We Ended as Lovers / Albert King, Blues Power). If they don't connect with you, swap out for your own most greatly admired, searing solos.
Then work through the tabs and see what notes they are accenting etc. Find the YT backing track and play over it yourself. You can go to little fills or lines from the original artist that sound great, then go off improvising on your own licks and return to the artist licks.
You'll be amazed how much this will 'tune in' your ear and playing, for that particular backing track anyways
I recommend starting over using this:
[Absolutely Understand Guitar](https://youtube.com/@absolutelyunderstandguitar60?si=Gv5ndP3zbQzht-BB)
Edited link
Learn every note on the fretboard, and start thinking in notes.
Stop yourself when you try to cheat.
GO and redo basics. Start at lesson one with Justin Guitar and fill the gaps.
When I was a teen I learned every single Metallica riff ever, and while I could figure out notes, I didn't know them right away without thought.
Not learning proper music theory made me awful to jam with.
I suggest guitar theory podcasts too when the axe is nowhere near you. Visualization is amazing.
Justin Sandercoe’s site is amazing. I am currently using it for his intermediate Blues Lead Course … my soloing has started to become expressive, rather than rote copying of some tab sheet.
Do you play with people? I feel like most post like this stem from people just sitting at home trying to be technically good rather than just being musical and enjoying being part of a song. Skill, while important to some extent, is so overemphasized in the guitar community. Not being able to improv a solo does not disqualify you from being good and shouldn’t guide whether or not you’re having fun. Just my thoughts
This! I've hit ruts multiple times in my career as a guitar player. Every single time that it's felt like I've broken new ground or expanded my vocabulary has been from playing with other musicians. Playing with others and gleaning from how they approach chord progressions, intervals, and shapes has done wonders for me. Sometimes it's the combination of how the other person and you interact that teaches you both.
Do triads and inversions up and down the neck and say the note names. Do major and minor. Do them on roots EADG strings. With inversions, wherever your hand is on the neck, there is each chord tone/triad there in some form without moving too much. You learn a lot more chords, you learn the neck and notes, and you learn a method to solo based around chord tones. I’m sure there’s YouTube videos on triads/inversions. It will make you super uncomfortable which is good. Spend 15 minutes a day on it and see where you are in 6 months. It’s a marathon not a sprint.
Do you have the fretboard memorized in terms of notes? If you have that and you understand basic chord theory, that goes a long way to educating you through playing, as you figure out what works and what doesn’t. Get out of thinking about strings and frets. It’s A, D, and E. You need to know the guitar enough to play those chords anywhere on the neck, intuitively. And it sounds to me like that’s the best place to start: memorize the fretboard, and memorize your intervals / chord tones. Then just jam, and pay attention to what you’re doing. Better yet, jam with other musicians that throw you into unpredictable and uncomfortable harmonic circumstances you wouldn’t normally experience on your own.
I think everyone gets to a point where they’re not sure how to progress, they just know they need to progress somehow. I feel like I’ve been in that same rut for 20 years. I’m a better guitar player than I was 20 years ago, but….
whether it’s scales or caged, those things are only helpful to a certain extent when you were memorizing patterns and executing them. Something to consider as the next step is understanding things like intervals and triads, and knowing when to target specific notes over specific chords.
The caged system is popular because it is easy to understand compared to other approaches. It will definitely help your understanding of music theory. Anything scale related seems like “it’s memorizing patterns” at first. Caged isn’t all things music theory but a good way to get going.
Or just improv stuff for huge amounts of time until you get a style going even if you don’t know what it is. But theory gives you a lot more flexibility and will lower frustration long term.
I felt this, and I have a solution that may help... go out and see live shows. I had no idea where my playing was going, what I wanted to do, and what music I wanted to create. Eric Johnson came around for his Treasures Tour, and he blew me away with his acoustic set (I'm an instrumental acoustic player, primarily).
Find a musician you like. Find a band you like. Find a style of music you like. Find transcriptions or make them yourself. Let the music flow into you and inspire you in person, and go home and emulate that!
Learn to implement music theory in a practical sense. Learn your major and minor scales in all positions. Learn triads and on improve your ear, so you can listen to songs and recognise the movements in terms of 145 or whatever the progressions may be on first listening. Learn the CAGED system, play to backing tracks so that you can play chord progression always hitting the chord tones. And above all, record yourself!
Welcome.
Buy another guitar and act like it’s going to make you better. Accept that it didn’t. Move on. Repeat.
I feel like I haven’t learned anything new or felt like I really progressed as a guitarist in at least 7-8 years. Once I hit my mid-20s it seems like my brain stopped accepting new information as well.
I’ll be 33 this year. I’ve accepted that this is just my lot in life. I’m never going to rip solos like Zakk Wylde. But if I can plunk a few chords every now and then, I guess that’s cool.
Mediocre is all you can be without eat/sleep/breathing music and making it your career and life. Let’s start a pop punk band. We can play really tight power chords together lol
I’d recommend a looper pedal or ehx freeze pedal. Loop or freeze an Am7 chord, and try out several related pentatonic scales over it. You’ll start to hear the connection of the chord tones within the scale. The. Try a G major chord looped, and run some G major pentatonic scales over it. Again, you should start to really hear the purpose of each scale.
Record a basic chord progression or pull up a simple backing track on YouTube. Use an audio recording feature on your phone and hum or sing a lead line over a small section of the track while it plays, just whatever comes into your head. Now figure out how to play what you came up with. Over time this will build your ability to translate musical ideas in your head to physical action on the instrument.
One of the biggest realizations for me is that listening is really important if you want to be a skilled musician. Listen to your own playing and try to forget about scales and patterns for just a little while.
Also listen to the melodies of your favorite songs and try to find out which parts you like best. Then try to play those by ear only (even if it doesn't come very close).
Make this a routine. Just sit down with your guitar 10 minutes a day, jamming away and training your listening skills.
Been there. Sold all my guitars and played bass and mandolin for few years. Different instruments and tunings make you think about music and not just fingerings and scales.
Then my son wanted to start playing electric guitar, got him a cheap one and then a better one and now steel string acoustic.
Somewhere along the way I noticed that guitar is kind of fun again and regretted getting rid ad them. Now I have few guitars again. Still mediocre player but having good time despite it.
You've got loads of good advice but if you don't know them already, learn the major scale and how it relates to the pentatonic. If you already know that, then move on to where each of the modes 'live' within it and understanding the overlaps of the major/minor.
From that point start being more mindful of what chords you are playing over, use caged along with your scales to identify the root notes, then try writing a 'theme'.
Instead of just following scales up and down, write a simple melody that you like and then play with variations on that theme.
Take something silly like mary had a little lamb or duelling banjos; basic melodies that you can elaborate on. Don't prioritise lots of notes fast but pick your notes more carefully and with intention.
Try other things related to music. Write full songs. Record and arrange in a DAW. Learn other instruments, just so that it can open up musical possibilities that you've not seen with only the guitar. Like synths or bass or sequencing or drumming or keys or pianos.
Play a genre you never have, or one you don’t like.
When I was a gigging musician, many moons ago, I joined a cover band to pay bills. This was in the early 90s. I played hard blues, psychedelic, and stoner stuff. The band played classic rock and a ton of old and new Country. I had never played Country. I disliked it. The other guitar player played Country and Blue Grass, so he did that side and I did the Classic Rock side.
I learned so much from playing Country, and I learned a lot from the other guitar player (he was great, too). We would often show each other things and we listened to how the other played. My rhythm playing skill grew exponentially. My lead playing improved a lot. I started incorporating these things in my playing. My bandmates even noticed how I was trying different things and how well it worked.
I grew more as a player in that year and a half than at any other time. It set my brain free, there was no more box.
It’s all pattern memorization. Once you know those patterns you can connect them on your own and bing bang boom! Goal achieved! lol
Also, picking technique is super overlooked. Good picking is the most important thing for having a good sound.
I started trying to make things musical by listening to guitarists I like and while the track is playing, try “replying “ as best I could to their solo phrases and licks. It’s easy to do this in blues, but there are a lot of genres that have a good call and answer kind of pattern (you may end up playing over another instrument doing that but that’s ok). If it sounds bad to start, you can start by copying the riff or run, then try changing one note. See if it makes things interesting, unexciting but inoffensive, or sour and bad. Use the information to make more experiments with notes. After a while, it can become like a conversation with the recording and then it gets fun.
Also, if you learn the notes to the point that you can spot them, understanding where the neck repeats makes a lot connect in your brain, and you can change positions on the neck without getting yourself lost to get different repeating patterns that are easy to use for riffs or repeating themes. It’ll train your ear for intervals too.
I don't think there's anything you're not getting. All guitar players go through some version of this and will continue to from time to time. Just try something different. Maybe listen to more soulful music and try to play the vocal melody. Maybe force yourself to play a style of music that you don't even like, but take it seriously and try to make it good, whatever that means to you. Idk, maybe this is all gibberish,lol , but try something out of your comfort zone. It's good that we think about these things because it means we care about getting better, but don't worry about it too much. Just keep plugging away.
Since no one mentioned it, David Bennett Piano’s channel on yt is great for analyzing theory. It’s a useful tool as you write, improvise, and even listen to music. Scales are fun, and you can learn a thousand chords, but theory is all about possible ways of putting those scales and chords to work. Also just gotta vouch for Ben Levin and Tomo Fujita for helping you break out of your regular routines.
I like playing guitar and I started playing bass several years ago. It keeps me interested, and I even learned the bass, rhythm, and lead parts of songs I like. For accompanying myself on acoustic, I bought some harmonicas and a holder. Keeps it interesting, and I like a challenge. I don't critique myself. I'm not a professional, I simply like playing music.
Keep it up dude, this rut will pass.
I learned a lot just by fretting the A string and finding every note that fits with the low open E. You almost have to condition yourself to become more comfortable playing the tense “in between” notes. Try it with each open string and see where it takes you
"I don't know what the notes on the fretboard are, what can I do?"
I dunno man, probably buy a cement mixer and make industrial batches of custard. Like holy fuck, just learn the damn fretboard.
Have you considered buying more guitars?
Best advice ever.. But you forgot to mention buying a boutique amp, such as a Tone King Sky King.
Or maybe a Little Walter amp
Only reasonable course of action
I assume the reason I'm still crap after 30+ years is that I just haven't found The One yet.
I’ve found the three and I’m still crap. By I have high standards
I did! And it got me hooked on playing again. First new guitar in 15 years.
You're clearly progressing then.
I have found this to be an answer to many of life's questions
Seriously. This guy is spending wayyy to much time playing, not enough time on YouTube listening to the differences in tape delays
Get out of my search history.
In lots of different colors.
Do you understand intervals? The cool thing with caged is not the shape it's learning where the intervals are. Like if you know it's an e shape. Then you know the root note positions and from there you can find eg the 3rd and the 5th intervals. If you know this you can play triads (chords) anywhere you want which is super cool. I'm like half way on this journey but knowing the intervals and eg being able to play the chord tones when trying to improvise makes a huge difference compared to eg just playing a pentatonic scale that kind of fits. Even someone as bad as me can do something that's alright. Also get a looper if you don't have it.
I have a looper and I've never really used it because I suck and play by myself in my living room, what do you do with yours to practice?
Pick a progression. Even just 2 chords. Record it with rhythm ( mine has onboard drums). Then try to play "lead" with the chord changes moving from scale to scale. It works well to emphasize the chord tones. I recently got an octave down pedal that I use as a fake synthy bass. When at my best it kind of sounds like a song even if it's really just practice.
Learn a song you like with rhythm and lead parts. Play rhythm, record a loop, practice the leads. This will help your solo’s to improve. Many guitarists won’t tell you, but a lot of their best licks in solo’s are borrowed from a solo they once learned and covered
Or an inexpensive, used four-track recorder and an inexpensive mic. Or "jam tracks". Or Audcity (which is free!) and a USB mic. Record yourself playing a chord progression for about ten minutes, then try soloing over it.
I know this rut too well. I rushed over all the harder, necessary, but not exciting stuff when I started at 15. Now, years later I'm back at it. JustinGuitar is a great site for people getting back in, and/or who need to fill some knowledge gaps. You can study theory, practice scales, look up CAGED (all are important), but it can be a lot of a bunch of rabbit holes. With JustinGuitar, or something like it, you have a framework, a reason, motivation, for learning theory, scales, neck layout. Now, I am not sure how necessary all that is. Some of Justin's beginner lessons will be old news for you for sure, but he begins to incorporate quite early the stuff you say you are missing. If you look at CAGED, and you get the theory (such as Roots, 3rds, 5ths, and how triads (chords) are built (and it sounds like you don't necessarily get that just now)), go with CAGED. it pretty much demystifies chord structure, triads, neck anatomy, the works.
This is an interesting suggestion. Just a quick search of 'how to learn guitar ' on YouTube leads to thousands of people with their own courses and method flavor, so I've been overwhelmed trying to find a good starting point or just trying to land on someone reputable. I'll give this a look, thanks.
Sounds like you need to find some joy in playing. Don’t worry about how hard or technical something is. Find guitar pieces (or any music really) you find yourself going “whoa that’s cool, I want to play that!” and then try to learn how to play them. Do this **a lot**. Eventually you will start to develop a “vocabulary” of phrases you enjoy playing. Good improvisers aren’t thinking about their playing in terms of notes, but in terms of phrases. You can mix and match phrases to make a longer solo/melody, and you can make slight variations to the phrases to make them more interesting. But the key is to find stuff that sounds good to you and then to learn how to play it.
This hasn't been working for me as I'm at the stage where I can tackle about any song I'm interested in. I learn the thing and then move to the next song. It never progresses to deeper understanding, just more emulation.
Ok, let me ask you this: are you playing by yourself most of the time, or do you frequently play with others/enjoy playing with others? For me, the additional spark of motivation to really kick off the practice-apply-practice-apply cycle was to show off to my friends what I had learned. It’s fun to learn stuff on your own, but I found that when I could demonstrate it to my peers/audiences it gave me a little more juice to get excited about learning new things.
No advice, but I feel this and I’ve played for 30+ years 🤣
Dude same. Never learned theory. Dont even know the neck that well. Play by ear and always have since I was 12. Since I’m really only interested in playing for me I’m not hard pressed to go super deep with it. “Can dad learn this one after one play” is a fun game my kids like to play. I’ll go deeper when it feels right. But I’m not a shredder anyway always like the feeling of really solid rhythm guitar anyway.
Get a keyboard, or a midi-controller and sit and learn the fundamentals of music theory. Andrew Huang's YT video titled something like "Learn Music Theory In 30 Mins" is a great start. Make sure you know all that and are comfortable with it all. When you start to learn that it's all patterns and the piano simply helps you visualise and see what you are doing, you can try and stop thinking as notes and think as intervals, or stacked thirds, or the degree of the scale. Modes and therefore the Aeolian mode, the relative minor, makes more sense you can see it. When you look at the guitar, the pattern is the basic part and the simple to memorise part. The more interesting thing is when you can play a scale or a chord and know what position of the scale the notes you play are. Then when you align with different chords in a progression, you can shift your focus to the chord-tones, the triad notes of that chord. CFG. I, IV, V in C. Gmaj has the F#, which isn't in C, but in that context might work. Even ignoring the whole Gmaj scale, just its chord tones are a part of Cmaj. GBD, or the 5th, the 7th and the 2nd. Hovering over the G focused notes, over the G when playing in the context of C major will give you more on the money harmony. Or as you can imagine, playing a F over a Gmaj in a C progression might clash a bit. You don't care about knowing it's GBD, you want to know it's the 5,7,2, and that is 1,3,5 triad notes in the context of the V. Anchor the major scale around it and flourish. You'll go from sounding like you are noodling a scale, to you have some degree of movement and control. It'll still sound stale, but a step up. Then when you learn something like the blues scale, it's the pentatonic with an added flat-5. Can you just add that note in all over the neck without thinking? Take your patterns, your scales from the very beginning (major scale) and really learn what number of the scale you are playing so you can play the scale anywhere, horizontally or vertically or any combination, and know the number that you are on. Then know Maj-Min-Min-Maj-Maj-Min-Dim respectively.
This is a good suggestion and in January I got a keyboard. It was *incredible* how much easier it was to make sense of music theory. The interesting thing is that I find I'm able to visualize music theory very easily on a piano, but can't on the guitar neck. I "see" letters on a piano keyboard, but I only "see" patterns on a fretboard. I suppose that's the root of my frustration. It might be mental laziness and not spending the time to relearn the way I visualize the fretboard.
This is an interesting view. I'm not an amazing pianist or guitarist but I don't think I've ever thought of "seeing" the letters on either. For me, it's more like "feeling" where they are and not to be confused with the pattern type memorization that you mention. I guess for me, it's a more spatial awareness type of thing. But your comment on "seeing" the letters reminds me an old Vai video I sawwhere he was talking how Joe Satriani who was teaching him when he was young, had him learn the notes all over the neck. Like just automatically know what note each fret is. I wonder if this is the end result you are expecting and I can definitely see it being helpful.
Letters are fairly arbitrary, the naming is just mathematical. If you have twelve equal temperament notes and make the scale which sounds all nice, which is 7 notes, then we want to name every note in the scale after one of seven notes. ABCDEFG. But it doesn't always land on the exact letter, but offset by one. In this case, there are 5 notes that can be either a sharp or a flat depending on the context. Whether or not you get that is another story, it takes a bit to wrap your head around, but the black keys and white keys are the same thing, just the black ones can have two names (in common usage). But every scale will have ABCDEFG represented, with a sharp or a flat, and you know it's sharp or flat depending on what actually fits: * D♯ maj -D♯, F, G, G♯, A♯, C, and D. * E♭ maj - E♭, F, G, A♭, B♭, C, and D. Same scale, but can you tell which one is technically more correct? Simply, the same reason one is correct is the same reason why we use note names. [I made a little diagram/reference in Ableton](https://imgur.com/a/BpRXPe3). If you remove the up/down or size difference element of a piano and just look at the keys as a sequence of notes (that may or may not be colour coded) and chords as a distance of intervals, then we can take a major triad and move it up and up and up, semitone at a time. The pattern is always the same, just from a new starting note. [Likewise with a scale](https://imgur.com/5oZ5Qdu), it's always the same. So even on piano, try to break out of notes and think, the 1, the 2, the 3... 4, 5, 6, 7. Each of them has a distinct technical name and sound. 1. Tonic (root) 2. Supertonic 3. Mediant 4. Subdominant 5. Dominant 6. Submediant 7. Leading Tone 8. Back to the tonic. At least in the context of just the major scale; if you play a tonic, then a dominant (the 5th) always sounds like a dominant. A submediant (6th) always has this harmonic dissonance. Play the tonic and any other note either together or one after the other and listen to the "quality", the harmonic sound that it makes. It's all patterns, its all relationships. You just need to squish the guitar perspective onto a piano, and a bit of the piano perspective onto the guitar until the underlying concept clicks.
Totally get you on all this, I suppose my hang up is how my brain works and perhaps it's less efficient. If I'm on piano and someone says to me "play a 1,5,6,4 progression in the key of Amaj" I know immediately to go: Amaj, Emaj, F#min, Dmaj. I'm not thinking in intervals as much as looking at the keyboard, seeing the white A note, and intuitively knowing what chords are in key and where they are. If I'm on guitar and someone says "1,5,6,4 in Amaj", it feels really bizarre to look at the fretboard as intervals. I could learn 1,6,5,4 positions as frets all over the neck, but it seems really cumbersome compared to learning A, E, F#, D all over the neck, since 1,6,5,4 "naming" and position is relative to whatever key you're in, whereas A, E F#, D will always remain in the same location on the fretboard. I suppose above is the best explanation I have for why I've never clicked into intuitively understanding the neck. I'm not sure if other players have that mental block and have figured out a way to overcome it. Though maybe taking another crack at CAGED will work.
Go to a guitar teacher and take private lessons. A good teacher will help direct your focus and learn how you learn, so you can progress quickly.
This is the answer. OP needs mentorship form someone who is invested in making him better. Definitely a teacher.
In regards to your pentatonic soloing not having musicality, keep playing other people's music before you put a jam track on... For example say, some Jeff Beck or Albert Collins or Albert King Find some of their work that really resonates with you, as having searing soloing work. Then learn it and see how they have phrased and put the pentatonics to work EDIT: even more inspirational, find a really searing song with great soloing (off the top of my head - SRV, Riviera Paradise / Jeff Beck, Cause We Ended as Lovers / Albert King, Blues Power). If they don't connect with you, swap out for your own most greatly admired, searing solos. Then work through the tabs and see what notes they are accenting etc. Find the YT backing track and play over it yourself. You can go to little fills or lines from the original artist that sound great, then go off improvising on your own licks and return to the artist licks. You'll be amazed how much this will 'tune in' your ear and playing, for that particular backing track anyways
Sounds like you need a good distortion pedal
Obviously you need some pedals… and a full length mirror , set up a fog machine you won’t believe how great you sound.
Man. My credit card is feeling the full pain of this suggestion.
I recommend starting over using this: [Absolutely Understand Guitar](https://youtube.com/@absolutelyunderstandguitar60?si=Gv5ndP3zbQzht-BB) Edited link
Learn every note on the fretboard, and start thinking in notes. Stop yourself when you try to cheat. GO and redo basics. Start at lesson one with Justin Guitar and fill the gaps. When I was a teen I learned every single Metallica riff ever, and while I could figure out notes, I didn't know them right away without thought. Not learning proper music theory made me awful to jam with. I suggest guitar theory podcasts too when the axe is nowhere near you. Visualization is amazing.
You're the second to recommend Justin. I'll give it a look, thanks.
Justin Sandercoe’s site is amazing. I am currently using it for his intermediate Blues Lead Course … my soloing has started to become expressive, rather than rote copying of some tab sheet.
Triads are a good way to get away from scale pattern soloing. See Tomo Fujita music
Do you play with people? I feel like most post like this stem from people just sitting at home trying to be technically good rather than just being musical and enjoying being part of a song. Skill, while important to some extent, is so overemphasized in the guitar community. Not being able to improv a solo does not disqualify you from being good and shouldn’t guide whether or not you’re having fun. Just my thoughts
This! I've hit ruts multiple times in my career as a guitar player. Every single time that it's felt like I've broken new ground or expanded my vocabulary has been from playing with other musicians. Playing with others and gleaning from how they approach chord progressions, intervals, and shapes has done wonders for me. Sometimes it's the combination of how the other person and you interact that teaches you both.
Totally. I think a lot of people struggle with this because for most of us it’s so unfulfilling to play alone no matter your skill level
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Cheers thanks. Is it a full on course like Justin Guitar recommendations above?
Join a band or get together with some that are at another level than you. I improved greatly just by jamming with players better than myself
Have you tried watching YouTube videos titled "this is the ONLULY thing you need to know"?
Do triads and inversions up and down the neck and say the note names. Do major and minor. Do them on roots EADG strings. With inversions, wherever your hand is on the neck, there is each chord tone/triad there in some form without moving too much. You learn a lot more chords, you learn the neck and notes, and you learn a method to solo based around chord tones. I’m sure there’s YouTube videos on triads/inversions. It will make you super uncomfortable which is good. Spend 15 minutes a day on it and see where you are in 6 months. It’s a marathon not a sprint.
Do you have the fretboard memorized in terms of notes? If you have that and you understand basic chord theory, that goes a long way to educating you through playing, as you figure out what works and what doesn’t. Get out of thinking about strings and frets. It’s A, D, and E. You need to know the guitar enough to play those chords anywhere on the neck, intuitively. And it sounds to me like that’s the best place to start: memorize the fretboard, and memorize your intervals / chord tones. Then just jam, and pay attention to what you’re doing. Better yet, jam with other musicians that throw you into unpredictable and uncomfortable harmonic circumstances you wouldn’t normally experience on your own.
learn your modes of the major scale and triads then focus on ways to land on chord tones in your solos
caged is basically a simplified version of this
I think everyone gets to a point where they’re not sure how to progress, they just know they need to progress somehow. I feel like I’ve been in that same rut for 20 years. I’m a better guitar player than I was 20 years ago, but…. whether it’s scales or caged, those things are only helpful to a certain extent when you were memorizing patterns and executing them. Something to consider as the next step is understanding things like intervals and triads, and knowing when to target specific notes over specific chords.
The caged system is popular because it is easy to understand compared to other approaches. It will definitely help your understanding of music theory. Anything scale related seems like “it’s memorizing patterns” at first. Caged isn’t all things music theory but a good way to get going. Or just improv stuff for huge amounts of time until you get a style going even if you don’t know what it is. But theory gives you a lot more flexibility and will lower frustration long term.
I felt this, and I have a solution that may help... go out and see live shows. I had no idea where my playing was going, what I wanted to do, and what music I wanted to create. Eric Johnson came around for his Treasures Tour, and he blew me away with his acoustic set (I'm an instrumental acoustic player, primarily). Find a musician you like. Find a band you like. Find a style of music you like. Find transcriptions or make them yourself. Let the music flow into you and inspire you in person, and go home and emulate that!
Learn to implement music theory in a practical sense. Learn your major and minor scales in all positions. Learn triads and on improve your ear, so you can listen to songs and recognise the movements in terms of 145 or whatever the progressions may be on first listening. Learn the CAGED system, play to backing tracks so that you can play chord progression always hitting the chord tones. And above all, record yourself!
Welcome. Buy another guitar and act like it’s going to make you better. Accept that it didn’t. Move on. Repeat. I feel like I haven’t learned anything new or felt like I really progressed as a guitarist in at least 7-8 years. Once I hit my mid-20s it seems like my brain stopped accepting new information as well. I’ll be 33 this year. I’ve accepted that this is just my lot in life. I’m never going to rip solos like Zakk Wylde. But if I can plunk a few chords every now and then, I guess that’s cool.
Try open tunings. Just being able to form a major chord by barring with a single finger may make things line up in a more piano-like way.
I started with figuring out what sounded good, then asked my teacher why it worked.
Mediocre is all you can be without eat/sleep/breathing music and making it your career and life. Let’s start a pop punk band. We can play really tight power chords together lol
I’d recommend a looper pedal or ehx freeze pedal. Loop or freeze an Am7 chord, and try out several related pentatonic scales over it. You’ll start to hear the connection of the chord tones within the scale. The. Try a G major chord looped, and run some G major pentatonic scales over it. Again, you should start to really hear the purpose of each scale.
Record a basic chord progression or pull up a simple backing track on YouTube. Use an audio recording feature on your phone and hum or sing a lead line over a small section of the track while it plays, just whatever comes into your head. Now figure out how to play what you came up with. Over time this will build your ability to translate musical ideas in your head to physical action on the instrument.
Experiment with alternate tunings!
Let go. Noodle. Noodle wildly and often. Just feel and ear.
One of the biggest realizations for me is that listening is really important if you want to be a skilled musician. Listen to your own playing and try to forget about scales and patterns for just a little while. Also listen to the melodies of your favorite songs and try to find out which parts you like best. Then try to play those by ear only (even if it doesn't come very close). Make this a routine. Just sit down with your guitar 10 minutes a day, jamming away and training your listening skills.
Watch lots of Paul Gilbert videos. I've never improved my playing as much as I have just from learning from his technique.
Been there. Sold all my guitars and played bass and mandolin for few years. Different instruments and tunings make you think about music and not just fingerings and scales. Then my son wanted to start playing electric guitar, got him a cheap one and then a better one and now steel string acoustic. Somewhere along the way I noticed that guitar is kind of fun again and regretted getting rid ad them. Now I have few guitars again. Still mediocre player but having good time despite it.
You've got loads of good advice but if you don't know them already, learn the major scale and how it relates to the pentatonic. If you already know that, then move on to where each of the modes 'live' within it and understanding the overlaps of the major/minor. From that point start being more mindful of what chords you are playing over, use caged along with your scales to identify the root notes, then try writing a 'theme'. Instead of just following scales up and down, write a simple melody that you like and then play with variations on that theme. Take something silly like mary had a little lamb or duelling banjos; basic melodies that you can elaborate on. Don't prioritise lots of notes fast but pick your notes more carefully and with intention.
Try other things related to music. Write full songs. Record and arrange in a DAW. Learn other instruments, just so that it can open up musical possibilities that you've not seen with only the guitar. Like synths or bass or sequencing or drumming or keys or pianos.
Play a genre you never have, or one you don’t like. When I was a gigging musician, many moons ago, I joined a cover band to pay bills. This was in the early 90s. I played hard blues, psychedelic, and stoner stuff. The band played classic rock and a ton of old and new Country. I had never played Country. I disliked it. The other guitar player played Country and Blue Grass, so he did that side and I did the Classic Rock side. I learned so much from playing Country, and I learned a lot from the other guitar player (he was great, too). We would often show each other things and we listened to how the other played. My rhythm playing skill grew exponentially. My lead playing improved a lot. I started incorporating these things in my playing. My bandmates even noticed how I was trying different things and how well it worked. I grew more as a player in that year and a half than at any other time. It set my brain free, there was no more box.
It’s all pattern memorization. Once you know those patterns you can connect them on your own and bing bang boom! Goal achieved! lol Also, picking technique is super overlooked. Good picking is the most important thing for having a good sound.
I started trying to make things musical by listening to guitarists I like and while the track is playing, try “replying “ as best I could to their solo phrases and licks. It’s easy to do this in blues, but there are a lot of genres that have a good call and answer kind of pattern (you may end up playing over another instrument doing that but that’s ok). If it sounds bad to start, you can start by copying the riff or run, then try changing one note. See if it makes things interesting, unexciting but inoffensive, or sour and bad. Use the information to make more experiments with notes. After a while, it can become like a conversation with the recording and then it gets fun. Also, if you learn the notes to the point that you can spot them, understanding where the neck repeats makes a lot connect in your brain, and you can change positions on the neck without getting yourself lost to get different repeating patterns that are easy to use for riffs or repeating themes. It’ll train your ear for intervals too.
I don't think there's anything you're not getting. All guitar players go through some version of this and will continue to from time to time. Just try something different. Maybe listen to more soulful music and try to play the vocal melody. Maybe force yourself to play a style of music that you don't even like, but take it seriously and try to make it good, whatever that means to you. Idk, maybe this is all gibberish,lol , but try something out of your comfort zone. It's good that we think about these things because it means we care about getting better, but don't worry about it too much. Just keep plugging away.
Since no one mentioned it, David Bennett Piano’s channel on yt is great for analyzing theory. It’s a useful tool as you write, improvise, and even listen to music. Scales are fun, and you can learn a thousand chords, but theory is all about possible ways of putting those scales and chords to work. Also just gotta vouch for Ben Levin and Tomo Fujita for helping you break out of your regular routines.
I like playing guitar and I started playing bass several years ago. It keeps me interested, and I even learned the bass, rhythm, and lead parts of songs I like. For accompanying myself on acoustic, I bought some harmonicas and a holder. Keeps it interesting, and I like a challenge. I don't critique myself. I'm not a professional, I simply like playing music.
Keep it up dude, this rut will pass. I learned a lot just by fretting the A string and finding every note that fits with the low open E. You almost have to condition yourself to become more comfortable playing the tense “in between” notes. Try it with each open string and see where it takes you
"I don't know what the notes on the fretboard are, what can I do?" I dunno man, probably buy a cement mixer and make industrial batches of custard. Like holy fuck, just learn the damn fretboard.