Playing the Guitar Hero :)
I don't just cook - I also play guitar, in fact, I teach it to a couple of paying clients - this is my attempt to put into writing what I try to tell them evey lesson
It truly is my hope that by giving you this knowledge you will be ready to radically change your playing in a short time.
First off you should simply believe in yourself and begin to envision yourself playing at the level you truly yearn to attain, absorb yourself in learning new abilities, transform your music composition, theory and improvising skills whenever you can. You have to believe in yourself absolutely, for those who do not then failure is very likely.
You have to take a little time to see yourself playing incredibly well and drawing the credit and admiration you know you are worthy of for all the time and effort you have put in over the years. You can bet that having a positive self image and optimistic perspective of the future are major influences to becoming a hit in any area.
So is imagining yourself performing at the level you desire having applied all the necessary effort required. You have to have faith in in yourself and that you will practice, you will play with lots of other musicians, you will learn a lot of brand new knowledge and that you will achieve everything you set out to as you are basically never going to admit defeat. Try to become totally unstoppable and it will come to you in time. Go on gaining knowledge of new scales and ideas and never give up practising.Under no circumstances reject on any opportunity to acquire relevant new methods and knowledge, keep practising.Practise religiously and regularly with vigour. Keep learning every new skill and relevant scale and song that you can.
Take your practising seriously.. When you are practising and you encounter a part that forces you to slow down or even stop and hesitate as it's so tricky to play, never simply skip over those parts, that's exactly the reason you are practising, TO IMPROVE!
When you encounter a difficult part of a tune you're learning, you can always slow down and play it at a rate where no mistakes occur, your timing is ok and then bit by bit build up the tempo. Be certain you the part is played without error before worrying about speed.
It is of great benefit to you to play with other musicians as often as you can, this will open up opportunities to learn from other more skilled and experienced musicians - ask questions, observe and be influenced by them.
You teach best what you most need to learn, so try to always be approachable for other players at a lower level of skill to learn from.
It is good to jam or perform with people who play other instruments as well, this will be a good influence on your general musicality.
I recommend that you seek out a music tutor and start getting guitar lessons as soon as possible. If you get a tutor make sure you talk to him/her about setting realistic and achievable goals. I recommend that you record yourself playing on any media that is convenient and keep them to listen to later in order to see how much your technique has improved over time, this can be a great source of encouragement and motivation for you. Your soloing and rhythm guitar playing will be more fun and better practice if you start to use professionally recorded backing tracks. You will sound better when you are rehearsing cover versions and it will improve your playing in all sorts of ways…I have no doubt that you will find out when you first try to play to a professional backing track that you can't play that song as well as you thought and you need to go through it more thoroughly and practice. Try to be efficient in every aspect of your playing and practice, be aware of what you are good at and what you are not so good at, accept that you will never be good at everything and try to focus on the style of playing you really like the most and enjoy playing. You only have so much time to develop these skills and there is no way you will ever find the time to learn everything on any given subject, let alone every style of guitar playing so SPECIALIZE!
There will always be people who will disagree with this philosophy but it makes sense to focus and specialise, prioritise with your attention set on the goal...Let the idiots and naysayers generalize while you specialise and achieve EXCELLENCE in your chosen field. Avoid negative thinking at all costs and limit your exposure to negative thinking people. Never talk to this type of people about your music, your goals etc, they will (often with the best intentions) try to discourage you by telling you that you are not a natural musician. Just more garbage, I'm afraid. I agree that there are always those that seem to find certain things really easy to learn much to the disgust of the rest of us) but even they have to concentrate, practice and study like everyone else. You have to persist and work hard in any field of activity to achieve excellence, ask any great musician and they will tell you that.
A quick recap-
* Get yourself a really good guitar tutor,
* discuss and set goals..
* Narrow down what area you want to get excellent in
* Practicing is everything, make it count!
* Use jam tracks to practice to
* Play with lots of other musicians, Ask questions
* learn from others. Teach to others when they need you to
* Avoid thinking negatively
* Put all your heart and soul into making it happen
* Never give up!
More Cool Sites
If I discover any web sites that I really like, or that I think are useful, I will add them to the following list:
Hog Roasts
If you really enjoy pork and would like to organise a hog roast in the UK - these guys are the very best.
I Love Cooking
A keen amateur chef talks about the food that gets him going.
Safety Boots
Whether involved in sport, work or pleasure, if there are hazards involved, you really should take care of your feet with a pair of decent safety boots.
The Atlas Cooking Site
A personal cookery site ran by an ex-restauranteur
The Caledonian Kitchen
Food, recipes and kitchen information
Better Musical Instruments
If you are searching for cheap musical instruments, this site is worth a visit. They supply new and secondhand musical instruments, and the website is quick to load and easy to work with
Bright Music
If you are looking for affordable musical instruments, this site is well worth checking out. Low prices on a substantial range of new and secondhand musical instruments.