Who plays music?

[*rfaulk34*]

(09-29-2020, 10:17 AM)Wes Mantooth Wrote: HUGE pro tip.

I always keep a guitar in my living room for this very reason.  It's either on a stand, where I'll just occasionally look over and have to pick it up, or it's lying on my couch.

I really like using "TV time" to work on the boring, mindless stuff.  A lot of times I'll just sit there doing right hand exercises, or running scales, without even really thinking about it.

I had a really bad habit when I was younger about not using alternate picking enough.  I really only used downstrokes unless I absolutely had to use.  I finally solved it a long time ago by just sitting there and trying running pretty much every single combination of picking while watching tv. It got fixed pretty quickly.

Working on those exercies in a normal practice routine would have really sucked.  When I sit down to actually play I want to play some tunes or just noodle.  But when I'm watching the tube I can just sit there and work on triplets and 16th notes, different scales, etc.  Stuff I generally hate to do otherwise.

I highly recommend everyone try this.  Even if it's just during commercials.  You can squeeze in a lot of extra boring work without even thinking  about it.

I always keep one (my new one right now) right next to my recliner so i just have to reach for it while i'm sitting here. One thing i do...well, the first thing i do and this was alluded to...don't ever play without making sure you are in tune first. 

If i'm just sitting here watching TV i'll always start by warming up by simply doing string exercises. 6th string 1,2,3,4. 5th string 1,2,3,4 and so on. Then i'll do 1,3,4 then 1,2,4 etc, for about 5 minutes (this is good for beginners because one of the most frustrating things starting off is coordination). After about 5 to 10 minutes of this, one thing i like to do--the point i was getting to--is i'll "play" something someone says. Or a jingle i hear on tv, by ear. You know, like you'll hear a jingle "the best part of waking up..etc" and i'll match that on the guitar without looking. That really helps with learning what sounds and pitches come from which part of the neck.