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Post by Derick on Feb 10, 2023 13:49:26 GMT
Hi again.
Was just wondering, I know it's dangerous, but I enjoy playing my guitar and Noodle every day for hour or two, Yes I know I'm lucky it's because I'm retired. Does any one else play the guitar every day all year around, and if you do, do you get any better ?
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Post by newdave on Feb 10, 2023 14:04:07 GMT
I've hardly played at all this year.
I can say from experience that you don't get any better following this method.
Looking forward to getting lots of stuff sorted over the next few weeks and beginning to pick it up again. Miss it a lot.
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Post by Derick on Feb 10, 2023 14:15:19 GMT
I've hardly played at all this year. I can say from experience that you don't get any better following this method. Looking forward to getting lots of stuff sorted over the next few weeks and beginning to pick it up again. Miss it a lot. Newdave The sooner the better, its a bit like riding a bike, you never forget, but you may fall off a couple of times, anyway good luck, I'm sure you will be back with sore fingers very soon.
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Post by malcolm on Feb 10, 2023 14:26:02 GMT
You won't get better by just noodling around, you have to challenge yourself. Decide what you want to achieve then set yourself some challenges and work towards those goals. On the other hand, if you keep noodling every day, you should become a more accomplished noodler.
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Post by Derick on Feb 10, 2023 15:48:48 GMT
You won't get better by just noodling around, you have to challenge yourself. Decide what you want to achieve then set yourself some challenges and work towards those goals. On the other hand, if you keep noodling every day, you should become a more accomplished noodler. Hi Malcolm. Yes thank for your advice and it's correct, but I find noodling a challenge, but the most important thing is , I enjoy noodling, 90% of my playing is fingerpicking, only play for my own amusement. Like the sound of the old fingerpicking blues players, on a good day I get pretty close.
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Post by forestdweller on Feb 10, 2023 16:01:59 GMT
Hi again. Was just wondering, I know it's dangerous, but I enjoy playing my guitar and Noodle every day for hour or two, Yes I know I'm lucky it's because I'm retired. Does any one else play the guitar every day all year around, and if you do, do you get any better ? I try and play every day, but also I know how negative it can be if you TRY and play when you really aren't in the mood. Sometimes with the late days I work now I have the odd day off, otherwise I try and play for at least 30 minutes every day, perhaps a couple of hours at weekends. I know I am lucky in that I have a guitar that is just an absolute joy to play and makes me want to play. Noodling is good. I would have never written anything if I hadn't started noodling on my guitar Robbie
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Post by ocarolan on Feb 10, 2023 16:56:48 GMT
I play every day, though in fairly short bouts. I tend to spend too much time playing things I know I can play (just for the joy of it), and not enough working on fumbly bits of ones I can't quite play. And yes, noodling - I agree with Robbie - it can spark off some really good things that are worth coming back to and developing further.
I used to enjoy much noodling while the telly was on, but, as Basil Fawlty remarked, "That particular avenue of pleasure has been closed off..."
And, as Sybil/Mrs O'C replied, "And we don't want it opening up again do we...?"
Keith
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Post by fred7 on Feb 10, 2023 17:40:40 GMT
I play every day and no, I don't get any better................ I must be perfect I keep a guitar on a stand in the kitchen which I play every day in periods of time determined by my wife's patience. I go to make a brew, put the kettle on and play guitar whilst waiting for it to boil. Then the timer goes off (around 30 minutes later) in the form of a loud "Were's that tea" echoing from the front room and the kettle gets switched back on. This is 'noodling'If I want more serious practice I shut myself in the back room but this doesn't happen very often so I still don't get any better.
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Post by delb0y on Feb 10, 2023 17:54:36 GMT
Yes, play every day. Sometimes I play stuff I know, so that's kind of like treading water, but it's pleasant treading. But most of the time I am working on something specific. And I do think I'm improving, but very very slowly, and my fingers are getting slower too, which sort of evens out the gains.
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Post by stain on Feb 10, 2023 19:06:30 GMT
I have played most days for the last few years. And fell into the habit of noodling around stuff I knew or thought I did. Followed some YouTube lessons. Maybe got a bit better. But more likely better at doing it consistently badly. Then won a lesson from Jonny Moss in FGF last summer. Since then I have a weekly lesson with him and am definately a better player. More musical, slicker, relaxed, playing stuff I never would have tried previously. Every week he shows me variations on simple exercises (eg sticky chromatic) and it blows my mind ie I can’t do it after thinking I’d nailed the previous weeks challenge. My take home is that I should have had lessons 30 years ago and not waited til I was 46. Focusing just 10 mins on the exercises really does play dividends. I do however still noodle and play the old stuff but now have some insight into how I can make it better.
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Post by Derick on Feb 10, 2023 19:09:27 GMT
Yes some great replies. Some points I missed with the original post. I keep my guitar on a stand, within reach so can grab it any time, for five minute to half-hour at a time. I tend to play the same old songs, because I like them. Another thing I like to do sometimes is learn a new song, then I play it the way I like, sort of make it my song, but still recognisable generally, but not note perfect.
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Post by fatfingerjohn on Feb 10, 2023 19:22:24 GMT
When I retired, having not played much for 30 years I purposely decided after a few months to put my old file of songs from previous guitar life away and not play any of them for an unspecified but lengthy period (turned out to be over a year. That forced me to look at new stuff instead of just regurgitating well-practiced but imperfect pieces, many of which I'd played in a duo. I also found that YouTube was just a new ray of light to loads of stuff. I play most days, very often just trying something new from YouTube where I have 100s of 'favorite' sites with lessons bookmarked. I am a total believer in having my guitars within reach of where I sit during the day. I'm about to move house and my only requirement was to have a comfy chair within reach of my guitar stand and a small table for my laptop and in sight of a big TV for the sport. Not worried about how many bedrooms, power points etc.
Probably my biggest fault is that I always have at least 30 songs I'm working on at one stage or another, none of them finished so that I can play them well and most won't get finished.
Happy days!
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Post by martinrowe on Feb 10, 2023 19:41:14 GMT
Yes, I'm on PegheadNation (it costs me £4 per week). I'm doing a course at the moment on Improvisation Techniques on the Mandolin and Fiddle. The course is eight online videos of an hour each. I've gone through it once with varying levels of success and at the moment I'm going through it again. I'm finding that the things I couldn't do the first time around I can do now e.g. playing Arpeggios starting on the 1st, 3rd, and 5th of the chord and playing them around the circle of fifths (phew, I sound like a musician). There's a nice completion aspect to that. I've been noodling them for a bit after completing the course initially and now I'm going through it for the second time things are starting to fall into place. That may mean that the muscle memory is now there that wasn't there before and that I can play the pieces i.e. progress has been made.I find it a great feeling and really motivating when I can do things that I couldn't do previously.
For me, muscle memory is often the stumbling block and it seems that developing it opens a lot of doors. The person who has developed this course, Joe K. Walsh was emphasising something that the guitarist Scott Nygaard stated: that arpeggios and scales should be so firmly entrenched that they are second nature. I wonder if noodling any pieces of music achieves this - I think in some way perhaps it does. I seem to remember reading somewhere (don't quote me) that , for a long time, Muddy Waters could only play one song - I wonder how many hours he put into it and how good he got with it.
What I find good about these courses that I'm doing is that I find it easy to build enjoyable playing sessions around the content and that this makes me look forward to playing. I'll play the pieces learnt from the previous lesson every day when I'm learning the content of the next lesson in the series. In that way I find myself reinforcing the pieces that I've recently learnt. I get the intangible feeling that I'm making progress. This, in itself, makes playing regularly easier. Like Robbie I take a day of sometimes, usually when I know that I'm so tired that playing would be a waste of time. I'm not rushing either, I recently read somewhere someone saying that they saw one of the great classical cellists practicing and that they couldn't believe how painstakingly slowly they played the piece that they were learning for the first time - was that on here, I can't remember.
This process of trying to make progress with music I find a fascinating subject - that helps as well.
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Post by vikingblues on Feb 10, 2023 20:12:02 GMT
Was just wondering, I know it's dangerous, but I enjoy playing my guitar and Noodle every day for hour or two, Yes I know I'm lucky it's because I'm retired. Does any one else play the guitar every day all year around, and if you do, do you get any better ? I try and play every day. I too am retired and feel lucky to get more opportunity to play ..... but somehow my days seem just as busy with other things as when I was at work. Much less stress though! I think it fair to say I've reached the point I'm not improving. If I can stand still as age advances I'll be very happy though.
But I too love noodling, and these days enjoy taking an existing finger-style tune and play around with timing, phrasing, tempo, missing some notes, and adding in extra notes. I call it semi-improvising. But possibly like Eric Morecambe I manage in the mix somewhere to play all the right notes but not necessarily in the right order.
Mark
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Post by papadon on Feb 11, 2023 3:30:06 GMT
I'm also retired and play every day lapsing back and forth between acoustic and electric. At 75 I no longer gig and it's hard to keep motivated so I'm constantly looking for folks to jam with which occasionally pays off but more often than not turns out to be a good way to meet some very strange ducks. Oh well just got to keep on truckin.
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