Are you getting better?

[dragan]

I just keep trying , it's not easy , I battle with myself all the time . My only advice is just keep trying , don't worry about what may happen .

[killerteddybear]

Yes, because I'm not overplaying bass lines as much as I used to.

I may not have the chops of 20+ years ago but I feel I support the music better.

And for laughs I tear it up once in a while...

[zzzdat]

I'm gerting more refined, not faster or technical. Now that i'm older I'm more relaxed and I work on feeling and expression more than anythink else. I now understand stuff that used to seem lame to me because it has more emotion and vocal like experssion. If that means getting better. than well yes.

Cool Beans

Gene

[tomteriffic]

I'm not a "fast" player, never have been. And, at 61, I'm not likely to be. That said, I've been playing in my dippy little folk 'n' roll duo/trio for 17 years. And since getting a talented and reliable bassist, it has freed me up to tackle some new stuff or revisit some old stuff informed by the different genres and styles that we've dabbled with in the past. Is it "better"? Hell, I don't know, but it's more interesting and challenging to play. So within my (considerable) limitations, I think I'm improving.

Oh, I'm playing more and more fingerstyle these days. For years I'd do little fingerpicked things with the "tucked pick" thing going on. The challenge these days is giving my first finger something to do besides getting in the effing way.

[HSB0531]

Getting Better???

Only since I've been sitting while playing.

[G Man]

Slowly, very slowly, I improve a bit, year by year. I have spent the past couple of years trying to unlearn bad habits from my previous 25 years of un-taught guitar playing. I almost always form an open G with my pinkie on the high E string now, that took way too long to feel normal. Also been working on bringing my left pinkie finger into my lead work more as well, starting to see results there too. Both of these things have opened new avenues in my playing, which I like to think of as improvements. Ultimately though, for me, music is for fun and relaxation, so if I don't see any vast improvement over time, I do my best not to worry about it and remind myself why I pick up the guitar at the end of every day. I also really love the sound a good gear, so there are times where I just noodle night after night while focusing on my tone more. I guess if tone is all in the fingers, then I like to think I am improving in this realm as well.

[jwhitcomb3]

I have not played so little guitar in the last 20 years as I have since I started at Fractal. The job is just crazy busy, and by the time I get home, I'm fried and don't feel like playing. I've recently brought a couple of guitars to keep in my office with the goal of taking a break now and then to work on something.

Yep! I more or less stopped playing guitar for the two years I worked at MOTU. Crazyi busy, and since I was working with music gear all day I wanted nothing to do with it when I got home.

My skills are marginally improving, thanks in part to taking my first batch of lessons in several years. Which is to say, once I incorporate these lessons my skills will remain flat for a while and then decline again until the next set of lessons (for my 60th birthday, perhaps?).

[HamerHokie]

'Improving' isn't the right word for me. 'Refining' is more like it.

I don't practice. The only time I play is when I perform. I have no desire to play incredibly fast. To me, better means literally sounding better. And for that reason, my musical values over the last decade or so have been distilled to: "Make every note count." I want every note to reach down and grab you in the soul or the nethers or whatever. So my focus has been on expressiveness, spontenaity, and awareness of what the rest of the band is doing.

So yeah, I think I sound better because I'm achieving that more and more. And because BCR Greg recently told me he liked my hand vibrato .

[analogsystem]

From 25-30 I don't think my chops got that much better, but my EARS got waaaaay better. Thus, my playing is light years beyond what I was doing in my early 20s (in my humble opinion). I think I hear more "in tune" nowaday, for better or worse, haha - lots of shit bugs the hell out of me now that I used to think was cool and noisy before.

Currently, me ear is better than my chops, sadly. Which means I need to practice more! I'm not quite able to pull off the level of cleanliness and harmonic "in-ness" that I would like to be. When I'm really blazing I still default more to playing based on "shapes" and patterns than by purely listening and playing within the chord changes. Sometimes this is fine, like for most rock music, but I'm trying to get to a place where I'm really listening all the time and staying more true to my melodic and harmonic intention, as opposed to running up and down shapes and patterns that my fingers default to.

Its always a work in progress....the "better" I get, the more I'm able to see, which I've yet to learn! I'm more humbled these days than when I was younger, even though I play better now! haha

[tommy p]

I can't play the fast stuff I used to be able to play, but my attention to tone and vibrato has greatly improved. I feel better about a solo if I hit a few good non-rote phrases in it than if I play 7 speed licks strung together. Am I playing "better"? Maybe not, but certainly more maturely.

[blackfbiv]

Vocally... I have never been better...

bass-wise... probably holding my own...

[RichRS6]

The older I get the better I used to be.

[blackfbiv]

The older I get the better I used to be.

I'm not as good as I once was, but I'm as good once, as I ever was...

[gorch]

I have not played so little guitar in the last 20 years as I have since I started at Fractal. The job is just crazy busy, and by the time I get home, I'm fried and don't feel like playing. I've recently brought a couple of guitars to keep in my office with the goal of taking a break now and then to work on something.

Yep! I more or less stopped playing guitar for the two years I worked at MOTU. Crazyi busy, and since I was working with music gear all day I wanted nothing to do with it when I got home.

My skills are marginally improving, thanks in part to taking my first batch of lessons in several years. Which is to say, once I incorporate these lessons my skills will remain flat for a while kand then decline again until the next set of lessons (for my 60th birthday, perhaps?).

Have you ever seen the guy baking hamburgers at McDonalds eating hamburgers?

I think that explains it.

[velorush]

I got better...

[murkat]

I got better yesterday than today

[Hbom]

I'd like to think I'm getting better. I don't practice as much as I could, and I don' retain it as well a I used to.

But I hang with a better bunch of guitar players now, and I'm playing better guitars!

[django49]

^^^^^

Many (most?) of the guitarists I have played with over the years are/were better than me. That helped me learn......And they always seemed to like coming by to play some of the ever-changing "stash".

[mathman]

I was definitely getting better till my fingers went crazy. I am finally getting my fingers healed and I've lost a bit but I think it will come back quicker once I get back to playing more.

[Brian Krashpad]

Yes/no is a false dichotomy.

"Getting better" how? Presumably this means "as a guitarist," but even so limited, think about all the different aspects of "being a guitarist" or "playing guitar" in which one might "get better" [especially if one is a guitarist in performing situation(s)]. Phrasing? Creativity? Technique? Speed? Adaptability to new situations? Ability to play in different genres? Keeping cool under adverse conditions? Multitasking (singing/playing, cueing others while playing, connecting w/audience while playing)? Knowing your limitations and not making a fool of yourself by trying to play too far above your head (not an issue if a bedroom guitarist or just jamming with friends, but for a performing guitarist, can be important)?

I'm probably not getting better in most of those more technical things in the first half of the above list, but making some strides in the more general/"performance/stagecraft" aspects of the above list, which is where my strengths lie anyhow. I'm also making some improvements as a singer (not to say that I'm a good singer, just getting better at using what I've got) and songwriter.

[Ting Ho Dung]

I'm better than I've ever been. Now I can play the 12 bar blues and 3 major chords.

[HSB0531]

I'm only as good as the drummer.

[Tres Aardvarks]

a year ago, I was the best on guitar I've probably ever been(especially since I've been a bassist more than guitarist). Was playing lead guitar and singing lead with two buddies, practiced 2-3 times a week at lunch in one of our training rooms. Then I quit, got a new job which required a home office (company is West coast based), so no chance to practice at lunch (the wife wouldn't appreciate that since she is watching the kids all day). So the only time I played was actually AT guitar night. Then we moved across the country to Virginia and now the only time I play is when I travel for work and it makes sense to bring a guitar...

[Hamerhack]

I'd have to say yes. I never was very good, so that's not much of a claim. Never in a band.

I've been working on actually using my pinky for lead stuff. I joined a local monthly jam to force me to learn new songs and get out of the living room. I'm giving my brother lessons, and he's an engineer and interested in the theory that I never learned. So now he's reading theory and I have to at least try to keep one step ahead to answer his pesky questions. (Versus my prior "I don't know why... just shut up and play it like this!" teaching method.)

Slowly learning some Frank Sinatra-esque jazz stuff. Takes a while to get those jazz chords into muscle memory, after decades of nothing but Beatles, Stones, Led Zep, etc. Makes playing challenging and it's fun to expand the living room set list.

[Caddie]

I know its completely against the gospel of Thee Hamer Fan Club, but downsizing my herd of guitars and amps helped me back in the day when I was still playing. I think it helped me focus more on what I was doing rather than what I could blame it on. "I'd improve with better equipment" or "I'd improve with a better setup" or the incureable "I need more stomp boxes."

Just my $0.07 adjusted up from $0.02 to account for the impending inflation tsunami.

caddie

btw-anybody need another mid 90's Studio?