that's not even a fair comparison...

one is strengthening the muscles in your body
the other is just plain stupid.

[QUOTE=MRDuCran;13304410]Yeah, a burn but it's not actual pain like if you put your arm against an iron.[/QUOTE]

Yeah, it's not pain per se, but it's uncomfortable.

how often do you make breaks when playing guitar and how long are those breaks?

cause when play f.e. for 4hours i play 4hours straight... sometimes i make a short break for a cigarette or to check MX;

for me, it really depends what I'm working on...

last night, i was doing some chromatics for the first time in a while at a real slow speed. I stuck with that same speed for about 10 minutes, just using my pinky and ring fingers to fret the notes.

After a total of 40 minutes, I started to realize i was losing focus, so I figured that was a good time to take a break

If I'm doing sweeps or something, I'll take a break when i notice I'm getting worse, like doing a single pattern for 15 minutes, then it might start to break down.

If I can keep my level of focus high, and I feel I'm maintaining and progressively improving, I'll continue to ride that wave

yea thats what i do...only instead of taking a break, i move onto practicing something else and come back to it later.

maybe i should consider these breaks haha

i really started to get into finger stretching as well. I have been obcessed with finger exercises away from the guitar to improve dexterity and finger independance, but it's only obvious to me now that I have been overlooking a crucial step

I'm probably going to attempt to record that bumble thing later, I haven't practised it since last time I mentioned it so it might not be full speed.

eh, in that case, give it a week Mitch and make it GOLD :thumb:

I can't be bothered to wait tbh, I'll give it a shot. As I keep saying, if I can't hit 200, it'll be 'cause I forget where to go half way through, I have no problem with accuracy on that piece. I'll sit here all night if I have to just to get it out of the way.

i wish i could play .... :upset:

i visit a doctor today who gave me a slave but it seems to get worse not better from each day... i'm sooo bored without guitar....

Gave you a slave, wtf is that?

salve...

though a slave would be great :p

/i should re-read the things i write, i make too many mistakes recently.

Ohh right, yeah, never heard of it.

But google tells me it's an ointment that you apply to the skin.

You must be using the wrong technique or using to much pressure or something because you shouldn't be having those problems.

well slave... ****.. no... salve says dict.leo.org (without the website i won't be here :p )

how i said before, i get it when i play too long, do legato or stretches (in song). sometimes i play for several hours and i have nothing, and then one day it hurts. this happens too often to me :( i should talk with my guitar teacher about it. but i should stay more relaxed... i don't know.
if you teaches yourself all alone and you don't have other guitarists around you, you make mistakes and learn wrong techniques...

btw. i am the only one who has those problems... i haven't met a single guitarist who had problems with his wrist or sinews...

I'm the same way Repcak (completely self-taught, no other guitarists around)

Its really about breaking apart your technique and putting it back together. I basically do this every other month

yeah, i should break my technique apart... you say always play relaxed: should i play as relaxed that i only touch the strings slightly, with as little pressure as possible?
i mean, i just can't check it out on guitar, i don't wanna touch it, but when i think about my playing i think, that i'm not really relaxed... i don't use much pressure, but when doing stretches or difficult songs i use more pressure than normal.

on the other side if i really would play so relaxed that i touch the strings only slightly (as if it was air, and not a freboard), will i progress? its all about muscles and from time to time they need some strain (sp?) to get better and better; or am i wrong?

definitely...

I've found the less pressure you use, the more you are in tune with your finger/muscles. You can, at that point, change the dynamics of the notes being played by using more/less force, or by having a heavier pick attack, etc.

It seems like you tense up when you are trying to do more technically demanding things on the guitar. Sure, that's the natural inclination, but next time, slow down until its uniform (or finally at a relaxed posistion).

When you are relaxed, you don't have muscles working against what you are trying to accomplish

Your guitar teacher must really suck if he can't point all this stuff out to you.

yeah but what if i have to stretch? like playing the a-minor scale or wolf and raven... its not that big stretch 5-7 with your index and middle but when doing it, i'm not relaxed.

and in general: doing stretch exercises... its a must being relaxed? in the future i want to be able to make big stretches.

i think on sunday or monday i will be able to play again... and i will try not to play for more than 1hour for the first week... and maybe i can manage my time to play several times a day for 1hour instead of 4hours before going to bed.


my guitar teacher? well... i only took lesson 2-3times. i have to pay it from my own pocket so i don't take lessons often... the last time i saw him was sometime in may and we mostly did only theory. next time i would like him to show me some proper techniques and then i will ask him about this topic.

if you are having problems hitting a stretch, move it up 12 frets or so, until it seems natural.

Once you have that down and have that precision that you are looking for, I slowly start moving it up the fretboard.

If you find that area that you start to tense up at, move back down the fretboard until its comfortable, and practice in that region

Instead of worrying about how much pressure you use, worry about hitting the "sweet spots" in between the frets. If you put your finger in the right place, you'll get enough sustain on a good sounding note. If you put loads of pressure on the string in the wrong place, you could end up worse off.

Joe Satriani teaches this when his students are practising legato.

I played that Extreme piece at 200bpm earlier, pretty easy actually. I'm working out Alcatrazz songs atm though.

well, pressure is pretty important to work on as well, but you're right mitch. Learning where to fret is pretty damn crucial, and i would say work on that first.

If you watch petrucci live, you can actually see where he frets every fret by the grease that is left on the fretboard.

Back to pressure again, if you use too much pressure fretting a note, you will actually cause the note to sharpen, and go slightly out of key.

i just started last week to focus to hit the "sweet spots".

i learned that from Troy Stentina's book

oh.. now you mention it, i remember it. i always knew that before i read troy stetina's book, but i always was too lazy to focus on it

yea, i stink but have very good technique :lol:

NP: new old world-syrinx

yea not full pressure on the frets works for me too.
unknownsoldier, you must be watching -real- closely to notice someone's grease spots on the fretboard...haha

[QUOTE=repcak;13309272]oh.. now you mention it, i remember it. i always knew that before i read troy stetina's book, but i always was too lazy to focus on it[/QUOTE]

I got troy's thrash guitar book and it really help my picking chops as well as songwriting ideas.:thumb:

troy stetina is indeed great.

[QUOTE=repcak;13309764]troy stetina is indeed great.[/QUOTE]

Yeah he is.

I find that you don't want to worry so much about pressure, or any of that stuff as you should about being in the groove.

I took a few drum lessons and I was shock to find that it helped to improve my guitar playing immensely. A lot of the licks and stuff that I knew but couldn't get down, I could sudden play a lot cleaner and better.

When I play onstage, most of the time I don't even remember what notes I did for a solo, but I remember just really getting into the beat and being 'in the pocket'.