Looking to improve

wolfyboy555

I have been playing guitar for 5-6 years now but feel liked have been stuck in a rut these past few years regarding getting better. I seemed to have plateaued out. I think my problem is that I have no understanding on any theory.

I know the pentatonic scale fine and have been using that to fool people into thinking I am decent:) I would like to learn more into really playing guitar and understanding the fretboard a lot more. Anytime i try i get overwhelmed at the sheer amount of info and i dont know where to start.

Any advice or useful websites to use?

MrECameraman

IMHO the only way you'll get better is to either take lessons, or jam with better musicians. There are sites, www.justinguitar.com is a good one, but really you're better off with real humans

Also, when you say get better, it sounds a little nebulous (no offense). If it were me, I'd define my goals and set milestones. In October last year, my goal was to be able to play every solo on Extreme's album Pornografitti. I sat down and worked out the solos, and then for the ones I couldn't play straight off, I broke out the metronome and found the passages I couldn't play, broke them into segments, and went from a bpm at which I could play it 10 times in a row flawlessly. I then went up 5bpm and repeated. I'd stay at a bpm until I could get 10 in a row perfectly.

I'm now working on this year being able to play every Paul Gilbert solo from Mr Big and Racer X. Same way as above.

Deschain

^ The above is very good advice.

I know where you are coming from and it is very easy to stay in a safe rut of playing what you know and what you are good at, and you are not alone, there are a lot of people who do the same thing. The trick is to keep setting yourself little goals, move outside of the pentatonic box and learn more scales. Split your practice time in two, the first half spend learning something completely new and the second half having fun with what you already know. Practice with a metronome, and when learning something new practice it at a snails pace and then gradually increase the tempo. You will find that when you can play something perfectly real slowly then over time increase the tempo you will be able to play it perfectly fast, its hard to resist the temptation of just trying to play something fast first but this is how you become a sloppy player. Learn some theory, especially scale theory, some people say you don't need theory to be a good musician, but it sure as hell wont make you a bad one.

wolfyboy555

Cheers for the replies I will have a look at that website. Some good advice about setting goals. I don't have much time to play these days so when I do I usually play stuff I know so that's probably why I haven't progressed.