What bad habits have you eliminated?

[GardenoftheDead]

I just put my thumb where will keep my wrist straight. That's really the most important thing about neck hand technique.

[Haki]

That is a big part of why I take lessons.

Not to go off on a tangent, but what's your experience with lessons? I'm assuming here you're saying they're worth it.

And if you don't mind sharing, how did you find a good teacher (versus some highschool kid offering lessons), and how much do you pay? How often do you go?

Thanks!

NSFW tag cause it's long. TL;DR version: Worth it, looked online and set up trial lesson before committing, currently € 20 per 30 minute lesson, which is twice a week.

NSFW: show

To me there's no replacement for having somebody demonstrate a technique, guide you through it and then watching you play so they can correct any flaws. The last part is especially important and what separates a great teacher from a decent one. A lot of teachers seem to have an urge to play along with you and that leads them to not pay as much attention to what you're doing. Take jfrey's thumb position pic, my current teacher will occasionally just sneak up behind me to make sure I'm not cheating. She knows my goals and plans the lessons accordingly. If there's something specific I want to get into then I'll throw that out there and we do it. Books and instructional videos are cute and can be useful, but to me they don't compare to what a teacher brings. Plus I'm not patient enough to sift through them to get the good stuff and work out a plan.

What's also been a real added benefit for me is the structure it adds. My job can get hectic with overtime, sometimes I'm just glad to be home and be a couch potato. Knowing I have a lesson that I need to study for gives me a reason to get up and I've used it as an excuse to not stay for overtime. It also gives me something to play/work on. Whenever I'm not particularly inspired to write stuff I can at least work on my technique, using the pressure of the upcoming lesson as motivation. As somebody that's lazy and easily distracted this has been a huge help, it greatly increased the amount of time I spent practicing (and practicing for 30-45 minutes is usually enough to get me out of my funk). I can see the progress I've made it is a great motivator in itself.

Finding one wasn't that hard. I just googled [instrument] teacher [city], looked at all the adds on forums/CL/websites, ranging from high school students to people running music schools. Main thing I looked at was the type of music they were into, nearly all of them had links to their current and past bands which gives you a decent idea. When a teacher's idea of metal is Metallica then it's not going to work. I also wanted to learn basic music theory and work on ear training which is stuff that usually gets advertised as well when they're capable. That narrowed it down to a shortlist. From there you just work down the list. I always sent them an email detailing where I was at, what I liked in terms of style/music, what I was looking to learn from them and to set up a trial lesson. By dumping all that stuff in an email the trial lesson isn't wasted on boring chit chat, allowing more time for them to see where you're at and for you to get a feel for their teaching style. For me one lesson has been enough to get a decent idea on whether it'll work out or not. If it does, great, if not then you move on to the next one on your list.

All the teachers I settled on were actually students or recent graduates of the local performance arts college. Going off the ones I've met they seem to run a pretty good program over there. Mostly I paid € 15 for a 45 minute solo lesson. My current teacher has been raising prices as she's gone official and has to pay VAT and income tax on her earnings bumping it to € 20 for a 30 minute lesson (though regularly goes to 40-45 minutes). Most of the music schools charge about € 80-100 a month for a weekly lesson of 30 minutes, but don't give lessons during school holidays (13 weeks a year) while you're still required to pay the full monthly fee. Then there's the older farts that charge anywhere from € 20 to € 45 for a 30 minute lesson because they were once part of the backing band for one of the nation's more popular singers (whoop tee fucking do).

I started with one lesson a week. Eventually had two lessons a week, one for guitar and another for bass. Then my guitar teacher at the time moved away, spent a few months looking for a replacement but couldn't find one I liked.That happened when I was playing guitar in a doom band, which is not the most technically challenging. So I stopped looking and got more and more into bass. It generally took me just 2-3 days to get a handle on the bass lesson stuff so I went with two bass lessons a week. Been doing that for about a year now and will probably continue to do so until I'm satisfied with my playing (not likely).

[jfrey]

Going to have to completely disagree with this.
I'm usually either number two or three, but there really isn't anything wrong with number two.
Lots of country players will even go further and use their thumb to play bass notes of chords they couldn't reach with their fingers.
I think the trick is generally just moving your hand around until you get something comfortable.
You really don't need classical style grip for everything.

Having your thumb high on the neck - or over the top - decreases your range of movement. The only plus it has is that it allows you to perform bends easier. In every other way however, it is inferior.

[mathias]

I learned classical guitar for about 2 years before I got an electric guitar, and so that is the grip that works the best for me. I still haven't figured out a solution to hooking the thumb over the first string for "Hendrix style" barre chords, though.

[jfrey]

I learned classical guitar for about 2 years before I got an electric guitar, and so that is the grip that works the best for me. I still haven't figured out a solution to hooking the thumb over the first string for "Hendrix style" barre chords, though.

Having not learned any Hendrix songs ever I don't quite know what you mean by that, but do you not just use your first finger? I play an 8 string and I have never had any trouble playing a barre chord that crosses the whole neck.

[mathias]

I learned classical guitar for about 2 years before I got an electric guitar, and so that is the grip that works the best for me. I still haven't figured out a solution to hooking the thumb over the first string for "Hendrix style" barre chords, though.

Having not learned any Hendrix songs ever I don't quite know what you mean by that, but do you not just use your first finger? I play an 8 string and I have never had any trouble playing a barre chord that crosses the whole neck.

For chords that require use of 4 fingers and for little soloing flourishes in those chord shapes. I'm on my phone so I can't be sure, but I imagine this video demonstrates:

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=w ... wuYi9pZ6WI

[jfrey]

I learned classical guitar for about 2 years before I got an electric guitar, and so that is the grip that works the best for me. I still haven't figured out a solution to hooking the thumb over the first string for "Hendrix style" barre chords, though.

Having not learned any Hendrix songs ever I don't quite know what you mean by that, but do you not just use your first finger? I play an 8 string and I have never had any trouble playing a barre chord that crosses the whole neck.

For chords that require use of 4 fingers and for little soloing flourishes in those chord shapes. I'm on my phone so I can't be sure, but I imagine this video demonstrates:

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=w ... wuYi9pZ6WI

I suppose then that that's a legitimate use, but I'd still think it would be something you would transition to - a technique - and not what your form should be most of the time.

[mathias]

That's valid, too. Like different stances in a martial art. Only be in the one that you need and always go back to your best stance between.

[Gearmond]

i used to have dead strings ringing out 24/7 when i'd play bass, and thats been more or less corrected.

something i;m in the midst of working on, but idk if i do it enough for it to be a "problem": thinking of my hands in terms of index-middle-ring and pinky. its not that my pinky isn't used, i use it often, but my hand just kinda works with that separation, and my pinky is never curled over the fretboard with the other fingers, and it just hangs out there, and im thinking having to thwack it down so far is throwing off my timing during fast runs

[Eric!]

Worrying about forgetting those priceless great ideas if I don't document them right away. If they're worth anything they'll come back.

What else?? I used to have way too hard touch, unintentionally. I still tend to bang the crap out of the bass and break strings when I get excited, but that's okay, it's just going with the emotion.

Also, taught myself not to watch my fingers or the fretboard when playing, by playing opposite to a mirror so I didn't have to keep looking down, and once the habit was gone I just relied on my ears and hands.

and

I've been trying to breath more when I play.
Sometimes, I uh... forget.

[D.o.S.]

I realized that chord changes are for suckers.

[jfrey]

I realized that chord changes are for suckers.

[mathias]

I haven't gone yet, so I thought I'd share mine:

After a lot of slow, slow, and slower playing with really carefully watching my left hand, I've got lot more dexterity and strength in my left hand due to so-called "Spider exercises". Paid a lot of attention to separating my ring finger and pinky finger movements and eliminating any sympathetic lift between them.

It's not fun, but after enough variation you start to get a lot more dexterity and finger strength, and I think it helped my alternate picking a lot, too, since I alternate pick the entire time. I slowly worked my way up from something ridiculously slow like 30 BPM to 140 BPM with really smooth, strong movements. I can't say that I've totally eliminated bad habits there (in fact, I probably have a lot of finger movements when making chords that are wrong that I need to work on similarly), but I think this has helped me a ton.

And as mentioned earlier in the thread, I was already putting my thumb in the middle of the neck from the time I started guitar. I can move into "death grip" to hook my thumb, but prefer not to.

[RR Bigman]

speaking of lessons....

https://bandhappy.com/profile/nickreinhart

[theavondon]

What's cool about playing double bass as a first instrument is that you basically spend like four straight years intently focusing on technique. And, the reason for that is less "You should do it right" and more "If you're doing this wrong, you will be in a fair amount of pain". So, I'm pretty good about the thumb behind the neck thing, because I learned my wrists hurt less if I did that. And I'm alright on my bow technique (French, not German) but then again, I haven't used a bow in years now.

One thing I need to work on is not punching the bass when I intend on just hitting the string with a pick.