What caused the biggest improvement in your playing ability?

[CBGB]

I don't think I've ever missed a day without playing guitar of some sort since I started. sometimes I totally hate what I'm playing but I still feel the need to keep strumming. This could be a whole nother thread, but yeah.

practice really is the key... doesn't get any simpler than that

The simple truth, and a painful one (if you're lazy like me).

[veteransdaypoppy]

easy! a dysfunctional family!

[Ghost Hip]

I don't think I've ever missed a day without playing guitar of some sort since I started. sometimes I totally hate what I'm playing but I still feel the need to keep strumming. This could be a whole nother thread, but yeah.

practice really is the key... doesn't get any simpler than that

The simple truth, and a painful one (if you're lazy like me).

I don't really ever practice though. I just play guitar, stuff I already know and eventually I just pick up new things by myself. Practicing to me is like sitting down and learning scales with a metronome. At least thats what my Dad's guitar teacher was telling me to do. He was like "yeah alternate picking really helps when playing a solo. I'd recommend playing these licks over and over until you get it down." That kind of thing just doesn't work for me, I just end up playing something else. (No offense to the guy he is a wicked guitar player who knows the right mix of emotion and technicality).

[mathias]

Hmm that's interesting to me, because I play, but I don't really read books or anything. Occasionally I'll find a riff on youtube and sit there and copy it until I've got it down.

But my playing still feels stagnant. I'm not going to discover, say, better solos by myself just fooling around, it seems.

No recommendations for books or videos? Particularly music theory on the fretboard might be interesting. It's just that there's so many (bad) books out there, I don't even know which to try.

[McSpunckle]

Acoustic guitar. It forces you to play cleanly.

[WaveForm3]

I was honestly really insulted when my current guitar teacher said the he believes that techniquality overrides feeling.

I walked out.

[CBGB]

I was honestly really insulted when my current guitar teacher said the he believes that techniquality overrides feeling.

I walked out.

You were so right. Unless it's truly understood and used very carefully, technical playing sounds like someone typing (IMO).

[aen]

For me, there were two big technical things.

#1: Locking in with a drummer. Tightened up absoloutley every aspect of my game.

#2: Learning to empty my mind and be calm and open before starting.

And one big non-technical thing.

Saying "Fuck it all, I'm going to play like ME and I'm going to do it better than anyone else on earth."

[theshoegazer]

Saying "Fuck it all, I'm going to play like ME and I'm going to do it better than anyone else on earth."

This.

Seriously, when I stopped caring what other people thought about my music. Instead of making music for people I started making music for myself. It allowed me to experiment on guitar as well as other non-traditional instruments.

[ChrisDN]

Since day 1 of playing guitar it'd always been to me about writing songs.
I advanced a fair way for being self-taught though but then for about 8 years, never really improved at all.

Then at the end of last year something happened for the first time since 1997; I had no band.

I got stuck in to articles and lessons on UG and watched loads of videos on YouTube and started to pick out
lots of bad habits that I've had for years and began fixing them.

That led to actually putting together a basic practice schedule that has helped my playing enormously.
Right now I'm smack bang in the middle of this whole thing and still improving so I'll let you know how
it all turns out!

[WaveForm3]

I was honestly really insulted when my current guitar teacher said the he believes that techniquality overrides feeling.

I walked out.

You were so right. Unless it's truly understood and used very carefully, technical playing sounds like someone typing (IMO).

It just baffled me, because if I reach a certain point where I have nothing left to do but just freak the fuck out, I wanna feel it and feel the terror, not instantly know what to do...

[Antero]

-Gang of Four

-Jazz chord construction

-Playing out a bunch

-Delta blues

[1,2,3, Pull Out!]

TABS! TABS! TABS! Every new song I pick gets more complicated and I constantly push myself to learn stuff I can't do. Learned more about soloing by learning other people solos than the scales I practiced in guitar class.

[More]

I'd say playing other instruments, and music theory. Just getting a feel for music as a whole and the ideas and then sitting down and working out how to do it all on guitar. And then on a piano or whatever. That's what I'd say.
If the music is in your head it'll come out, it just helps to give it some background, like knowing what modes you're using or what chord progressions might sound nice.
Overall then I say general knowledge