Sometimes I listen too closely to all of you

[Cynical]

There's a difference between getting good at skills you're going to use, and getting good at skills because "you're supposed to to be a 'real' musician" or something. If you want to improve at playing a particular part, and you're only ever going to play it under tons of distortion, time you spend playing it clean isn't going to help you play it in the way you actually want to play it as much as playing it in the way you actually want to play it.

 

[Phantasmagoria]

The idea of "practice with less gain" has always seemed counter-productive to me. If you're going to be playing a part with high gain, that's how you should be practicing it IMO; higher gain comes with different technical challenges than lower gain (on muting in particular), and there's no reason to try to make a part sound great with no distortion if you're only ever going to play it with tons of distortion.

The Army likes to say "train like you fight"; for guitarists, that translates to "practice like you play".

This.

Unfortunately the guitar world is full of dumb incorrect "one size fit's all" kinda cliches that are frankly rank rubbish. "Thou shalt do this & thou shalt do that " does'nt work for all "thou's" and some of us prefer to do it different in ways we deem "better" for us. People need to learn to live w/ that instead of getting butthurt, 'cause obviously there's no problem w/ the results...​ :bigthumb:

 

[Cynical]

This.

Unfortunately the guitar world is full of dumb incorrect "one size fit's all" kinda cliches that are frankly rank rubbish. "Thou shalt do this & thou shalt do that " does'nt work for all "thou's" and some of us prefer to do it different in ways we deem "better" for us. People need to learn to live w/ that instead of getting butthurt, 'cause obviously there's no problem w/ the results...​ :bigthumb:

I've started to suspect that a lot of the "standard advice" for improving at guitar is intentionally terrible in order to keep people unhappy with their playing and thus buying more practice regimens and such that will keep them unhappy with their playing and thus buying still more perpetually.

 

[Phantasmagoria]

Honestly, nothing would surprise me.

 

[Mincer]

The idea of "practice with less gain" has always seemed counter-productive to me. If you're going to be playing a part with high gain, that's how you should be practicing it IMO; higher gain comes with different technical challenges than lower gain (on muting in particular), and there's no reason to try to make a part sound great with no distortion if you're only ever going to play it with tons of distortion.

The Army likes to say "train like you fight"; for guitarists, that translates to "practice like you play".

Yeah, but I don't use high gain at all. So it would make sense not to practice with it, as none of the songs I would play would use it.

 

[Cynical]

Yeah, but I don't use high gain at all. So it would make sense not to practice with it, as none of the songs I would play would use it.

For you, agreed! I see far too many metalheads who haven't actually played a clean part in years for any reason other than practicing it clean for the sake of practicing it clean saying "you need to practice everything on a clean channel!" when they'd really be much better served by practicing it on the gained-out lead channel they intend to play it on.

 

[Phantasmagoria]

Yeah, but I don't use high gain at all. So it would make sense not to practice with it, as none of the songs I would play would use it.

Fair enough, but then nobody's ordering you to practice your clean/almost clean stuff on a dimed Uberschall's Ultra channel either. See how dumb that would be?

 

[Chistopher]

What I'm getting from this thread is that maybe we should play our instruments the way we want to instead of telling other people how to play their's.

 

[Phantasmagoria]

Pretty much :lmao:

 

[jeremy]

What I'm getting from this thread is that maybe we should play our instruments the way we want to instead of telling other people how to play their's.

yep. its fine to listen to others that have qualified opinions, but at the end of the day, do what works best for you. even if its totally different than everything youve been told

 

[misterwhizzy]

What I'm getting from this thread is that maybe we should play our instruments the way we want to instead of telling other people how to play their's.

I'm going to say that I'm thankful when inspiration hits, even if it's from an unconventional method.