what techniques?

[Malfurion]

what technique do you guys reckon I should work on?

I'm learning a bit from my cousin, he shows me how to do something and how to read it off tab, so if I see it I can practise/learn it.

I'm not too great at using a pick, I started out using my fingers but I guess I'll need to use a pick to play metal. So should I work on this first?

I also know power chords, not the name, but I can read it off tab and play them. I just suck at the moment, kinda lost motivation for a couple of weeks ( i only got my guitar a month or so ago, and havn't played for a while).

So would it be good to practise pick exercises for 30mins and then powerchords?

What do you guys think? I also have low motivation, and am pretty slack, any ideas how to get motivation up?

Thanks.

[GonZo]

Low motivation? Man that's a real problem there. Listen to songs that get you fired up and realize that with practice, that could be you makig that racket, and much sooner than you think. That should help some.

Practicng with a pick is good. It's just a matter of getting comfortable with it really, it just becomes natural after awhile. So, yeah, spend sometime making it a point to use your pick.

Learn full major and minor chords. Power chords are just stripped down versions of full chords anyway. So once you learn where the full chords are on the neck, all that's left for power chords is to just strip them down to the two fingers. I would also learn the names and positions of the notes on the neck. It's not as daunting as it sounds. There are only 12 notes on the whole guitar, they just repeat in different places. Learning what is where will make you a much stronger player. The guitar will stop looking like a piece of wood with dots on it and more like a musical road map.

Learn your open chords, major and minor. That's a pretty good place to start. Then move on to bar chords, major and minor. Bar chords wil be tricky at first, but once you have them, it's easy and they kick open soooooooo many doors and make tons of songs possible.

[Malfurion]

Thanks for the reply. I started playing again last night after I watched videos of people playing on youtube, not bands, just people recording themselves and uploading it. Inspired me quite a bit.

I'm getting my first proper lesson tonight, so I'll go from there. Hopefully it'll be better than downloading and trying to play tabs.

[GonZo]

It took sometime before the bug bit me real hard. I noodled at first, but not knowing what to do really takes it out of you. Once you learn a thing or two, ZOOOOOOOOOM! Your off and running and exploreing just how lewd and loud you can get with those 2-3 things you just learned. Becareful, you just might become addicted. ;) And that's what we're hoping for.

[Malfurion]

Lol, I'm actually having fun now. I'm doing fretboard runs and learning the notes on the fretboard. I know notes on 3 or 4 strings now. Then I just have to practise the power chords for wild thing. I'm slowly getting addicted.

[LowEnd_Inc]

PowerChords are essencial. So build on them. Its very Important to know the names of the FRETS on which you place the PowerChord Pattern. Like the 6th/5th and 4th string FRET Names. This will allow you to come up with Chord Progressions (sequences) and remember them as to which ones sound good together. PRactice picking using PowerChords. Strum One then Pick another all the way through then repeat. Mix it up. And FROM PowerChords you create Major and Minor Chords because they are both just "extensions" of a PowerChord. Practice strumming powerchords (or the major/minors) with the intent on only hitting the strings that are to be played - this will help on your accuracy in strumming. The idea being to make sure your "muting" the non-active strings properly (tip:using you index finger for muting). But its vital to know your FRET NAMES - at least on the 6th and 5th strings (up to the 12th FRET).

Know the PowerChord pattern for the 6th/5th and 4th string Frets. Know the Major Chord Pattern for the 6th and 5th string Frets. And know the Minor Chord pattern for the 6th and 5th string Frets. REMEMBER: ANY AND ALL CHORDS get their NAME from the "LOWEST" sounding "NOTE"(name) of the CHORD. This is why its important to know the names of at LEAST the 6th and 5th string FRETS.

Almost all metal is based on PowerChords. So bringing a Rhythm and sequences to these chords are 1/2 the battle for this type of music.

[Mr. Boston]

What technique? Well it ain't glamorous man, but get your rhythm as dead-on-balls accurate as you can. Take any song you know, or just a collection of chords, and play it with a metronome at varying speeds until you can get all your chords changes and upstrokes and downstrokes right on the money. Soloing skills and crazy bends, and whammy bar tricks and all those acrobatics ain't worth a damn if you can't count 1, 2, 3, 4 and be tight every time. That's the place you gotta start. After that I'd say hitting only the strings you intend to hit is pretty key too, lol.

[Malfurion]

Thanks for the advice, I got slack at playing again XD. I've got a goal, to at least, sometime in my life, to play in a place called Mellville hall, or at least get to play in a gig, or a couple of gigs.

Well, my teacher gave me fretboard run exercise, and a sheet of paper with the notes on all the strings, and told me to practise them, play them forward, and then backward, and move on to the next string, I can pretty much name every one, but I'm not good enough to find them automatically yet. He gave me another piece of paper with Power Chords for the song Wild Thing, so after my exercises I normally start playing that. Even if it's really slow.

Do you guys know any good metronomes and where I could get one from? Thanks.

[Strat Kid]

Pretty much any music store has metronomes for sale. I'd recommend an electric one with a stand so it sits up on your table.