Quote (PSPZorZ @ Jun 17 2011 08:59am)
One day I decided to do the complete opposite of what I had been doing all along. That is - I decided to only play/write original material, instead of playing songs that I liked by others. Before that, I simply started playing guitar and wanted to learn some of my favorite songs. There is nothing wrong with wanting to learn your favorite songs on the guitar, but it was holding me back. It's just what worked for me. I started by just making a chord progression up - it can be a simple 4 chord progression - and playing it and trying to write lyrics. All my songs start with strumming a simple chord prog and working on vocals. After that the stage is set for me to work on minor details and the instrumentals... They evolve to become more complex. The best advice I can give you when writing your own music is to start off simple - and when you have a basic idea and theme for the song you can move on to making it more complex! One of the things I took out of your post is that you can play songs, but you don't think you can play them with very good quality - is this what you were trying to say? This is something many musicians struggle with when they first start playing, or even have been playing for years. It is hard to emulate the sound and style of your favorite artists. If you learn a song I can guarantee you will never get it to sound exactly like the recording done by your favorite artist. Some beginners realize they don't sound like their favorite artists and they think they are hopeless at guitar. I would take that as an opportunity to find your own sound. It will take years for you to develop your tone and it is better to make your tone instead of try to emulate the tone of your favorite artists (imo). Of course, every artist gets influenced by their favorite musicians! Maybe I misunderstood what you meant by playing the songs with quality. I think it means you still need to work on your tone and touch, which is a huge part of what sound comes from your instrument (guitar, amp, etc also affect the sound, of course). But maybe I misunderstood (= At any rate, I have given you some advice that I have tried to live by and I hope it helps you. I kept that short and to the point but if you want me to be more specific or elaborate on what I mean don't hesitate to ask.
im not interested in writing music really :/ I went ahead and d/l'd the 20x some dvd's that go with the books i have already. i did some reading and according to alot of sites, the learn and master gibson lessons are rated very high relative to other self teaching methods. so now i have the pdf books, and the dvd's, i may even get the little jam along tracks as well but, I am going to look into getting a real tutor, i just dont want some country bumpkin who will try to teach me stuff im not interested in learning. I will just keep practicing, at this early stage i think thats the most important thing anyway, just practicing/learning chords/scales and fussing w/ music id like to learn