![]() Washing your hands actually makes it easier to play. Yuck!īut that’s not the main reason to wash before you play. It’s bad for your guitar to play it with dirty hands. I just had my Les Paul set up and the tech told me he could have cloned me with all the DNA he found on my neck. This is good practice whether you’re playing on stage or at home. Turn it down until they say it’s a good volume. Sometimes tilting your amp back towards your ears can help, but the bottom line is you need to learn to work with a crap stage mix. You may not even be able to hear it, but the middle-aged woman in the front row is being blasted! Remember the sound develops in front of your amp. If you’re in a coffee shop and the PA is only set up to handle vocals, turn your amp way down. However this only works if the room has a PA system and the amps have microphones on them. That way you can hear your amp, the sound person can mix your amp’s sound and the audience doesn’t get blasted. Point your amps towards the center of the stage rather than towards the audience. The monitors are pointing toward the band, not to the audience. If the system has a decent monitor system you can put some of your guitar back into the monitors. If you give him less volume it’ll be easier for him to mix you in with the drums, bass and vocals. Let the sound guy mix your guitar into the house mix. You may feel naked without your loud amp. If you’re used to practicing with a lot of volume in your rehearsal space this is going to feel uncomfortable. If the venue has a decent PA system you can turn your amp way down on stage. I’ve seen so many bands blow away their audiences with a too-loud amp. If you’re playing in a small club it’s especially important. No amount of shredding will compensate for a crappy sounding guitar. If you’re not willing to take the time to learn the intricacies of guitar repair, you need to find a great guitar-repair-person. Have your guitar set up properly and keep it in great condition. ![]() Change your strings as soon as you start to notice tone problems or tuning issues. Old strings are no good – they make your guitar sound sour and go out of tune quickly. You can break your strings in by stretching them after you put them on (a lot)! Or, you can play your guitar for a day or so before your gig. Having an in-tune guitar means having strings that are already slightly broken in. It might seem easy, but there is real skill to it. Definitely don’t lean them up against your amp. You need to put your guitars down at some point. Let’s start with the basics and move to the more technical: Maybe my observations and practices can help you. I also run a rehearsal facility so I’ve seen some of the most incredible guitar bands come through (Coheed and Cambria, Brian Setzer, Soul Aslyum, Kenny Wayne Shepard, Behemoth, The Bodeans, the Revolution, to name just a few). But I have been involved in bands for over thirty years and I’ve been around guitar players all my life. In fact I’ve only been seriously playing guitars in bands for about six years. At what point did you guys consider yourselves “good”? It’s absolutely subjective but I’m sure there is a point in time for many players where they make up in their mind that they are actually pretty good at it.I’m not a professional musician. I have such a nontraditional history when it comes to learning about music and how to play guitar so it was really hard to put things into perspective. I know it’s kind of a loaded question, but how do you guys mentally approach that question? I felt weird when I described my guitar abilities. I can play fairly technical stuff, I am pretty familiar with music and chord theory, which helps my songwriting substantially, etc… but there is ALWAYS something we can compare ourselves to. I just use guitar to help me express myself. I played it seriously for about five years at that point, had done professional studio work with my band, and had self released and produced my own record. Almost the entire time I have played guitar I had never thought of myself as being a good guitar player. I always wondered about this question although it is very much subjective. Btw this is not an advice post, just an interesting topic.
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