Mastering the electric guitar?

Question:hey i got 2 questions
first off ive got a fender mexican strat. with a peavey 212 chorus.. i have a a pedal board i made with... my ditech grunge, tube screamer, digital reverb, digital chorus, delay, and a flanger...

my dads been playing 25+ years and can pretty much play any Van Halen, Metallica, AC/DC song or any older rock/ metal

ive been playing for about 8 months..
ive been taking lessons since then and i can play alot of blues and these are the songs
back in black
one
sweet child of mine
walk
seek and destory
sweet home alabama
enter sandman
lay it down
and your in love

but when i play i still make minor mistakes.. i play for about an hour and 30 mins everytime i pick up my guitar... how long will it take to master these mistakes?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: hey i got 2 questions
first off ive got a fender mexican strat. with a peavey 212 chorus.. i have a a pedal board i made with... my ditech grunge, tube screamer, digital reverb, digital chorus, delay, and a flanger...

my dads been playing 25+ years and can pretty much play any Van Halen, Metallica, AC/DC song or any older rock/ metal

ive been playing for about 8 months..
ive been taking lessons since then and i can play alot of blues and these are the songs
back in black
one
sweet child of mine
walk
seek and destory
sweet home alabama
enter sandman
lay it down
and your in love

but when i play i still make minor mistakes.. i play for about an hour and 30 mins everytime i pick up my guitar... how long will it take to master these mistakes?

Hi,

I've read your question twice, but still only find one question.

However...to answer it I have to make the following observation. You say you know a bunch of songs (listed by you above) so what kind of errors are you making?

Is it a memory problem? Or is it a guitar/playing problem?

If it is a memory problem, e.g. you 'forget' just what notes/chords come next, there is little you can do except continue what you are doing and 'add' memory aids for you to refer to while playing. (Some players use written 'chord sheets' or even 'on screen' computer patterns)

If your mistakes are 'misshits' or inaccuracies in hitting the right notes, etc. Then, again, you have to continue doing what you are doing.

90 minutes of practice a day is plenty enough for general learning of your instrument.

You are striving for somewhat more than that...you have a number of effects pedals and you are trying to re-create a particular sound and method that others got to through their own learning time.

Eight months may seem a long time for you, but you have, quite obviously, learned a great deal already and you are continuing to work at 'getting it right'. It may be that your 'mistakes' are nothing more than differences in playing style and not real mistakes.

Copying may sound an easy option, but it is not always the best way to go. Perhaps if you change the sound you want to create and strive for an individual sound to any piece? You'll find the 'mistakes' will, quite possibly, disappear?

Other than that, just be patient...I've been playing and singing for well over forty years and still make mistakes.

A good friend of mine (Bill Dynamo-that's his 'stage' name) who is among the most skilled players in many styles I have ever heard (He's now a session musician in Germany and has played on many artists' recordings)

Once told me, many years ago when I complained his playing made me sound amateur 'Don't worry about it...when I started I practiced every day (age 11) for six or seven hours a day for six years before he felt good enough even to join a band. He still practices every day (though perhaps not for quite so long) and says he need the time to get 'good enough'.

Everything WILL come and you are already doing the right thing...how long? Well, without knowing exactly what your 'mistakes' are that's impossible for anyone to say, but you are probably being over self-critical. (Which, like with Bill, is a great thing to be)

Keep up the practice and good luck.

BobSpain

It's going to take you years.... Most people we look up to as masters of the guitar spent at least 10 years of serious practicing.

Just keep practicing everyday... You'll be as good as you want to be.

try to repeat the part where you messed up slowly. then play it again at a faster speed. play the same thing many times going faster and faster until you feel that you got it... that's what i always do.

You can also use a method that works for a few people. Play it way faster then you're suppose to. Then when you play it at normal speed it'll be slower then what you're use to.

Works for some songs. Not others.

Time. You can't just sit at a piano for 10 hours and suddenly play just like any great composer. Your fingers need to really develop and harden (feel your dad's finger tips to see what I mean), and just practice.

I played baseball every day and would occasionally miss a ball or too, but as time went on those misses became few and far between. And no one is ever really perfect, even the greatest make mistakes.

it depends on how determined you are in playing and on how fast you learn, but dont worry about mistakes thats the beauty of playing without them it would be boring.

you could play for like 30 years and make mistakes still
(example: you could play a riff sloppy but only you would know that it was bad)
but just keep on practicing the the songs then eventually you wont make any mistakes

First, slow down. Tempo is the last part of the song you need to work on. Slow the tempo down, but pay attention to the tones and rhythms. Once you can play without these mistakes, speed up the tempo a LITTLE. This will take weeks of repeating and progressing if you want to get rid of the mistakes, but it is worth it in the long run.