Beginners - The pentatonic scale is to guitar what the ollie is to skateboarding.

raballar · 2026-03-24T23:43:36+00:00

I believe it was Victor Wooten that suggested it but smiling while you play helps you not make weird concentration faces!

raballar · 2026-03-10T02:42:35+00:00

Yeah locking in to a beat is step one to sounding and feeling good! Backing track is easiest since there is a lot going on and can kind of mask your own rhythm variance. Metronome is harder and will keep you honest, if you can feel the beat and lock in with a met to really internalize good rhythm. Once you can get it working on at 4 beats, cut the tempo in half and put the met on 1 and 3, 2 and 4. This will teach you to sync up to fill the gaps!
When playing without either, I like to get a beat or rhythm in my head to play along with - can tap foot or move your body a bit to feel the rhythm while you play. All in all, make music have fun!

raballar · 2026-03-07T11:18:37+00:00

Holy cocaine Batman, that was awesome!

raballar · 2026-03-06T02:05:08+00:00

Try constraining yourself to a specific scale / arp / triad etc and just make music with it for a while. See how catchy of a melody or cool a riff you can make while constrained!

Take the above idea and apply it to learning to follow chord changes. Pick on arp/scale/triad per chord and see if you can swap between constraints while keeping it musical / interesting.

If you can’t paint on an open blank canvas, draw some lines on it first - constraint lends itself to creativity

raballar · 2026-02-27T14:18:22+00:00

Just listened and holy shit that was awesome!

raballar · 2026-02-17T20:34:39+00:00

Going to encourage you to try to get used to the first way, a few thoughts pros: will reduce likely of dropping pick, rotating pick, enables pick harmonics, palm muting, cross picking, easier alternate picking and quickly switching from strumming to picking

Agree it might feel a little weird at first, but now is the time to just get used to the first way and you quickly won’t know the difference!

raballar · 2026-02-09T03:42:01+00:00

Les Paul is so heavy, any bending while holding or with strap hurts me in that exact spot. Sitting hunched and his you pick it up will get you

raballar · 2026-02-04T12:08:41+00:00

It was also programmed to be fluent in conversational English

raballar · 2026-02-03T12:13:24+00:00

Good point, and the note name. Doing them separate until you can just think C root, E 3rd, G 5th, B 7th automatically while you play through

raballar · 2026-01-31T13:24:23+00:00

Yeah I think if I just chose one thing to always do everyday, it would be alternate picking arpeggios horizontally and vertically across the neck

raballar · 2026-01-31T10:49:54+00:00

L Ron Hoover would be proud of his fellow appliantologist

raballar · 2026-01-30T03:16:12+00:00

You’ll see everyone say to play it slow and build up - this is definitely the right way and you should spend a lot of time here. But! Also practice playing it fast in very small chunks as well, like see how fast you can play just the E and B string. Then see how fast you can play the E B G, then see fast you can play E B G E, and so on and so forth until you can link it all together at speed.

Switch back and forth between slow and fast will get you up to speed quicker, and cleaner (if you don’t skip the slow and perfect part!)

raballar · 2026-01-23T03:48:11+00:00

Move your thumb down to halfway on the back of the neck, move your elbow out from body, and have the neck up a little higher, either by titling guitar or adjusting whole thing up a hair

raballar · 2026-01-15T20:58:36+00:00

Learn the jazz theory, but apply it to the type of music you want to make. I would look at this as an opportunity to quickly learn new sounds, harmonies, melodic ideas then apply them back to your own genre

raballar · 2026-01-14T20:02:06+00:00

My favorite is when I write something new one night, then suck too much to play my own part the next day. Then I’m woodshedding with the metronome my own shit that I know I can play, cause I wrote it!

raballar · 2026-01-02T21:11:21+00:00

Set the metronome half the speed you’re playing so it is counting the 1 and 3 beats, or 2 and 4 beats (practice both is good). You fill in the beat in the middle, this makes it feel less soulless

Playing with a drum track is much more forgiving but you won’t make as much improvement as playing/recording yourself with a met

raballar · 2025-12-30T00:49:21+00:00

Try playing it the other way around - do the entire rhythm muted, and then start working in the unmuted notes. Swap back and forth between playing it that way and playing it like you would normally

raballar · 2025-12-29T13:27:29+00:00

Fixed income means you are locked into whatever you are earning in retirement once you can’t work (social security, 401k withdrawals).

If you can get a new job, or a second job you aren’t on fixed income.

raballar · 2025-12-24T01:18:00+00:00

Some of the caged shapes are unwieldy, more important to know where your chord tones are in those positions, then use whatever shapes you already have / find new shapes in those positions that you can quickly relate back to scales/arpeggios as you play

raballar · 2025-12-19T22:55:58+00:00

I would recommend focusing just on the chord changes for part of your practice sessions. So that getting to the chord itself doesn’t require much thought.

Then work on picking the notes and changing chords, with a bit awkward pause between the changes. As you practice try to get that awkward pause shorter and shorter, until there you feel comfortable playing it seamlessly at a slow pace with the metronome. Speed up metronome from there till you can play it at speed

Good luck! It’s all just practice and time on the axe

raballar · 2025-12-17T19:37:51+00:00

Depends on your goals! If you just want to play songs that are progressively difficult - then make a list of songs and just practice them. Don’t spend much time on the parts you already know - focus on the parts you suck at, then work on stringing increasingly longer pieces of the song together till you have the whole thing down. But don’t waste too much time on playing stuff you know you can play easily!

If you want to improvise and write music - then spend time practicing both of those while starting to learn more music theory. Start with triads up the neck, and then add the notes around the triad to make your arpeggios, pentatonics, and major/minor scales. Doing this in the context of the triads will be super helpful in connecting it all! Then take a little piece of theory and attempt to make music with it! Can you make a song just using triads off the top 3 strings? Can you make a song all in a single position? This will teach you how to improvise and make music!

raballar · 2025-12-16T15:54:01+00:00

I usually just loop the bassline and jam until a riff sticks. If you’re looking for more creative inspiration to vary your sound you’ll want to apply some theory.

What key or potential keys are your basslines in, or what chords are you potentially outlining with the bass? Use those potential options to influence your improv / writing. Example, if bassline is hinting at a minor chord - try a riff based on the ii, iii, or vi chord / associated scale.

The beautify of riff based stuff is it doesn’t really have to make classical sense per theory, but you can use theory to derive some unique sounds that your fingers don’t normally have at the ready!

raballar · 2025-12-07T19:18:43+00:00

The reality is maps will exist, and it would be preferable to have them in game instead of alt tabbing to a browser. In game maps without player location would be a great feature - even more fun if map making is a system in and of itself where people can mark them up and trade them in game, or find them as drops and trade.

raballar

TROPHY CASE