I just watched this video and it kind of hit me. If you’re too lazy to watch the full video well it basically says that the reason you’re struggling on becoming a better guitar player is because you’re wasting your time noodling in front of a metronome instead of playing actual songs.

I’m totally guilty of this, admittedly, I’ll confess it. Playing exercises, learning guitar techniques and tricks are all important but you don’t want to obsess with that stuff too much. What about playing actual music is what this video is saying?

Yes, most famous guitar players out there learned by sitting in front of their record players trying to learn songs by ear… that’s how all the greats learned to play pretty much… Eddie Van Halen, Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, etc. You can learn to play songs either by ear or by online tablature, it’s your choice really but… if you want to really get good at “improvisation” and “ear training”, figuring songs out by ear is the trick. That is pretty much how guitar geniuses like Hendrix, Page, Clapton, etc. all became master improvisers ’cause they learned by playing by ear.

They never sat there wasting time trying to figure out perfect pitch and all that shit.

It’s good to learn other people’s songs. When I was younger and when I was first starting out, I think my first song that I learned on guitar was Aerosmith’s “Dream On”. I thought it was a pretty good idea to learn something challenging first and go from there.

If I want to become good at metal and hard rock guitar, I gotta start learning metal songs. Learn songs by Metallica, Black Sabbath, Megadeth and Judas Priest might be a good place to start ’cause their songs aren’t too hard really. I’ve already learned some metal songs in the past, though. I should really get into that a lot more.

The guy in the video is right that if you really want to improve your rhythm chops, gotta be learning songs and not sitting in front of a metronome for hours and hours. People wanna hear a guitar player play music, not sitting there noodling.

Good advice in this video and I’ll take all of it.

Kev