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Location: Michigan | When you are playing a song do you have to watch the neck of your guitar to see what notes you are playing or can you just do it without watching where you are ?I cannot for the life of me play more than a couple of chords/leads or whatever without looking at the neck or I will miss notes.
It really pisses me off the Eddie Vanhalens and the Steve Howes of the world can be looking all over the place and making those funny faces and never have to look at their guitars and play fantastic.GWB |
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Location: Vernon CT | Do you play 8-9 hours a day like they most likely did? Is playing guitar your full time job? Is playing guitar a "talent" you were born with?
Your answer to all the above is most likely no.
Therefore, you are most likely like 98% of us and have learned on your own, an hour or so a day(maybe 2-3 hrs a day).It's all about the time "we" put into it. The songs I have played for a few yrs, or have practiced the most I can play w/o looking. But, 80% of the songs I play I have to "glance down" once in a while to look. You are no different then most of us. |
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Location: Michigan | BT717 take a look at the Frank Zappa Steve Vai post and watch the video clip.Franks eyes never leave the fretboard and Im sure he plays more than an hour a day.Thats what I was refering to.GWB |
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Posts: 1900
| I practise not watching, close my eyes but my head wants to turn anyway..I tend to watch the left hand on ascending scales and the right hand on descending scales...go figure.. |
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Location: NJ | i watch the side dots |
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Location: NJ | I watch the Tip Jar . . . |
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Location: Omaha, NE | I watch for hot babes flashing the stage. |
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Location: Vernon CT | GWB,
Your original post mentioned The "VanHalens and Howes" of the world. I'm not by any means sayinig
Zappa and Via aren't in the same class, but, I used those two as my reference point when I made my original statement. I'm sure everyone looks now and the depending on how will they know a song. I'm also assumming that playing guitar is NOT you entire life. That's the point I was trying to make. WE need to look more then they do. |
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Location: Keepin' It Weird in Portland, OR | I look at the song chords on my monitor... Really.
No, I look just like everyone else, but I do close my eyes sometimes when practicing. Trying to do it without looking.
On my lead attempts, I look at the dots on the side of the neck.
Sometime I forget the chords, not how to do them, but where I am at in the song. Just like forgetting the words, y'know?
Damn Short-Term-Memory-Loss!
[what were we talking about?] |
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Location: Boise, Idaho | I watch TV. |
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Location: closely held secret | Sometimes I watch just to see what my hand is going to do next. |
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Location: Budd Lake, NJ | I have tried to play without watching; my right hand is fine, it's that uncooperative left one that isn't trustworthy on its' own. ;) :D
I have noticed one thing: when I don't look, I play even more noticeably awful than when I do, so I must confess I belong to "Fret-Watchers Anonymous," too. ("My name is Karen......")
--Karen |
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Location: Simpsonville, SC | Hi Karen and welcome to the FWA. My name is Beggin..
Since I am a novice, is there any other choice? It's already bad enough when I look. |
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Location: big island | jose feliciano doesn't watch his hands or the frets. |
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Location: The Great Pacific Northwest | I look but don't fixate. I find I tend to "listen" more when I'm not looking, and hence play better. However, I usually look if I'm changing position etc... It's also pretty hard to sing and look at the neck.... so again, just glance once in awhile then I need to.
When I gigged I used put a small arrow made of on tape on the floor pointing to the front of the stage. It was just a symbol to remind me "that's where the paycheck is coming from" or "They came to see you and be entertained, if they wanted to just listen, they'd be at home listening to the stereo." It meant other appropriate phrases to me, but a simple small Arrow (3-pieces of duct tape) was all the reminder I needed. Sometimes I drew one up the side of the setlist, and taped that to the floor. Same idea.
But as most have said... if you practice not looking, you'll get to where you look when you need to look. Much like touch-typing, or the piano... most folks I see, still glance at the keyboards,... they just don't fixate more than needed. |
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Location: 6 String Ranch | Lately I've been watching my right hand. BUT, where I sit in the music room is rignt across from the lower part of the wall where the Nationals hang and there are mirrors there, so I'm watching the right hand in the mirror. The interesting thing is that while it is going in the regular strum pattern there are extra notes from the thumb and forefinger moving, kinda like a double time thing. |
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Location: Boise, Idaho | Miles, try looking when you hit the "Add Reply" button. |
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Location: Tychy, Poland | normally i try not to look on the neck when i play. i just sometimes look at it when i play "bad" note and i wonder "why the hell i did play that thing?" |
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Location: enid, ok | I look for the exit. |
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Location: PDX | I definitely and consciously look at my hands. My fretting fingers have a mind of their own. They move way too far from the fretboard or tense up in sympathetic tension. I watch for all those times and then slow it WAY down and focus on keeping the fingers where they are supposed to be -- close to the fretboard and relaxed.
I think i catch a lot of bad habits that way. However, once i've trained the correct muscle memory into my fingers i still watch them but not as intently.
Practice does not make perfect -- perfect practice makes perfect.
_____
gh1 |
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Location: Cicero, NY | Originally posted by Omaha:
I watch for hot babes flashing the stage. I wanna play in Jeff's band...
(ok, maybe roadie...) |
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Location: East Tennessee | Originally posted by cliff:
I watch the Tip Jar . . .  |
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Location: Tucson, AZ | ...I watch both the neck markers as well as my fingers...I play by "position" not by "feel" since I play many different guitars. |
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| If I didn't look at my fretting hand I'd be too distracted by the girls flashing Jeff. |
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Location: Latitude 39.56819, Longitude -105.080066 | Originally posted by The Wabbit Formerly Known As Waskel:
Sometimes I watch just to see what my hand is going to do next. Wabbit, we know what you do with your hands :eek: ...
Now turn off the video and slowing walk away |
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Location: Simpsonville, SC | ...Wab...uhhh.....we where just kidding about rooming together in Amelia Isle.... |
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Location: Tychy, Poland | Originally posted by Old Tele man:
...I watch both the neck markers as well as my fingers...I play by "position" not by "feel" since I play many different guitars. this is the reason why i try to buy guitars with the same scale. |
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Posts: 486
Location: North Carolina | Depends upon what I'm doing. If I'm leaping from the first position to way up the neck, sure I'll look. Usually when I look it's because I still can't believe I'm actually doing all that great stuff I'm hearing. |
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| I finally glance a gander at the neck of the guitar only when it is needed now. Noticed this change in the last year or so. It is just familiarity with the instrument and it only works on songs you've practiced or played many times.
The Bass is another animal though, at least for me, I have bought a head set and an ear button to use when I play and sing with it. It is the only way I can do it so far because I can't be stuck to a mic and try to see the neck. I am fairly lucky to be better than average at figureing out the scales and odd styles of various musicians but I have no "Familiarity" with the Bass. It is still a new instrument to me and if I don't look... ..I slide right up a fret short or buzz a note by landing right on top of a fret.
Bass is a real monster to tame, there are so many tricks to learn to create the various sonuds within a song. Changing from popping or slap up through some scales to quietly fingering through the notes and adding the sub bass note for the rumble. I find it an amazing instrument and at times very difficult to play. Never respected the bass player until I actually tried to play bass.
Randy |
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Location: Indiana | I never have to look at either hand or the neck. That is unless I want to hit the right notes. Sometimes looking doesn't help.
Bill |
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Location: Central Oregon | Originally posted by lanaki:
jose feliciano doesn't watch his hands or the frets. Neither does Doc Watson. |
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Location: 6 String Ranch | or Ray Charles |
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Location: Capital District, NY, USA Minor Outlying Islands | I find the hot girls (now mostly MILF's) a little distracting, so I'll look at the back wall, or off into space, or at the headstock or close my eyes. Then look at the fretboard when I need to do a lead type thing. |
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Location: NJ | ". . I find the hot girls (now mostly MILF's) a little distracting, so I'll look at the back wall . . ."
WTF's the fun in THAT???? |
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January 2006
Posts: 5881
Location: Colorado Rocky Mountains | I spend much less time looking at the side markers than I use to, primarily because I'm reading music. If I glance away from the music to look at the fretboard, which I do occasionally to place that one-off screwy chord in the upper register, I'm very apt to lose my place in the music, particularly where lines jump from page to page for repeats and codas. That is my biggest gripe . . . that publishers are so cheap that they create very complex and confusing scores in order to save a few pages. For a guitarist, reaching up to turn pages (we did one number a few weeks ago that had a five-page turn) means the music stops. I usually rewrite everything to two pages and spread it across the music stand so I never have to turn pages. Maybe composers could just write all guitar music so that every page turn occured on an Em11! |
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October 2006
Posts: 5575
Location: big island | Originally posted by Mauvais Beal:
or Ray Charles hmmm...didn't know ray played/used to play guitar. learn sumthin' new every day. |
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Do you watch while you play???