Comments

• Franz Morales Philippines✭✭

  September 2015 Posts: 85

  I'm in the same boat. Baby at home and I watch over him most of the day since I work from home. What I do is imagine the licks and phrases I know and try to come up with variations in my head. I also practice my right hand picking motion
  
  what else... I try to follow changes in my mind, again with licks and phrases I know and memorize new songs.
  
  But of course I can only test if all i've imagined works once I get my hands on a guitar sometimes it's spot on, most of the time I have to do some tweaking haha.
  
  I'm interested what others have to say...

  
• jonpowl Hercules, CA✭✭✭ Dupont MD-100, Altamira M01F

  September 2015 Posts: 709

  @Buco Which app are you using?
• Jim Kaznosky Prodigy Bumgarner Derecho;AJL XO

  September 2015 edited September 2015 Posts: 1,238

  transcribe/ear training : listen to a solo you have not learned until you can sing along with it without anticipation. Use a playa long and sing (out loud or in your head) the solo note for note. Once you have it memorized completely, break it apart phrase by phrase and try to figure out which chord tone each note in the phrase is, note by note. once you've done this for a single phrase, try to visualize how you might play the phrase based on chord shapes you know. I do this sort of thing on the subways

  
• rgrice Pisgah Forest, NC✭✭✭✭ 1994 Dupont MD 30, 1965 Gretsch Double Anniversary, Eastman AR610, Martin D16GT, Epiphone Joe Pass Emperor II Pro

  September 2015 Posts: 477

  Like to know app as well!
• Jazzaferri Victoria B.C.Moderator Dunn Ultrafox, DuPont MDC20 Gretsch Chet Atkins CG

  September 2015 Posts: 3,707

  IMO the best thing you can do is listen and learn to very quietly hum the solo. Once you have it so you can hum, sing whatever pick up your guitar and see if you can play it as you hear it. If not more scale/technical practice is required. If you can play what you hear you are only a small step from just playing what comes.
  
  Imitate, integrate, create.
  

  

  The Magic really starts to happen when you can play it with your eyes closed
• Buco NOVA, DCDeity Ivanovski maple/spruce

  September 2015 Posts: 4,910

  The app is called Notes de Musique.
  Free app, shows some adds but only prior to entering the play/learn mode then it's all clear of distractions.
  The way I used it is I selected all 4 octaves and then you can limit the notes used so you can learn group by group of notes.
  I memorized them in a couple of weeks, something I couldn't do in years.
  Still it's just a start, there's much more to sheet music than notes themselves.
  
  Good stuff here, thanks.
  Transcribing is another one of my weak spots.

  

  Every note wants to go somewhere-Kurt Rosenwinkel
• Jazzaferri Victoria B.C.Moderator Dunn Ultrafox, DuPont MDC20 Gretsch Chet Atkins CG

  September 2015 Posts: 3,707

  What people often do is transcribe by slowing down and writing down bit by hit the tune, solo, etc. what is supposed to happen is to learn it, then write it down from memory as you hear it in your head.

  

  The Magic really starts to happen when you can play it with your eyes closed
• Jim Kaznosky Prodigy Bumgarner Derecho;AJL XO

  September 2015 Posts: 1,238

  What he said^.
• Buco NOVA, DCDeity Ivanovski maple/spruce

  September 2015 Posts: 4,910

  That's way ahead of me

  

  Every note wants to go somewhere-Kurt Rosenwinkel
• Lango-Django Niagara-On-The-Lake, ONModerator

  September 2015 edited September 2015 Posts: 1,868

  All good ideas above, and here's another one that's so obvious, it falls right on that weird borderline between 'genius' and 'idiocy'.
  
  Sometimes when 'mamma don't allow no guitar playin' round here', like three am when I can't sleep, I switch to playing fingerstyle real quietly.
  
  And when I say 'fingerstyle', I mean playing with my fingers and thumb the same lead lines that I'd play with my pick if I were free to pick up my pick.
  
  Sounds crazy, but try it... hey, it worked for Oscar Aleman!
  
  Will
  
  PS Buco, congrats on the new arrival! When do we get our cigars?
  
  

  

  Paul Cezanne: "I could paint for a thousand years without stopping and I would still feel as though I knew nothing."
  
  Edgar Degas: "Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things.... To draw, you must close your eyes and sing."
  
  Georges Braque: "In art there is only one thing that counts: the bit that can’t be explained."