What is your player level?

What level of player would you consider yourself?

  • Beginner

    Votes: 20 9.0%

  • Intermediate

    Votes: 156 70.3%

  • Advanced

    Votes: 72 32.4%
  • Total voters
    222
Piing said:
It is when we want to do something outside of our comfort zone when our level is challenged.

I am currently challenged trying to play Chopin Nocturne 20 in C# minor. First I thought it was going to be easy, but it is taking me a lot of effort :sweatsmile:

I will share it here, in case that you also want to take the challenge:

The objective is to record two guitars playing the right and left hand parts respectively.

1) Learn to pay both parts. Be faithful to the original composition. I attach the MIDI file with right and left hands on separate channels, for easy reference (I use the piano roll mouse-scroll audition function to listen the notes).
2) Find a nice and pleasant clean tone. No high gain or shredding!
3) Play the trills picking or fingering. No tapping
4) Pay attention to the dynamics (check the attached score and listen carefully to the performances)
5) Record the two guitar tracks at the DAW
6) Do not record with a metronome. The tempo must flow. That is the magic of performing this piece (indications at the score)
7) You can record over the attached MIDI (it has tempo and dynamic changes), use an existing performance to play over it (there are several performances to chose on YouTube, all of them different) or start from scratch at your own pace.

Think it is easy? Record it and listen to yourself :)

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@Piing Check out this performance of Chopin Nocturne no 2 on acoustic guitar:


I know it's not the piece you are pursuing now but maybe can bring you some inspiration and ideas. Plenty of dynamics and emotion into his playing style.
 
I'm a total hack with no real hope of getting any better (technically at least). In a lot of ways I was better 20 years ago, but in the more important ways (at least for what I do) like musicality, sense of melody, chord variations... I'm much better now.

Axe III is amazing for so many genres!
 
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Apparently I am good enough to be gigging at least a couple times every month for the past 9 years or so. I can always be better.
 
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Piing said:
I've been playing for about 40 years. When I was a teenager I saw myself as a super guitar hero. But the more I've learnt, the more I've realized how lame my playing is.
However, I become a better player with every new FW version. And today I enjoy my tone more than my playing. I don't give a damn about technique or perfection :p
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I also suffered with the ignorance of youth, thinking (stupidly) as a youngster that I had a special talent once I'd got to grips with the basic ability to learn songs and play along to my favourite records. 30-odd years later, I realise how poor I am as a player. I'd say my technical ability hit a plateau in the mid-nineties, then seemed to gradually drop off. I am a worse player now, lacking confidence, and painfully aware I have little or no knowledge of basic theory, it's rather embarrassing. I need to be content/comfortable that my 'level' ability-wise is what it is, and live with it.
 
If the goal is making music, advanced guitar skills do more harm than good past a certain point. My own music making improved a lot around the time I realized this.

I mean, Tom Petty sold a lot more records than Steve Vai, and I bet literally every single one of us on this forum can play better than Tom Petty. Most probably better than Mike Campbell too.

Now imagine Steve Vai playing lead in the Heartbreakers instead of Mike C. It would have RUINED EVERYTHING! Nothing against Vai, I love him in his own context, but flashy technique is SO not everything.
 
Denny99 said:
Definitely too generic. I would consider both John Petrucci and David Gilmour advanced players, even though their style and technique is radically different.
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I agree. You can be advanced in rock but totally suck in jazz. Even Petrucci can not play classical guitar like John Williams. You don't have to be able too sweep like Yngwie to be advanced. Is the Edge advanced? Fripp can't play downstrokes like Hetfield and so on. You don't have to be advanced in everything to be a great player.
 
Bodde said:
I agree. You can be advanced in rock but totally suck in jazz. Even Petrucci can not play classical guitar like John Williams. You don't have to be able too sweep like Yngwie to be advanced. Is the Edge advanced? Fripp can't play downstrokes like Hetfield and so on. You don't have to be advanced in everything to be a great player.
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Very well put. Some people are great students of the instrument, and there is nothing wrong with that. What people forget is that many of those that they are studying and trying to emulate are people who found their own voice and went with it and learned to express the feeling and emotion. While I can enjoy and appreciate the highly technical players, the ones that make me feel something are the ones that I remember the most. Blackmore and Page would fail miserably at metronome precise sweep picking, but I prefer the way they push the timing and the bends around to create the tension and release far more than the guys who can keep perfectly timed hyperspeed runs that don't really say much. Impressive? Maybe. Do non-musicians give a rats ass? Not usually. They want to listen to something that gives them an escape from the mundane, or makes them feel something other than impressed by someone's athletic abilities. Metronomes are for practicing technique, not for real expression. And if a singer really needs autotune, they should just be a dancer. (That's a jab at all of the pretty dancers dominating the pop music industry.
 
OK I guess I'll be as honest as possible. For as long as I have been playing guitar I think I should be much better. But in my own defense I have always been the lead vocalists in every band, Trio or duo I played in in the last 35+ years.
So I have no idea where I belong in the 3 choices. I will go with Ian and Matt's post. They sum it up perfectly as do many others in this thread.
I fall into the category of beginning to Advance to Intermediary humble beginnings. What?
 
Dr. Dipwad said:
@Denny99:

I think your first few items could use adjusting.

Re: 200pbm: Are you talking about quarter notes, or sixteenth note septuplets, at that tempo?
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Actually, either. Playing sixteenth at 200bpm is surely difficult, as well as playing quarters being dead on the beat :)

Dr. Dipwad said:
Re: Sweep Picking Like Crazy: I think this is too specific. If it's a given that the "vanilla" (commonplace) form of playing is alternate picking, then, to qualify as "advanced," a player should demonstrate performance-competence in at least one other "rum raisin" (unusual) kind of playing. It could be tapping, it could be sweeping, it could be chicken-pickin, it could be uncanny use of legato. Stanley Jordan doesn't sweep pick; but surely he qualifies as "advanced?"
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Does a player really need to demonstrate performance-competence in more than one kind of playing? Otherwise is he/she considered intermediate, or beginner? If a player really excels at just one ability (pick whatever you like) but lacks the others, should he/she be considered just intermediate?

[...]

Dr. Dipwad said:
I'm not trying to be mean! Please take this as friendly suggestions of improvements. :) It's a good list overall, but I think those items need tweaking.
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I actually DON'T want to tweak any list at all. What I'm trying to say is you can't list the qualities a player should have in order to consider him/her advanced. Any player can be considered advanced, even if he can barely play chords but can play tasteful solos with groove (take B.B. King, for example). The whole point is: do I like what I hear (and consider it advanced playing) or not?

And thanks for editing my post in the quoted part, English is not my mother tongue so forgive the mistakes ;)
 
Do I think im good not by any stretch but ive had people tell me that they think im good. I will say I have a lot of room for improvement that a teacher would be good for and one day ill search one out.
Now I also own a ton of really nice gear do I need it no, do I enjoy having it absolutely, its fun to go into that room and go eh I want to play this today.

I dont know how id classify myself, intermediate I guess I have a solid understanding of the instrument and some very basic theory. I dont play in a band ive never wanted to, I enjoy playing for the sheer enjoyment of playing its stress relief for me.

I will always be my own worst critic that much is for sure.
 
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