Hello! This is actually my first post on Reddit.
I'm a high school freshman and have had decent guitar experience. I know everything up to an intermediate level plus some more here and there (around 2 years of serious stuff). One thing I've been neglecting is learning songs. Initially, I did learn some songs, but my problem came when I realised that I wasn't singing even *nearly* to be called a "performance". This realisation made me learn to sing, which I'm just 2-3 months into. I still suck. Another reason I'm kinda avoiding to learn songs right now is because I just can't seem to get the chords/melodies by ear, and I feel bad looking them up because it's lazy. This leads to my first problem:
When people ask me to play something, I just can't, because well, I don't "know anything". I want to have a big repertoire that I'm always ready to play/perform.
I'm desperately feeling the need to learn theory. Most of it is because I want to be a songwriter/composer, and I feel theory is gonna be really useful. What I've been practicing lately is just improvising in the major scale all over the fretboard. I also got the Grade 1 Theory of Music Workbook from Trinity, and I actually finished it in a couple of days (because I knew a lot of the stuff already, though I can't sight read). That added to what I've learnt from YouTube videos is practically all the theoretical knowledge I have. I'm also planning to take the Theory of Music exams (it also helps in college applications I guess), so I was thinking of getting the rest of the workbooks.
I want to learn enough theory to be able to compose. More importantly, I want to be able to use all of my theoretical knowledge in composing. (should I just do the rest of these workbooks, or do you suggest something else?)
I also want to keep improving and getting better at guitar. Specifically, I want to be able to _really_ be able to use my ears. Like:
When I listen to a melody/harmony I want to instantly be able to play it on my guitar.
I know that's possible for a fact, because that's basically how singing works.
Next,
I want to have complete mastery of my instrument; I want to be able to improvise over any chord progression, and be able to play any chord progressions even with 7th or extended chords
Unfortunately, I didn't learn my triads very seriously, so I guess I should work on that, but I think you're starting to see the point of this post.
Lastly,
I want to make music. Good music.
That is my ultimate goal. I just got this Macbook Pro and am baffled by the amount of technology I have at my disposal. The only thing that is stopping me from making music is my lack of knowledge/mastery. Let's fix that.
I've laid down most of my goals, and this is what I'm asking of you guys:
I wanna know what books I should get, but most importantly, I want a practice plan. Something that works. Because, honestly speaking, I'm very lost as to what and how I should practice (or learn music in general). I currently give around 1.5-2 hours to music everyday, but I can give around 2.5 hours everyday (right now it's 1 hour of singing + 0.5-1 hour(s) of noodling on guitar with some backing track). I have no idea how good/efficient this is, and where this is gonna lead me.
Specifically, if I were to write down everything I needed to practice, the list would be something like:
- Learning lead guitar stuff,
- Learning triads (and then seventh chords when I master triads),
- Learning theory (have no idea what to do here),
- Learning songs (is it okay to look up the chords/melody?),
- Ear training
I want to be really fluent with my harmonies; they should be second nature. Same holds for improvisation (the scales in this case).
Enough rambling; please pr0s, guide me. I'm just really confused as to what I should be doing right now, ugh.
P.S. I have never really had a real life teacher, and I plan to keep it that way. Unless of course, you guys suggest against it.
Submitted October 26, 2019 at 02:04PM by 6cube https://www.reddit.com/r/Learnmusic/comments/dnglmx/lost_on_what_to_do/?utm_source=ifttt