I am also a long time undiagnosed ADHD guitar player myself, everything that you've said in the video works... you are 100% on point. You've done such an amazing job here!
When practicing, I always ask myself "what am i actually trying to learn". This helps me to keep the noodling and mental distractions at bay, and improves my focus on the task at hand.
Billy Sheehan said to keep your strap height to where if you’re sitting down or standing up your bass or guitar is in the same position. Thought that was pretty good advice and it works for me
I've been playing guitar since I was 12 years old. I'm 47 now. I would say I'm fairly good. When I was young, I spent 4/5 hours a day practising. As I've got older, that's dropped to 4 hours a week, sometimes more. But those early years of practice learning to play clean and get that muscle memory down on scales chords has helped me stay in touch with guitar today. There's literally no substitute for practising. Learn one song or scale at a time. Really get that under your finger before you move on to something else. But above all, enjoy playing
Top tip : Practice every day. It takes dedication. As my grandfather used to to say about anything you want in life - it takes hard work. ''Don't put your wishbone where your backbone should be"
Extra tip: positioning the guitar as low as Hetfield and Petroza might look metal but will destroy your back, don't do it! 😅 Excellent final tip and a testament of ur quality as a guitarist and person.
Depends on your playing style. For me, I play semi-low, but that's mainly due to my picking arm. I prefer having it relaxed low, especially when playing standing up for extended periods of time. I've tried raising my guitar a bit, but it starts to become uncomfortable on my right arm with it being cocked constantly and my picking noticeably starts to suffer. But that's just me
Great video with lots of ideas that I need to reflect on. A huge one for me was learning to stand up when practicing for an upcoming gig. It makes a huge difference because the guitar looks and feels different. An amazing guitar playing in my band also gave me some good advice: Practice at home so that you can feel 120% relaxed when playing a song, because when you get with your band in a practice studio, the feel will change and you'll drop to 100%. And even then, live on stage, you'll still only be able to play at 80-90%. If you're playing at 80-90% at home, when you get into a practice studio or live on stage, it might be a disaster!
The single biggest push forward in my guitar playing was bringing my guitar closer to the desk i spend huge amounts of time, so it is now within subconscious reach.
yeah, I have always heard that you need to slow down to become fast, "smooth is fast" type stuff. I think the practice by ear stuff was the best thing in that habit. its always interesting knowing other points of view. 🙈
For the warm-up part, I would add that when I do so, I simply play better after, and it gives me more motivation that I am making progress🤘🏻. I also use exercises that engage my mind more, but not strain my fingers such as fretboard visualization, e.g. finding intervals of the scale in different places
A thing I have to keep remembering and relearning is: I have 4 fingers and a thumb on each hand. 2 of my fingers are a little faster and stronger than the other two, so I catch myself using Django Reinhardt fretting when learning new riffs and licks when it's not necessary. I find that once I learn to fret something using all 4 fingers (and even better thumb as well) I play that lick more easily and with less mistakes.
I keep 3x5 paper cards on my desk. I write the date and three or four things I am trying to focus on for that week or month. I also use a simple alarm clock to keep me honest. If I'm doing a metronome lick for 3 minutes. The clock makes sure I do 3 minutes. I try to hyper focus. Or maybe that is just how my brain works and I don't need to try. I just like to be organized. Great suggestions in this video.
Regarding the questions that you mentioned keep coming up at the start of the video regarding improving technique, such as picking, legato, etc…. I’m the guy that keeps asking about getting that wonderful wide vibrato of Adrian Smith and David Gilmour 😉😂😉 As far as the one thing that’s had a significant impact in my own playing: it was realizing that some things that I thought were impossible are in fact possible with dedication and practice. Case in point for me was learning thumb and finger independence (you know, in the style of the old acoustic blues greats, or the rockabilly and country greats… Travis picking… Chet Atkins style picking … Jim Heath… Scotty Moore… Robert Johnson… etc.). That’s something at one point I never thought I was going to be able to do. Now I know that while some things aren’t possible for a mere mortal like myself (me playing Black Star is never going to sound like Yngwie playing Black Star 😂), more things are in reach than I originally thought….. this has led to different practice goals which has led to additional success. Interesting content as always Nico, thank you.
Great list! I would go further with your tip 4) to say practice by ear as much as possible. E.g. when learning a song, attempt to figure out the chord progression before looking up tabs. As for your question at the end, one of my practices which is relevant for many facets of art & even life which is to not stagnate. Constantly learn and challenge yourself. Learn new songs, songs that use a variety of techniques including ones that are tough for you. It makes you better at the things you are bad at and makes you amazing at things you're good at
Great tips Nico. I keep a junkie Ibanez Gio in my work van with a small Spark amp. Whenever there is down time, I practice. Has had an IMMENSE impact. Sometimes I'll play unplugged to work on articulation and hand synch.
That's awesome! Gotta love how far the technology has come to make great gear that is portable and affordable! And it definitely speaks to the cumulative effect of consistent practice even if it's on your free moments in between other things!
Keep a guitar in noodling distance. Having ADHD, I find I often find having it in front of me will lead me to playing it. And I find I also always need sometime to do with my hands. Even if it's unplugged I can still run through scale patterns.
Great advice, thank you. As a gigging musician that often has to learn 20-40 songs in a day or two (I sub in a lot), I don't always have the luxury of practicing technical or general exercises. What has helped me is to develop exercises that target the specific problem areas of the songs. Time management is always a challenge, and this really helps me when I'm in a serious time crunch for an important gig.
Cool!! So you take the part that's giving you a hard time and turn that into a repeatable exercise to isolate the main sticking point? That approach has successfully gotten me through some challenging times 😅
I'm also a gigging musician who subs 2-3 a month having to learn songs I've never played before taking the gig learning 20-40 songs with no rehearsal with the band etc .. 🤘🤘🤘
Amazing video! So much great information I plan to use in my playing! BTW got the same guitar after watching your review of it and I absolutely love it!
Excellent video Nico! Thanks for sharing all your valuable tips. My old guitar teacher always told me when learning to slooow down and break up learning a few bars or passages at a time and don't speed up until you really get it. That really helped me learn Maiden songs for example which are full of so many great runs. Also, another great piece of advice was to record yourself once in awhile to check your progess but don't do it all the time. Is that the Rockpile?! Great venue! 👍
A brilliant breakdown of habits! I think no. 7 is a great point, balance in life is important! I'm glad and delighted for both you finding your diagnosis AND you being able to translate those answers into your routine 😁 I know I mentioned this quite a few times about deathgrip being a hurdle for my playing in the past, but knowing it was a tick from my anxiety, really helped me change the mindset of wanting to be brilliant in little time possible. Makes the process more clear but its great to see someone get answers! I also keep a journal of notes, things that remind me that like all the greats, they started someone, they make mistakes, Eddie Van Halen rolled with his mistakes and he kept on smiling 😁 Also I want to thank you for one piece of advice, back somewhere in time that stuck with me, I saw it mentioned as a challenge in another comment 😅 Using favourite riffs, songs to warm up with, it's really helped me to tame the imposter sydrome and anxiety. I know a year later I'm a lot more confident and eager to try more and more songs 😁 So thank you for that Nico!
don't know if it's correct to do, but i like practising on an acoustic guitar to work my clean sound, improving palm muting, string skipping, and wild stretching... obviously being careful, then i translate it into the electric with my own tone which is a homemade mixture of SIT and 7th son... and that's when i see where i have to improve more... i say i don't know if it's the correct thing to do as a friend of mine pointed the difference between electric and acoustic (size, string, frets, etc), but so far it works for me and helped me a lot, specially heavy delay makes mistakes very noticeable btw, your last advices is the best one! really works, in my case it's sports and 3d modeling
I think practicing on the acoustic guitar is most helpful (you have to work harder for certain things there). That said, I love playing acoustic guitar in general.
Feel is the keyword there, dunno how many times you see band lives and they don’t follow note by note, audience doesn’t care is the performance that matters
nowt wrong with looking at the boiard for solos just look at them doing rythym mharmoning too but playing shred you have to look at the board especiaaly with no inlays i need thos dots
@@liltappytaparoo Oh I most definitely do have it, but it was undiagnosed until last year. I have been managing it since then, and let's just say my life has improved greatly!
He also says that when be plays four consecutive strings with a continuous downstroke, it's not sweep picking. 😁 I'm not suggesting he's lying... He just seems to have his own very specific definition of terms. He never "practiced", he would just "play something repeatedly until he could do it correctly". 🤷
last point the best one do other things dont practiseevery waking houtb thugh the best do thus then when thyve tottally mastered the instrument and are world wide famou wtake some time off and have ewrrr fun that comes with being mega famous and mega rich big houses the best cars and the errrr sexiest woman at home just wait til you get back and have lots f fun tthen no matter how tempting the groupie lool
I am also a long time undiagnosed ADHD guitar player myself, everything that you've said in the video works... you are 100% on point. You've done such an amazing job here!
When practicing, I always ask myself "what am i actually trying to learn". This helps me to keep the noodling and mental distractions at bay, and improves my focus on the task at hand.
That's a great mindset!
Billy Sheehan said to keep your strap height to where if you’re sitting down or standing up your bass or guitar is in the same position. Thought that was pretty good advice and it works for me
I think we watched the same instructional video 😃 I've followed that same advice, and it's always paid off.
100%
I've been playing guitar since I was 12 years old. I'm 47 now. I would say I'm fairly good. When I was young, I spent 4/5 hours a day practising. As I've got older, that's dropped to 4 hours a week, sometimes more. But those early years of practice learning to play clean and get that muscle memory down on scales chords has helped me stay in touch with guitar today. There's literally no substitute for practising. Learn one song or scale at a time. Really get that under your finger before you move on to something else. But above all, enjoy playing
Top tip : Practice every day.
It takes dedication.
As my grandfather used to to say about anything you want in life - it takes hard work.
''Don't put your wishbone where your backbone should be"
Love that expression!
Extra tip: positioning the guitar as low as Hetfield and Petroza might look metal but will destroy your back, don't do it! 😅
Excellent final tip and a testament of ur quality as a guitarist and person.
You need long arms to play a guitar slung low like Jimmy Page. Look at Jimmy's arms. They hang down to his knees almost. Looks cool, though.
Depends on your playing style. For me, I play semi-low, but that's mainly due to my picking arm. I prefer having it relaxed low, especially when playing standing up for extended periods of time. I've tried raising my guitar a bit, but it starts to become uncomfortable on my right arm with it being cocked constantly and my picking noticeably starts to suffer. But that's just me
I like mine quite high. Can really get around the fretboard that way.
Great video with lots of ideas that I need to reflect on. A huge one for me was learning to stand up when practicing for an upcoming gig. It makes a huge difference because the guitar looks and feels different. An amazing guitar playing in my band also gave me some good advice: Practice at home so that you can feel 120% relaxed when playing a song, because when you get with your band in a practice studio, the feel will change and you'll drop to 100%. And even then, live on stage, you'll still only be able to play at 80-90%. If you're playing at 80-90% at home, when you get into a practice studio or live on stage, it might be a disaster!
The single biggest push forward in my guitar playing was bringing my guitar closer to the desk i spend huge amounts of time, so it is now within subconscious reach.
Yep. I always have guitars within easy reach. I pick them up constantly.
Interesting point on slowing down a solo when learning 👍
yeah, I have always heard that you need to slow down to become fast, "smooth is fast" type stuff. I think the practice by ear stuff was the best thing in that habit.
its always interesting knowing other points of view. 🙈
@@leganihanoiI don't mean to not *play* it slow 😅 I mean to not listen to it slowed down 😊
Unleash the Archers! Love that band. Maiden should taken them as openers.
Maiden should have taken LOVEBITES as the opener.
some of the best advice I have heard on any channel about anything in a long time. Bravo Nico !
I noticed that legato warmups are some of my favorites and most useful since it’s easy to be lazy with hammer ons and pull offs.
Absolutely! Pull-offs turn into hammer-ons real quick if you're not vigilant 😅
@@LicksOfTheBeast yea, especially when doing legato heavy stuff like Dave’s first solo in Phantom of The Opera, almost all of that solo is legato!
For the warm-up part, I would add that when I do so, I simply play better after, and it gives me more motivation that I am making progress🤘🏻. I also use exercises that engage my mind more, but not strain my fingers such as fretboard visualization, e.g. finding intervals of the scale in different places
A thing I have to keep remembering and relearning is: I have 4 fingers and a thumb on each hand. 2 of my fingers are a little faster and stronger than the other two, so I catch myself using Django Reinhardt fretting when learning new riffs and licks when it's not necessary. I find that once I learn to fret something using all 4 fingers (and even better thumb as well) I play that lick more easily and with less mistakes.
Number 7... best of all, and not a lot of people even think about it.
Great content! Loved the Yngwie reference😂
I keep 3x5 paper cards on my desk. I write the date and three or four things I am trying to focus on for that week or month. I also use a simple alarm clock to keep me honest. If I'm doing a metronome lick for 3 minutes. The clock makes sure I do 3 minutes. I try to hyper focus. Or maybe that is just how my brain works and I don't need to try. I just like to be organized. Great suggestions in this video.
Big fan of using the clock at my end too. Too easy to get distracted otherwise.
Regarding the questions that you mentioned keep coming up at the start of the video regarding improving technique, such as picking, legato, etc…. I’m the guy that keeps asking about getting that wonderful wide vibrato of Adrian Smith and David Gilmour 😉😂😉
As far as the one thing that’s had a significant impact in my own playing: it was realizing that some things that I thought were impossible are in fact possible with dedication and practice. Case in point for me was learning thumb and finger independence (you know, in the style of the old acoustic blues greats, or the rockabilly and country greats… Travis picking… Chet Atkins style picking … Jim Heath… Scotty Moore… Robert Johnson… etc.). That’s something at one point I never thought I was going to be able to do. Now I know that while some things aren’t possible for a mere mortal like myself (me playing Black Star is never going to sound like Yngwie playing Black Star 😂), more things are in reach than I originally thought….. this has led to different practice goals which has led to additional success.
Interesting content as always Nico, thank you.
Amazing and worthwhile material 🎸 greetings Nico!
Great list! I would go further with your tip 4) to say practice by ear as much as possible. E.g. when learning a song, attempt to figure out the chord progression before looking up tabs.
As for your question at the end, one of my practices which is relevant for many facets of art & even life which is to not stagnate. Constantly learn and challenge yourself. Learn new songs, songs that use a variety of techniques including ones that are tough for you. It makes you better at the things you are bad at and makes you amazing at things you're good at
Great tips Nico. I keep a junkie Ibanez Gio in my work van with a small Spark amp. Whenever there is down time, I practice. Has had an IMMENSE impact. Sometimes I'll play unplugged to work on articulation and hand synch.
That's awesome! Gotta love how far the technology has come to make great gear that is portable and affordable! And it definitely speaks to the cumulative effect of consistent practice even if it's on your free moments in between other things!
Keep a guitar in noodling distance. Having ADHD, I find I often find having it in front of me will lead me to playing it. And I find I also always need sometime to do with my hands. Even if it's unplugged I can still run through scale patterns.
Thanks for the suggestions!
Great advice, thank you. As a gigging musician that often has to learn 20-40 songs in a day or two (I sub in a lot), I don't always have the luxury of practicing technical or general exercises.
What has helped me is to develop exercises that target the specific problem areas of the songs. Time management is always a challenge, and this really helps me when I'm in a serious time crunch for an important gig.
Cool!!
So you take the part that's giving you a hard time and turn that into a repeatable exercise to isolate the main sticking point?
That approach has successfully gotten me through some challenging times 😅
@@LicksOfTheBeastExactly! Learning songs is a great way to expose your deficiencies, as we tend to habitually play things we already know how to do.
I'm also a gigging musician who subs 2-3 a month having to learn songs I've never played before taking the gig learning 20-40 songs with no rehearsal with the band etc .. 🤘🤘🤘
@@mikeseadorf4952 I love the challenge, though you've always got to have your head in the game. It's exhausting, but rewarding!
Amazing video! So much great information I plan to use in my playing! BTW got the same guitar after watching your review of it and I absolutely love it!
Thank you and congrats on the awesome new guitar! Which color did you get? 😃
Great videos, I can relate to most of them as I also have adult ADHD, will follow more videos from you, Rock on!!
Excellent video Nico! Thanks for sharing all your valuable tips. My old guitar teacher always told me when learning to slooow down and break up learning a few bars or passages at a time and don't speed up until you really get it. That really helped me learn Maiden songs for example which are full of so many great runs. Also, another great piece of advice was to record yourself once in awhile to check your progess but don't do it all the time. Is that the Rockpile?! Great venue! 👍
Nice UTA shirt! 🤘(and great tips too)
Thank you 🙂 from; Scranton, Pennsylvania
#6 kills me :(
#4 .. excellent tip for actually getting the solo to Wasted Years right! LOL
A brilliant breakdown of habits! I think no. 7 is a great point, balance in life is important!
I'm glad and delighted for both you finding your diagnosis AND you being able to translate those answers into your routine 😁
I know I mentioned this quite a few times about deathgrip being a hurdle for my playing in the past, but knowing it was a tick from my anxiety, really helped me change the mindset of wanting to be brilliant in little time possible. Makes the process more clear but its great to see someone get answers!
I also keep a journal of notes, things that remind me that like all the greats, they started someone, they make mistakes, Eddie Van Halen rolled with his mistakes and he kept on smiling 😁
Also I want to thank you for one piece of advice, back somewhere in time that stuck with me, I saw it mentioned as a challenge in another comment 😅 Using favourite riffs, songs to warm up with, it's really helped me to tame the imposter sydrome and anxiety. I know a year later I'm a lot more confident and eager to try more and more songs 😁 So thank you for that Nico!
Thanks for the advice dude! By the way, what is the name of your band?
Great advice Nico, love these videos :)
Excellent advice…
Nice supporting the unleash the archers band on your shirt .. they def jam…
Oh yeah they're awesome! 😃🤘
don't know if it's correct to do, but i like practising on an acoustic guitar to work my clean sound, improving palm muting, string skipping, and wild stretching... obviously being careful, then i translate it into the electric with my own tone which is a homemade mixture of SIT and 7th son... and that's when i see where i have to improve more... i say i don't know if it's the correct thing to do as a friend of mine pointed the difference between electric and acoustic (size, string, frets, etc), but so far it works for me and helped me a lot, specially heavy delay makes mistakes very noticeable
btw, your last advices is the best one! really works, in my case it's sports and 3d modeling
I think practicing on the acoustic guitar is most helpful (you have to work harder for certain things there). That said, I love playing acoustic guitar in general.
🤟🤟 great video ,as usual ,thanks Niko!
Great advice ❤
Feel is the keyword there, dunno how many times you see band lives and they don’t follow note by note, audience doesn’t care is the performance that matters
My favorite trick is the intro lick in don’t stop believing. Slow to fast..
I'm guilty of all these bad habits. I've been living in the downward spiral of mindless noodling my whole life.
I use a kitchen timer to avoid worsening my strain injuries or getting new ones. 5 mins per exercise, no more.
👍👍👍👍👍
nowt wrong with looking at the boiard for solos just look at them doing rythym mharmoning too but playing shred you have to look at the board especiaaly with no inlays i need thos dots
8 10 and a easy tu use processor the new fender one looks good bu well over a grand dammit
I LOVE THE SHIRT!!!!!
yngie never warms up crap in the dressing room he does we all do
I am suprised that you are ADHD, you seem quite the opposite. You seem to be more focused than 99.9% of guitar players out there. Great tips.
He said undiagnosed inferring he probably doesn't have it
@@liltappytaparoo Oh I most definitely do have it, but it was undiagnosed until last year. I have been managing it since then, and let's just say my life has improved greatly!
@@LicksOfTheBeast That is great for you that you have it under control. That is awesome! Keep on rockin!
First!!!😊
😄😄
Yngwie says he never practiced. Ever.
Maybe he sold his soul to the devil.
The older I get, the better I used to be.
He also says that when be plays four consecutive strings with a continuous downstroke, it's not sweep picking. 😁
I'm not suggesting he's lying... He just seems to have his own very specific definition of terms. He never "practiced", he would just "play something repeatedly until he could do it correctly". 🤷
There’s the right way , there’s the wrong way ,and the Yngwie
youre right there need to play in bands standing up but ths teeth and behind the head jimi style tht aint happening lol you need teeth to do that lol
last point the best one do other things dont practiseevery waking houtb thugh the best do thus then when thyve tottally mastered the instrument and are world wide famou wtake some time off and have ewrrr fun that comes with being mega famous and mega rich big houses the best cars and the errrr sexiest woman at home just wait til you get back and have lots f fun tthen no matter how tempting the groupie lool
Speaking of focused, that shirt is seriously distracting.
Love how u politely explain ur hero’s logic in a way us mere mortals can comprehend!🦾