Kind of continuing on in the "tips and tricks" vein, I guess, but it's something I've been thinking about for a minute, and it's that for a long while I've not put much thought into my guitar practice routine. Or, lack of routine, I guess you'd say.
To be honest I've not really had formal guitar lessons since I was in school, which is now getting on for more and more many moons ago, so my guitar practice and playing time has been at my own discretion for a while now.
And yeah, it's kind of hit me that I need to have somewhat of a routine with my playing again.
In order to do this though I need to really think about where I want my playing to go and what I want to do with it. For example, complex chords have always been a struggle for me- in particular barre chords which despite me having been playing for, let me think, almost 20 years now, I've never quite mastered. As I refer to here:
I'm not sure whether it's something to do with my condition, admittedly not something I like to divulge much about online, but as this is to do wih motor functions it may be a factor, or just a plain lack of practice. Though whether my condition is a limiting factor is something I'll never know the answer to, really. I've had it all my life so I've never had the chance to play without it, after all.
In band situations, I'd often opt for the for the 5-8-9 of the barre chord to speed up getting my hand around, missing out my index finger, ie. the barre to avoid activating the "death grip" that my left hand would then initiate as it hangs on for dear life.
This, or in the case of the jazz-funk band I was I appointed myself as the improv/lead guy to avoid stepping the toes of the very brilliant jazz player that my lecturer was.
So, I need to practice playing chords like this, and generally clean up my chord playing. Though I often don't give myself much "me and my guitar" time. As a lot of my guitar time is mostly recording, or recording song ideas, writing, jamming along to music (which, to fair be has been good for my ear training and it keeps my timing sharp), or just noodling away while I watch something or chat to people on discord.
That's not to say I don't practice anything at all though, every now and then I'll make myself go through the modes, go up and down different scales, or try writing parts outside of the usual guitarists' box (i.e. the pentatonic/blues scale).
My blues influenced playing - exhibit A.
My lead playing has definitely been refined as I've gone on playing, and the sheer amount of songs that I've written in the past few years has turned it into something more tasteful than throwing my left hand around the pentatonic scale really fast, like it used to be.
On that point: I'd absolutely encourage any guitarist who likes to solo to start writing their own songs, it really gets you to think about the context and application of what you're doing, and when to shred. You'll very soon realise that even you don't want to hear yourself play guitar solo's for 8 minutes straight, as we all do.
In terms of a routine though, it's something I'm definintely going to look into doing, and now that I've comitted it writing, I'll have to. Maybe it's a "I've recently turned 30" thing but I'm very much looking to reframe how I approach a few things this year as I'm always looking for ways to improve myself, my work and my playing.
My guitar playing has been something I've been content with for a while but I want to start improving elements of it like my chord playing, chord choices, usage of scales and modes, like below...
Which may sound like a lot but what it amounts to in essence it to give myself more directions to take melodies and progressions to, my playing has always been quite blues-tinged, for that I can thank AC/DC, Jimi Hendrix, and Queens of the Stone Age, and I'd like to start seeing where else I can take my ideas.
Even though, as of next year I'll have been playing for 20 years, there's always stuff to learn.
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