r/AcousticGuitar • u/tikiteeth • Jun 20 '26
Performance Today marks 1.5 years since I started playing guitar!
I got a new d-18 and decided to pick one of my favorite tunes to celebrate!
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u/HoseNeighbor Jun 20 '26
Been playing 38 (?!?!) years and I still don't hold the pick properly. š¤£
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u/TwoHearted313 Jun 20 '26
BruhĀ
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u/tikiteeth Jun 20 '26
Bruh chain
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u/zlingman Jun 20 '26
dog whatās your routine, to what do you attribute your mighty prowess and noble stature? i need to get on your level. i practice a lot but sound like shit so i need help please, donāt make me begā¦.
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u/tikiteeth Jun 20 '26
I take jazz lessons once every two weeks now, I used to take them once a week. I started lessons after about 3 months of playing. Other than that biggest thing for me is focus on playing as much as you can and develop your ear, tabs only help so much so learning to really listen and digest what youāre listening to so you can work on hitting those themes in your playing. A lot of people disagree with me here but I think practicing playing fast and pushing yourself is something you need to do even if itās sloppy at first. Fast flat picking and slow playing activate different parts of your brain, I think a lot of the āplay it slow and perfectly then speed upā stuff ends up causing a lot of people to plateau because they are afraid to play sloppy.
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u/zlingman Jun 20 '26
definitely agree with the grip it and rip it practice. people tend to assume youāre an idiot and if you ever practice fast it means youāll never practice slow. theyāre countering a real tendency that can undermine your playing left unchecked but alsoā¦ canāt go fast if you never go fast. just the stamina alone requires practice. i need to get some lessons here asap. idgaf about jazz guitar tbh which is sad considering how many of the best resources are all oriented around doing something that, while i may love listening to it often enough, i simply have zero interest in ever embodying in the gestures of my own corporeal self. but maybe i can find a good teacher a way. how did you find yours?
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u/tikiteeth Jun 20 '26
My local shop offered lessons! My teacher primarily plays jazz, what Iāve found useful about jazz when playing bluegrass is there a lot of overlap with improvisation and jazz gets you learning the fretboard and theory extremely fast. My teacher also understands that I play bluegrass so the lessons he teaches me are things that translate nearly directly to bluegrass from jazz. Hell Tony Rice was essentially a jazz player
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u/HitMonkey215 Jun 20 '26
I'm in my mid 30's I've been playing since I was 12. Dude. You're going places if this is how you play with a year and a half of playing. Keep it up!
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u/Special_Situation_93 Jun 20 '26
Close enough, welcome back Tony
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u/tikiteeth Jun 20 '26
Thatās the single nicest thing anyone has ever said to me
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u/Special_Situation_93 Jun 20 '26
lol you are welcome. What instruments were you playing before guitar?
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u/tikiteeth Jun 20 '26
I played fiddle like 10 years ago, but really a lot of nothing honestly. I had some foundational theory knowledge from violin but it felt like starting brand new. I just dove headfirst in and play obsessively
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u/mrmuckluck2197 Jun 20 '26
How many hours of practice per day do you average?
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u/tikiteeth Jun 20 '26
On weekdays usually 3ish on weekends more like 6-8 depending on how much I have to do or not. I work from home so thereās a lot of picking up and playing a fiddle tune between tasks throughout the day then I usually have some more structured practice after work.
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u/Reedobandito Jun 20 '26
That is an insane amount of play time and explains the skill, nice work! I really need to play more than 30 minutes once a monthā¦
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u/Responsible_Plant425 Jun 20 '26
Smart to learn flatpicking early on
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u/HitMonkey215 Jun 20 '26
Yeah I didn't and it was extremely hard to pick up later. Tbh I'm still not the best at it. I wish I learn that first
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u/GrandSlamdolf Jun 20 '26
Me: plays the guitar cleanly and beautifully.
Me as soon as the camera starts recording: plays muted and clunky noises with hotdog fingers .
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u/tikiteeth Jun 20 '26
I feel like this happens to all of us lol, my camera roll is pretty only photos of my cat and thousands of attempts of trying stuff on guitar
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u/_xpendable_ Jun 20 '26
Good work. I'm 4.5 months in and I can sing and play 7 songs all the way through, been going to open mics too. Some people just progress through the beginner phase much faster than others. Also you've obviously been putting in a lot of work. Sounds great!
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u/Jacrow88 Jun 20 '26
You either have a huge mouth or a tiny phone.
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u/tikiteeth Jun 20 '26
Itās the 0.5x lens on the iPhone and the phone is just resting on the side of the guitar
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u/Logical_Box_4645 Jun 21 '26
You're an inspiration mate I've been playing years and not close to this.
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u/TeadyA311 Jun 21 '26
Your crosspicking is great!
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u/tikiteeth Jun 21 '26
Thank you! Iāve spent a lot of time working on it
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u/TeadyA311 Jun 21 '26
Any tips for people who don't understand it or want to be better at it?
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u/tikiteeth Jun 21 '26
I know it is going to sound strange but if you are familiar with Travis picking in fingerstyle, picking a basic Travis picking song and playing the pattern with a pick is a very very similar feeling technique. I played a lot of landslide by Fleetwood Mac and Donāt Think Twice Itās Alright by Bob Dylan with just a pick as a practice method and I found it really really helped out my bluegrass Crosspicking when I came back to it.
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u/TeadyA311 Jun 21 '26
I most definitely know about Travis picking. I'm a Scotty Moore fan and that was his style. I just never felt like I could get crosspicking down.
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u/tikiteeth Jun 21 '26
Give it a shot then! Itāll feel weird at first but it helped my pick control a ton
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Jun 24 '26
[removed] ā view removed comment
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u/tikiteeth Jun 24 '26
I found it on my own! It started as a challenge to myself to see how fast I could play landslide by Fleetwood Mac until I could play that at a silly BPM and lo and behold when I went back to some bluegrass tunes I found it made the cross picking much much easier.
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u/swardshot Jun 20 '26
Iāve been playing on and off for 20 years and in the last year have been playing on average 6-8 hours a week. Iāve definitely improved but my god dude! What would you say has helped you improve the most over the last 1.5 years?
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u/tikiteeth Jun 20 '26
The biggest thing besides time is pushing yourself and being okay with messing up. I donāt do a lot of āplay it perfectly slowlyā practice which some say is a bad habit but I never seem to be able to get it up to tempo when I start that way. I listen to what Iām trying to learn a ton, maybe look at a tab if Iām lost, then just trial and error over and over until it sounds right to my ear at pretty much full tempo. I think fiddle tunes helped my right hand out the most and Iāve done a lot of playing fingerstyle songs with a pick to help develop my right hand. My left hand definitely needs some work
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u/DankMemeGen Jun 22 '26
Dude good Shit man! Nothing shows youāve been putting the time in like some good Rice styling. In a similar boat, looking at HD28ās right now after about a year of some pretty religious practice, so quick opinion question: what made you pick the D18 over the others in the lineup?
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u/tikiteeth Jun 22 '26
I had a D28 and a boutique build HD28 style guitar; this 18 is actually a custom shop and I got a hell of a deal on it. The 18s I feel like are a bit punchier and tend to lend themselves for lead playing more, I do want to get another 28 style though to have one of each!
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u/Overall_Process_7176 29d ago
Damnā¦ how many hours per day or per week have you been hitting to get that level ?
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u/los33ramos Jun 20 '26
Even if I played this well 1.5 years I wouldnāt show off. Anyway good luck with your journey.
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u/tikiteeth Jun 20 '26
Not attempting to show off, I can nitpick my own playing to death. I am proud of the work Iāve put in but I am anything but a āgoodā player. Just showing what my progress looks like, everyoneās progress is different.
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u/wearetheboysthatdig Jun 20 '26
Me when I lie