This bad habit causes self-taught guitar players to hit a plateau faster than anything else.
Don’t get stuck in the “just good enough” trap.
For a while, I was stuck in the trap of playing just good enough.
I would learn a song, riff, or solo and get it to the point where it sounded reasonably good. Maybe 75% of the way there and, if I liked the music, I would play it all the time. But since I was satisfied with it being good enough, I never actually put in the extra work and practice to make it truly good.
This bad habit stuck with me for a long time. Only very gradually did I start to question and reflect on my playing.
In fact, I went through a few different phases to come to this realization:
Believing I knew my music fully and completely.
Starting to notice my playing didn’t sound as good as it used to.
Being unsure of the reason why. Was my playing/technique getting worse and that was why I didn’t sound as good?
Realizing I still played the way I always did, but now I understood the music differently - there was now some part of it I could hear or feel that I never picked up on before.
My ears and taste evolved faster than my playing and technique. Now I spend less time learning new things and more time on that last 25% between good enough and truly good.
Missing the last 25% is common for self-taught guitarists. Here’s what’s missing and how to find it.
I call it The TREaT Framework: Tone, Rhythm, Expression, and Taste.
These fundamental aspects of musicianship apply to all instruments in all genres. If you take classical trumpet lessons, your teacher will talk about them. If you take funk drum lessons, your teacher will also talk about them.
I’ve taken some ideas on tone, rhythm, and expression from Intelligent Music Teaching by Robert Duke (highly recommended book for self-taught musicians and teachers). I felt like the more I explored the fundamentals of musicianship, the stronger my opinions became. I started developing taste. Since it’s the natural progression of this kind of exploration, I’ve added it as a fundamental aspect of musicianship.
Tone quality
Playing with good tone quality means your notes are resonant and full-bodied instead of thin and hollow. If you want to play thin and hollow, that’s a choice to be made, but mostly good tone is warm.
Intonation is important. A good ear ensures good intonation and tuning of the instrument. If the guitar is out of tune, it should be obvious. If you use slides or bends, the ear should tell the fingers when the right spot is found.
Different techniques create different effects. Play legato, smoothly from one note to the next. Or play staccato, where each note stabs without connecting to the next. The musical material determines which effect is best for the circumstance and you should be able to execute at will.
Rhythmic precision
Rhythmic precision means performing in time with a steady pulse. If a piece of music is 90 BPM, be able to play quarter notes, eighth notes, or any other rhythm on the beat. Play syncopations in a way that feel natural and fluid. Be able to play ahead of or behind the beat depending on the feel of the music.
Good timing also means the global tempo. Find the right tempo at the beginning of the piece and stick with it to the end without speeding up or slowing down.
If the music requires a change in tempo, be able to change seamlessly. For gradual changes, like rubato or ritardando, make the change smoothly and fall back to the original tempo when necessary.
Expression
Expression means using different techniques to create effects that let the music hit differently.
Popular with guitar is the use of vibrato. This effect creates a sense of life in the notes. Striking any note and just letting it ring out can lack liveliness and expression. Adding something like vibrato lets the music move.
Bends can create a singing effect on guitar. Bend from one note to the next in the same way a singer would slur from one note to the next.
Dynamics are another way of creating musical expression. Similar to tempo, choose a starting dynamic - quiet, in the middle, or loud - and adjust accordingly. A good performer can play any piece of music quietly or loudly. They have the ability to choose what the dynamics should be and play it depending on the feel of the music.
This applies to playing with a group. A good performer listens to the people they’re playing with and blends in or stands out depending on their role.
Good taste
Good taste means knowing which techniques to use and which interpretive decisions to make at any given point in any given piece of music. The more consistently you can do this, the better.
Pick a time-feel for the piece of music. Will it be on the beat? Ahead? Behind? This drastically changes the mood and vibe.
Take the above three qualities and combine them into a phrase that is unique to you. Every musician has a slightly different filter through which music will flow. Their filter affects the way they phrase a melody, articulate a string of notes, or strum a chord progression. Be aware of your natural filter, playing within it or able to play outside of it if desired.
Try to sense what arrangement should happen. You probably wouldn’t want to play a guitar solo over the vocal line, for example. Have all aspects of the music in your head and do what’s appropriate and necessary with your own part.
Fundamental skills of musicianship in action:
The best way to let these concepts soak into everything you play is to analyze others. Finding good role models and picking apart their playing helps you figure out how to get there yourself.
Here are two examples of that:
Julian Lage - “Crying”
Julian Lage has a light touch. Maybe the lightest. His technique serves his interpretation in every moment. In this performance of Roy Orbison’s “Crying,” his tone is warm and clear. He plays legato for most of the piece, choosing single notes one after another for most sections. At some points he adds tension. He allows dissonant notes to overlap on different strings.
He doesn’t play strictly in time with the pulse. He lets the notes land a little ahead of or behind the beat. This phrasing is an example of taste - he isn’t playing the melody off the beats by accident. He lets the natural lilt of the melody come through and plays it as if he were singing it.
From 1:25 to 1:37, the precision of rhythm (or in this case imprecision) helps the melody swell. He caps it off by raising his arm on the last note of the line. The last note is a syncopation. He emphasizes that with his physical motion. A sign of intention.
With his light touch, Lage is capable of great dynamic range. This song is soft in the beginning. He builds energy by playing an octave higher and a little louder in the second time through the form. He builds the dynamic energy again during the improvised solo. Afterward, he pauses (3:50) to play nothing at all and repeats the melody in a similar dynamic range as the beginning.
He takes a birds eye view of the piece of music and adjusts his dynamics to create an arc through the entire song.
For effects, he uses a light vibrato from the wrist. Just enough to let the note wiggle a little. The softer he plays, the lighter the vibrato. At 2:48 he uses his ear to find the best intonation for the bend he performs. He doesn’t even bend to the right note - it’s flat - but he bends to exactly where he wants for the tension he’s looking for.
Isaiah Sharkey - “Time”
As an R&B guy, Isaiah Sharkey has a unique way of playing guitar. This genre rewards rhythmic feel, chords with lots of extensions, and a trilling pinky finger.
Sharkey is careful to keep is tone even and clear. His chords ring out evenly, the low notes and the high notes, and his melodic parts ring out louder than the chords themselves. This is a specific balancing act that is hard to nail down, especially while singing.
He uses lots of different articulations. He mostly plays his melodic lines legato with lots of expressive trills. Other times, he palm mutes the melodic lines for a pizzicato effect. He seems to choose the best time to use either for the flow of the song.
Unlike Julian Lage, Sharkey doesn’t seem to create an arc over the entire piece of music. He flows from one section to the other allowing the dynamic range to build and fall in real time based on his feel at that particular moment.
He plays in the pocket. His time-feel is behind the beat. He marks the upbeats, helping to establish the pocket, with sharp upstrokes. He doesn’t have to let the guitar follow the lilting melody - his voice does that. His guitar is strictly in time to keep the feel right.
He makes use of the whammy bar to get a vibrato effect on entire chords. This creates an ambient vibe that matches the style of music. He grabs it effortlessly and without thinking.
Do this yourself.
This type of work - analyzing musical performances for these qualities - is great for guitarists of all levels to engage in. It instills an appreciation of music and allows for active, critical listening.
The examples above are just some performances I like. Figure out what type of music works best for the you - it really doesn’t matter. It could be something really heavy to something really poppy.
There will be some evidence of these qualities in any good music that’s currently out there. The analysis I did above shows the last 25% of knowing the song - these ideas make the music what it is.
See how your favourite artists use these fundamental skills of musicianship and use that inspiration in your own playing.