Quote from sandman1008
I play guitar. Sometimes I wish I asked my parents for drums instead of a guitar 6 years back. I wonder how it would have turned out. I'm decent with the guitar. I can play quite a few songs, but that's where the problem lies. I can play other people's stuff, but I can't make something up myself. I tried learning to be a jazz guitarist only to realize that I can't improvise for the life of me. And the root of the problem was that I used to only read tabs, and never bothered learning to play by ear. Now, I can read sheet music, but I still can't play by ear. If I would spend as much time playing guitar as I would watching anime, playing video games, and reading manga, I could have become pretty good (my jazz teacher said I had potential). One day, I hope that I can become something good.
I also want to play the piano. Maybe when I'm older I'll give it a try, but that depends how busy my lifestyle will be.
If you want to learn the basics of improvising, learn blues. It's what about 99% of jazz is based off, and it helps immensely in ear training. And when I say learn blues, I don't mean the scales and the progressions alone, I mean the aesthetics. It's the same in jazz. The ironic thing about my playing is that I started playing by ear and only use tabs for chord progressions and key signatures.
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Listen here Livin just to keep from dyin