# Please Rate My Guitar Playing...

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-rate-my-guitar-playing/685928>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [April 12, 2014, 9:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-rate-my-guitar-playing/685928 "2014-04-12T09:30:33Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\
**Post date:** [April 14, 2014, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-rate-my-guitar-playing/685928/21 "2014-04-14T13:28:23Z")

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A suggestion - drop all the effects. Work on straight playing until you get your chops back up to speed with nothing more than some amplification for volume, if any. Don’t grow dependent on the electronics.

Here’s an example of what I mean. This is [Dave Nachmanoff playing Grateful](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3a054ITEdO0). Dave is an amazing guitarist and if you listen to what he is doing with just six strings and enough amp so the audience can hear him, you’ll see what I mean.

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**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\
**Post date:** [April 22, 2014, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-rate-my-guitar-playing/685928/22 "2014-04-22T05:41:37Z")

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I’m still trying. I want to clean up the recording stuff but it’s so very hard to listen to something on headphones (my left monitor went out a bit ago) and think it translates into something good when completed.

I swear I am working on playing clean and trying to get my chops down.

In the meantime (great song, by the way), I have done these two things:

Metal Attempt #1 (drowned out the dropped D rhythm with the solo, but the solo’s ok…): [Dropbox - Error - Simplify your life](https://www.dropbox.com/s/prcoxvtrrkbohbj/Metal3.wav)

And tried the blues: (again with the damn drowning out of the rhythm…still trying to find that balance between that and solos…ugh): [Dropbox - Blues Fin.wav - Simplify your life](https://www.dropbox.com/s/q14eq9wsf22gkvc/Blues%20Fin.wav)

I feel I am improving every day. In fact I know I am. I want your guys’ honest opinions. I still have forever to go but I’m not going to stop recording in the meantime.

Thanks!

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