[Candyman421]

I am a completely self taught guitarist. I have been playing for about 2 years. I can play probably over 30 Dead songs (mainly acoustic) all the way through, along with singing the lyrics. But I dont think my timing is right and I think if I played with other people I wouldn't be able to do it as well as when I play by myself. Where do I go from here?

[ebick]

Put on the CD and play along with that. That will get your timing down.

[wisedyes]

Find some other people to play with, hang back and listen closely. Get yourself a metronome and work on your timing.

[bodiddley]

Ya, you need that timing. Everytime I think I'm getting fairly godd at some tune I'll try doing it to a cd or DVD and realize I still need a lot of work on timing issues. Taking lessons from a good teacher helps too. Even if you think you're good they can point out things you need to work on and show you stuff that's hard to learn just from a book.

[mutant_dan]

One thing that really helped me was to seek out bluegrass jams and old time fiddlers association get togethers.

If you live near a largely populated area you can easily find one. People pretty much hang out in the parking lot and jam. Very low key and you can hang out more or less outside the circle and play along.

[Candyman421]

Thanks a lot guys.

[b weird]

Ive benn playing for three years I know a little over sixty songs and I just started realizing that my timing was bad. Playing along with the albums really helped. Peace.

[b weird]

I made a mistake in the last post. I should have written I've been playing not bben playing.

[amyjared]

I was the same way. Thought I had the songs down until I tried playing with others and I was way off. I even was egotistical enough to think it was the other person who was off, but it was me. Two things helped:

Total Guitar magazine came with a cd and always had some classic rock songs that I could play along with. Sort of Karaoke for guitar. Was an awesome mag, but now Guitar World and Guitar One come with cd's, but both mag's are pretty lame. I now record rhythms onto my computer and burn cd's of them so I can play along and learn leads. Same thing would work for learning timing.

Play with others as much as possible. I recommend Craig's list. There's a place in the upper left corner that says Musician's and you can post what you're looking for and find others to play with.