The Woodshed Diaries

First, a little about me for context: I'm a 21 y.o. electric guitarist, been playing for 11 years. I have:

- Written instrumental funk for 4 years (guitar pro warrior)

- Played prog rock/metal (mainly Polyphia) for 3 years

- Played contemporary Christian rock in church for 7 years

- Recently began playing and singing at the same time, and vocal songwriting

- Currently in an emo/ pop-punk band

- Currently in an instrumental funk band

- Currently in my university jazz band (small jazz bar jazz band and traditional big band)

My aims with guitar right now are:

- Become more consistent at improvising (sometimes it feels great, like I'm perfectly in tune with the instrument, other times it feels clunky or as if I'm grasping at ideas I can't play)

- Cement some techniques and stylistic ideas that help me stand out and sound unique as a player

- Create a more organised practice schedule so I can see measurable progress

- Break some speed limits, especially with alternate picking (because why not)

- Make my timing more consistent, especially as I fatigue

- Wake up to some bad habits that I almost certainly have

What I'm working on right now (and for the last 3 weeks) is practicing a solo for my emo band:

I need to work on consistently differentiating the quintuplets from the triplets and 32nd notes in bar 5 as well as cleaning up the final run in bar 7. A problem I've run into is that I get tired very quickly after practicing this solo, so I have to keep taking breaks or my performance drops massively.

I'll try and upload a clip of me improvising so I can get advice on that soon.

- Peter