Maggior: It's just me and the other guitarist. No drummer involved to help with keeping the rhythm going. I think I know what you mean by "tap to the drummer's beat". I've noticed that multiple guitarists do this. Most recently, I noticed that Steve Morse did it at a Deep Purple concert, I attended with a friend, during their newer material, even if it was only slightly. I can't help but notice that one of the lead guitarists in Guns N Roses, DJ Ashba (AKA the guy most of the fans hate for no reason), does it all the time, and in a much more exaggerated fashion. He doesn't just tap his foot, he uses the entire leg. And more than 75% of all the unsigned bands I've seen play live do it. Heck, I even did it unconsciously, when I jammed with my first band three times last year. And there's no reason not to do it. It takes very little effort (in my opinion, though I only played Rhythm in that band. Lead might be a lot harder...) once the drummer starts going crazy. I don't know if it'll be the same with a drum track, but it's worth trying out, when I'm going to try making some drum and bass lines for my own material on a computer.

Haghj500: I know that I'll have to learn to play without looking at the fretboard, but with a lot of songs, that just seems so hard. I already have a few songs where I don't look at the guitar, except during solos, but those are really simple songs. I have a pretty good grasp of the Open Chords and Power Chords, since those are the ones I use most. I've never really thought of what you suggest, but it'll be a good way to see if I know where each note is without looking.

Well, in any case, the clock is ticking, and we have less time to rehearse than we would both prefer. I can play most of the pre-planned stuff just fine when I don't look at the tabs. Once I look at the paper, though, my timing goes out the window and my playing sounds like I've never even seen a guitar before... And that's not just with the pre-planned parts. It happens when I try learning songs on my own too... Maybe it's because the tabs make me think of notes as number of the frets and string, rather than intervals or actual sounds. Maybe it's not. I don't really care right now. I just need to know which notes to play and how the melody is supposed to sound.

I also got a piece of paper with all 5 box patterns of the minor pentatonic scale and the major scale, so I can learn those scales and try improvising with them. My teacher also asked me if I knew anything about modes, because she wanted to find out what to go over after this show, and I just proceeded to name all 7 of them. Then she asked if I know about Legato, Two-Handed Tapping, Trilling, Tremolo Picking and a variety of other techniques, and I just demonstrated all of them... I'm starting to think my teacher is running out of things to teach me other than songs, and my two other main learning-sources, GuitarTricks and Rocksmith 2014, can teach me songs as well as techniques and scales... The only thing I want to learn that nobody else can teach me is how to play faster. That's something for myself to work on.