Originally Posted by: haghj500When you try to read tab and play as you've learned, you're clogging your mind. Too many processes at the same time. Do you ever whistle or hum to leads? My guess is yes, can you whistle the lead to the song your learning when you cannot hear the music? If yes, you already know the lead, you just need to here it in your head as play the guitar like you do when you whistle.

axe2 posted a thread about scatting 3-4 weeks ago. Maybe after this next gig is in the books and you have more practice time add it to your schedule.

Just sing out some notes in rhythms or scales, then find and play them, helps ear training also. Maybe sing scales as you play them, get your mind to work with your guitar like it does with your whistle.

umm..... Hope you can whistle.

Well, that explains why I keep screwing up everything when I try playing while looking at tab :) I'll try checking out this thing you call "scatting". I've never heard of it before, honestly, but I'll try adding it to my daily practice routine.

On the bright side, I'm starting to get my pre-planned licks down without having to look at the tab. I just tried jamming a bit with the Session Mode in Rocksmith 2014, set to a simple 80BPM 12-Bar Blues in A, and it went quite well, actually. I did screw up at one point, though, but I managed to save that by sliding into the right note. I still don't quite have the "intro"-part down, but the rest is coming along just fine, except that I played a bit too fast (thanksfully, Rocksmith adjusts its speed to match mine), so I think I was playing pretty stable at 100BPM. I've found it's actually a good tool for rehearsing my parts, since this way, I've got an imaginary band backing me up that won't blame me if I screw up, and I can just play on and on forever (or at least until my fingers get tired).

Now I'm just hoping the other guy will manage to have his parts down by next time we rehearse together... And that I can come up with some cool improvised parts at the gig...