motivation problem.!?!

HI!
I was wondering witch "methods" you use when you are practicing to play ,for an example long songs that sounds great on stage or with a band but with just the guitar gets very boring and lame.??
Are you simply playing just the licks and riffs or does anybody practice whole songs by them selves????

I tried to play along with records but then there's no room for mistakes, and as I'm not a good singer I get frustrated with playing 4 chords in 4 minutes.

I'm from Finland, maybe explains my English skills.?

I read the thred about playing the same songs over and over again, my problem is that no mather how I search I can't find a internet site with tabs that are written by the artists, or at least some pro tabber that cold get them right!!!!!!
Does anybody have a reliable internet tab source?????????

Motivation? Learn songs that have many parts, then record yourself playing each part on a multitrack recorder....like the Eagles' Hotel California or Life in the Fast Lane....those are challenging tracks that are fun to play. Find more stuff like that....even Metalica's Enter Sandman has some great layering. It's a lot more fun than just playing along with the record.

Also, find a band you love and learn everything they do....if you only like one or two songs from a band, you can lose your motivation quickly. When I was a teenager, I loved Rush. I learned every song on every album they had made up until that time (Grace Under Pressure was about when I stopped). I probably learned more from Alex Lifeson than any other guitar player. I have friends who did similar exercises with Led Zeppelin or AC/DC....and they are better guitarist because of it.

Tabs? Go to a library and find old copies of "Guitar: For the Practicing Musician" Magazines....perhaps PDFs exist on the web for vintage issues. I'll learned more songs that way than I did from Guitar teachers when I was a teenager. They've tabbed and accurately transcribed just about every classic rock song. They may even have a compilation book.

I find that web tabs are often inaccurate and difficult to read.

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Adaptable,

Rush was my #1 band when I was in high school. I own every ALBUM (not CD) up to and including Permanent Waves. After that I quickly lost interest in the direction the band was taking. But the reason I wrote this is I have Rush - Chronicles on CD, and I was listenting to disc 1 in the car yesterday...and discovered that I still love their old music as much as I always have!

I recently saw a interview with Alex and Geddy on Matt Pinfield's Sound Off on HDNet. It's definitely worth catching to see how down-to-earth those guys are. It took me back to that time.... 198X.

I used to jam with a bunch of different drummers in high school who were Neil Peart fanatics, and I was one of the only guitarists that knew all of the songs they love to jam to. At one point I was in a band that played the entire A side to the "Moving Pictures" album. We even knew a girl who could play bass and sing like Geddy (same vocal register).... but much more attractive looking. None of us ever got lucky.... but it was cool to jam with her.

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