12 ways to improve your tone/playing without buying ANYTHING
We've come up with a list of 12 ways to improve your tone, and thereby your playing ultimately, without buying anything. This isn't a total absolute, end-all/be-all list but rather of 12 ways that we came up with and that works well for us. Those 12 ways include:
Practice without headphones
Stand when you practice instead of sitting
Practice playing around chords instead of just playing a scale
Practice your vibrato, and practice it to a metronome or drum track
Use Karaoke-Version.com to download a multitrack version of a song and remove the guitar to practice with the track
Practice with a drum loop or metronome
How to make the best of hitting the "wrong" note in front of the audience
Listen and learn to other instruments and singers to mimic how they phrase their melodies and note choice
Slow down the tempo of a solo to learn it note by note and each nuance
Learn chords everywhere on the neck, as well as the scales around those chords (See CAGED system)