Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum
At The Back => Time Out => Topic started by: GuitarIv on May 10, 2013, 06:54:11 PM
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Cheers guys,
Well, after 5 years of guitar playing I decided that I'm not nearly as good and far as I want to be. I've been way too lazy for long periods of time, followed by more productive episodes of practice where I improved my playing, being lazy again. I feel like I should change something since I'm missing the fun and the challenge and my songwriting seems to be stuck in a rut.
Now I'm sure this will be frustrating, learning everything from scratch again, besides me only having about 1 to 2 hours a day to spend on the guitar (university is eating up all my time right now), but I feel like if I don't do this, I'm gonna be always on the same mediocre level I'm now. So I need your help. I need suggestions. Where to start? What shall I look after?
I've been thinking about simple warm up practices with a metronome to synchronise my hands (the old fashioned chromatic exercise), practicing some scales, sweep picking arpeggios, change angles and picking styles to be most efficient with as little movement as possible and tighten up my rhythm playing and riffing.
Any DVDs you can recommend? Teachers on Youtube, Sites? Your thoughts on this would be more than welcome :)
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Metronome practice everyday even if you can only manage 15mins on an unplugged electric in the middle of the night, if you don't develop a good sense of timing you don't really have anything.
Try and get exercises as close to perfect as possible even when it gets boring and frustrating, which it will at times.
Record yourself often and be critical but not overly judgmental about your playing, if you aren't honest about your faults you'll never be able to correct them but that's no reason to beat yourself up over them, attaching insecurities to your playing helps nothing.
Try to be as relaxed as possible while practicing, tension leads to mistakes and in my experience really screws up my rhythm.
Good luck dude, I've done the same thing more than once and never regretted it.
Edit, Both of Guthrie Govan's books cover a wide range of techniques/exercises/concepts highly reccommended.
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I found that taking lessons really helped even if it was only a few.
I found it hard to look at my playing objectively enough to figure out where to start so having the additional opinion plus someone experienced in teaching really helped me break out of the rut.
Now it really helps that my new band has my old guitar teacher on lead guitar as i'm constantly picking up new techniques from playing with him.
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Interesting thread. I don't really have any advice to offer, but I've often thought about starting again from scratch, having been stuck in a succession of ruts over many, many years.
I suspect that Tony's on the right track, taking lessons is probably the very best way to go, provided you can find the right teacher. I probably learned more in the brief period I took lessons than at any other time; that was in a class, I'm sure it would be even better one-to-one.
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LOT helpful advice in John Pettrucci's Rock Discipline. It has sets of routines akin to a fitness program which you design around your time allotment.
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Who do you want to play like? I get a couple of their licks and riffs then just copy them, even if you have to slow it down a lot, once you've got it down you can speed it up over time. Transfer it to your own ideas later.
If you're not using a pointy pick, get one, instant speed improvement but I'd suggest getting a dunlop sharp pick, mine are 1.5mm, they're really unforgiving at first but once you've got it down I made some serious improvements in my technique, most days I can literally pick up the guitar and shred with no warm up. Final thing I'd suggest is set your action as low as possible since least amount of effort = most potential for speed, even if you're not playing fast the efficiency will make everything easier.
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Final thing I'd suggest is set your action as low as possible since least amount of effort = most potential for speed, even if you're not playing fast the efficiency will make everything easier.
This one is debatable and a matter of taste imho. While setting the action low does help with speed, I and as far as I know many others prefer higher actions because we feel it makes expression easier on things like bends and vibrato (mostly bends).
I am not the Jack White type who wants to fight for every note, but I canīt work with ultra low action with 9er strings guitars.
So if speed is the goal, sure, go for a low action. Basecally you should decide what suits you and what you want out of your playing.
For me that is relativly high action (not blues high or anything, just not shredding low), for most of the players I meet it is go as low as you possibly can.
Gotta try both, imho there is none superior.
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It's all very well saying "I'm sh!t, I need to go back to the start", but you actually have to work out what you want.
No point making plans unless you know where you want to go.
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Final thing I'd suggest is set your action as low as possible since least amount of effort = most potential for speed, even if you're not playing fast the efficiency will make everything easier.
This one is debatable and a matter of taste imho. While setting the action low does help with speed, I and as far as I know many others prefer higher actions because we feel it makes expression easier on things like bends and vibrato (mostly bends).
I am not the Jack White type who wants to fight for every note, but I canīt work with ultra low action with 9er strings guitars.
So if speed is the goal, sure, go for a low action. Basecally you should decide what suits you and what you want out of your playing.
For me that is relativly high action (not blues high or anything, just not shredding low), for most of the players I meet it is go as low as you possibly can.
Gotta try both, imho there is none superior.
I can't stand bending anything on a guitar with low action. I like being able to slide my fingers under the next string when bending.
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Final thing I'd suggest is set your action as low as possible since least amount of effort = most potential for speed, even if you're not playing fast the efficiency will make everything easier.
This one is debatable and a matter of taste imho. While setting the action low does help with speed, I and as far as I know many others prefer higher actions because we feel it makes expression easier on things like bends and vibrato (mostly bends).
I am not the Jack White type who wants to fight for every note, but I canīt work with ultra low action with 9er strings guitars.
So if speed is the goal, sure, go for a low action. Basecally you should decide what suits you and what you want out of your playing.
For me that is relativly high action (not blues high or anything, just not shredding low), for most of the players I meet it is go as low as you possibly can.
Gotta try both, imho there is none superior.
I usually prefer a relatively low action, however I can't shred for shite with light string gauges, I need a nice amount of resistance there when I pick the string.
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I play with my action too low to a lot of my friends but its also quite high to some others. About 1.5mm at the 12th fret.
But i also play with pretty flat fretboards on all of my guitars too.
I agree with what has been said regarding finding exactly what it is that you want to improve. Again a good teacher can help you pick out weak areas just by watching you play for a short while.
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LOT helpful advice in John Pettrucci's Rock Discipline. It has sets of routines akin to a fitness program which you design around your time allotment.
Really great DVD for giving you 'technique vocabulary' for want of a better way of putting it.
Doesnt tell you what to play. Tells you things that will let you play whatever you want.
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Thanks for the huge response guys,
I've been working on getting some essential stuff for recording myself, just to jam over my own music and to hear my own mistakes. Timing has always been a weaker part of my playing since I never really used a metronome, which I have changed lately. I already have seen some improvements, but I'm sure I can bring much more to the table.
I have a good friend of mine who teaches guitar and is an awesome guitarplayer, he studies Jazz Guitar and he's a really great dude, so I will hit him up for lessons. The band thing however isn't going to happen due to my limited amount of time I have, right now I'm just jamming with my best friend and bass player in his basement (we made a rehearsal room out of it.)
JDC: I'm using Dunlop JazzIII XL Picks, so those are pretty sturdy already. I also had a period of time where I used 10-52 Strings on a 25.5 Inch Scale guitar tuned to E-Standard, which is really tight and you have to dig in almost to the point where your fingers bleed. Has helped quite a deal, however nowadays I'm playing E-Standard with 10-46s so it's slightly loose compared to what I did before.
Regarding action I like it low, but I'm not the kinda guy who can't play with higher action and actually I feel even more comfortable with fretboards that have a bigger radius. My Strat feels more comfortable to play most times than my Jackson, the former having a bigger radius.
As far as my skills go, here's an actual video of me playing:
Sylosis Empyreal Sweep. Neubauer Guitars; Bareknuckle Pickups; Orange Micro Terror. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcT1TXG8rCM#)
I can do fancy stuff like sweeping as you see, but then again I lack in lot of other departments.
As far as books and DVDs go, I've been thinking about getting Scar Guitar by Per Nilsson, Lezard has pmed me with some nice stuff and I got recommendations for the John Petrucci and Guthrie Govan stuff lots of times before, so I will surely check it out.
Considering my goals I'd say: I'd like to play tight rhythm stuff. Keith Merrow, Vogg from Decapitated, James Hetfield of Metallica being some examples. Then again as soloing goes I have the kind of metal thing going on: Josh Middleton from Sylosis, Dave Davidson from Revocation, both being amazing players both rhythm and lead. For the blues stuff I really enjoy John Mayer, BB King, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix and my absolute god, Gary Moore.
I'm open to every genre of music, as long as I like the song.
Sorry for the wall of text, I just really wanna make this work :)
Cheers
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You can keep on acquiring new techniques forever but at some point you have to decide what you want to do with them. Being able to run up and down chromatic patterns at high speed may be good exercise but it's not music. These days there are thousands of shredders out there and it's sometimes difficult to tell them apart because they've learned from the same sets of exercises.
When I was learning there were no books, DVDs etc so you had to figure it out for yourself as best as you could. This produced some highly individual players who were recognisable in a few seconds - not something you hear so much today.
So where do you want to go ? You can take lessons and look at vids and possibly end up sounding the same as everyone else. Or you can decide to carve your own path and maybe end up doing something unique.
Edit: You posted again while I was writing this. I was going to mention Gary Moore as someone who did incredible stuff with a less than conventional technique. All those hammers and pull offs he did with only two fingers - no teacher would show you to do it like that.
2nd edit: just listened to your clip. You play really well and can certainly move your fingers around the fretboard. You hit the strings well without creating extraneous noise. Your timing is very good. If you can get a couple of lessons from a good teacher that could point you in new directions. Keep at it, you've got a lot going for you already.
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er... having seen that video, what's the problem? :lol:
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Thanks guys. As said I can do fancy stuff like sweeping but there are a lot of other areas I'd like to improve, my alternate picking being priority number one. Learn some more music theory, work on my cleanliness for recording, broaden my horizon to open up new ways to improvising and songwriting.
Richard, I'm not the kinda guy who tries to sound like every other guitar player, in fact I hate the uniformity most people seem to have nowadays, I always try to give my personal touch to whatever I'm playing. I just want to acquire more techniques so I can actually play what I want to play and transfer my ideas out of my head straight to the fretboard. Coming originally from a blues background where I started doing everything with the pentatonic minor scale I always have some blues even in the metal I do and I don't wanna lose that. It's hard to explain, i just feel I need to load up some guns regarding my technique if that makes some sense. :)
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That's some nice sweeping, I used jazz III XLs for a long time too then a million other picks, still going to suggest you try a dunlop sharp 1.5mm
One exercise I'll suggest that I've never seen anywhere is alt picking an open string then switching palm muting and not palm muting ie
0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0 repeat
pm-----|
That and trying to play meshuggah riffs to meshuggah tracks will make you really tight too
PS I have Per Nilson's Scar Guitar, bought it from the Scar Symmetry tour ;)
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Thanks, will incorporate that into my practice routine. And regarding the Meshuggah stuff: a good friend of mine might be selling his 7 String Schecter for peanuts. Although I always despised guitars with more than 6 strings, it might help quite a deal to practice Bleed on it xD
Hows the DVD? And how much difference do the Dunlop Sharp Picks make compared to the Jazz XLs?
Cheers
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How's your improvisation ? Can you play over a 12 bar shuffle for 2 or 3 minutes without running out of ideas ?
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I originally learnt most Meshuggah riffs on a 6, to be fair I didn't bother retuning for the songs but you can easily use a capo and play a 5th or octave above.
Paid Ģ15 for the DVD at the gig because buying online had some daft shipping price. Jazz III XL has a curve on either side of the point so it's more forgiving, dunlop sharp has almost no curve either side of the point, completely unforgiving, first time I used it I just couldn't play with the thing as my hands were out of sync, kept trying it on and off, fine tuned my technique more. Basically if you can play bleed with it you're tighter than a badger's chuff.
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Richard: I can pretty much, although I must confess I have to learn more licks from other players to incorporate them into my own playing. I know the notes and scales I can use and have "stolen" quite an amount of licks, however I'm practicing right now on the "less notes, more impact" approach, to let everything breath, more feeling less thinking. One thing I'd really like to learn is how to switch keys so I can solo on my own and the listener hears the shift from say A to D then to E back to A without a second guitar that's playing the chords for me. But I guess I will need to consult a teacher for this.
JDC: Thanks a ton mate, I will certainly order those. I like to use unforgiving equipment as well as to sweep on my bridge pickup so I clean up my playing, certainly helps you to benefit even more from "cheats" like a rubber band on the guitar to mute strings or the neck pickup for fluid stuff. Regarding the Meshuggah stuff, I guess I could use Guitar Pro as well to retune the song to my 6 String and practice speed.
Thanks, you all have been very helpful so far to push my ideas, cheers! :D
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alternate picking is just practice, really (do as i say, not as i do :lol: ). if you had the discipline to get as good as that at sweeping i don't see why you couldn't do the same for alternate picking (unless you just had more interest in sweeping).
i pretty much always have some blues in my playing, too. :lol:
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Even though this may not be too contructive here I feel I wanne throw in something Steve Vai said (donīt recall the exact wording, but it was pretty close): "I donīt work on my weaknesses, only on my strengths."
Now while you should of course learn new things and improve on things you wanne, but I felt this always a handy thing to keep in mind.
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I always insert "after you have mastered the fundamentals" to that in my mind.
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I always insert "after you have mastered the fundamentals" to that in my mind.
Yes that makes sense, I agree.
Though there are also sometime varietys of the fundamentals. Best example is vibrato. You absolutly gotta be able to do a vibrato well. Thing it there a different types. I can think of 4 of the top of my hat:
1. The classical vibrato where you move the finger horizontaly, not bending the string, but changing the pull and therefore pitch. Very subtle and sweet variant which works much easier on nylon strings, but I for one enjoy it a lot on electric too. Lacks for fast stuff though.
2. The normal we all know which essentially is a fast bending out of a hand motion. There are sub categories on this one too, but we all know what this is. I have only recently started to like / use this / be able to do it when it just started coming naturally.
3. The clapton where you basecally move the guitar and not the string by rocking the entire neck.
4. The Vai which is a combination of the classical and the normal (1 and 2) where he moves his finger in an eliptical motion. Strange stuff.
So while you are right, the rule also somewhat works with the basics imho. Yeah, you should be able to do a proper vibrato, but I think there is not a special one you should know, just at least one that suits you.
I am happy with my classical style so I hardly work on my normal and while I slowly improve on it too I actually try to make myself only use it very rarely.
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Sweeping always felt more natural to me, although that maybe doesn't make sense. Alternate picking has always been hard to control when reaching a certain speed limit, but then again the sweeps worked out the moment I started relaxing and not thinking "holy mother of jesus this is way too fast what am I doing". Maybe the same will work for alternate picking, as soon as I relax and try not to overthink it, or rather think "this is doable" and not "this is so fast I'll never make it", it could work. It's a lot more of a thinking problem than something your hands can't do. That's at least what I gathered so far from my experience.
I progress faster with my left hand than with my right one so synchronization is a must for me. I guess I have to work on tension releasment as well. :)
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There are no rights and wrongs as such you'll get where you want to or close to it if you put your mind to it but what you MUST do is play with other musicians or join a band or some thing.
If you are going to learn exercises or scales make sure they sound good or it's absolutely pointless. The greatest myth in learning music is that you have to learn shiteeeety things to be a better player. If youre naturally good at sweep picking embrace it. I never saw Jason Becker or Frank Gambale deviating from it much and no one criticized them for it still I know eactly where you're coming from you just want to learn as much as possible.
Also just listening and reading what musicians or guitarists have to say helps me a lot like say Steve Vai's quotes above. Dave Mustaine's 'Scales are for fish' comment always amused me!
Type in your favourite guitarists in youtube and see what they have to say for themselves. Some are full of it but some are obviously still down to earth and tell it like it is.
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I always insert "after you have mastered the fundamentals" to that in my mind.
agreed. if you can't play power chords (and you're a rock player), you'd better work on those even if they're not your strengths. But there comes a point where wasting tons of time on an arguably "optional" technique (say, sweep picking or something like that) which you're just not getting might be better spent getting really good at the stuff you're already pretty good at.
and going back to the vai thing- obviously I'm not suggesting that you don't practise or anything like that, but any time you get down, it's worth remembering that virtually all famous guitar players are playing the stuff they're good at, at least most of the time. they're getting to pick what you get to hear. they may well be not so hot at some techniques, but they never use them.
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I personally have lots of problems playing with other people and find them annoying most of the time, it's not worth playing with other people just for the sake of it. They need to respect you and it can be a big problem, if you aren't on the same wavelength or have the same goals from the start then it's pointless. You should give bands a try but from my experience it's never easy.
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I personally have lots of problems playing with other people and find them annoying most of the time, it's not worth playing with other people just for the sake of it. They need to respect you and it can be a big problem, if you aren't on the same wavelength or have the same goals from the start then it's pointless. You should give bands a try but from my experience it's never easy.
Mate....... thats just far too negative!
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I personally have lots of problems playing with other people and find them annoying most of the time, it's not worth playing with other people just for the sake of it. They need to respect you and it can be a big problem, if you aren't on the same wavelength or have the same goals from the start then it's pointless. You should give bands a try but from my experience it's never easy.
Mate....... thats just far too negative!
Maybe so, but I see where he is coming from. Playing in a band helped my playing more than anything else did. However due to a clash of musical opinions and character, most of the time I would leave practice frustrated, and it would even put me off practicing on my own. In fact I didn't pick up my guitar for 3 years after leaving the band I was that fed up.
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I personally have lots of problems playing with other people and find them annoying most of the time, it's not worth playing with other people just for the sake of it. They need to respect you and it can be a big problem, if you aren't on the same wavelength or have the same goals from the start then it's pointless. You should give bands a try but from my experience it's never easy.
Mate....... thats just far too negative!
It wasn't ALL bad it's just not all good either.
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I found working in a band context hard, at least regarding personalities some people have. In my old band we were working like a machine (get everything written down in Guitar Pro, send the files to everyone, practice 2 times before a gig and nail it) but in the end we fell apart because there was too much ego going on from everyone. Other times people were great characters but then again the skill wasn't there. I'd still rather have someone who's a nice person and can't play like a god than vice versa, because you can always improve your skills but if someones a dick, you rather hardly can change that. Maybe people found it hard to put up with me, I don't know :P
I also found that writing songs works better for me if I'm sitting at home on my own jamming to my own ideas and working without someone who's with me in the rehearsal room trying to work out something that works. I enjoy it when someone puts his ideas and input into a song I've written on my own or the other way round, however I can't do the "live writing" thing.
I rang up a mate of mine I used to go to school with, haven't seen him in a while and he's jamming regularly with some other schoolmates, mostly blues. I guess I will try to play some blues with em every once in a while, I found it to be one of the genres that work great if you just wanna relax and play, especially when the people you're playing with aren't a set line up of a band you're part with. Let's see how that works out :)
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Bands are hard work theres no doubt about it.
You can be a good/amazing bedroom guitarist and enjoy it for what it is and enjoy playing the guitar at home but the reality is to push you self you need to play with other musicians which is hard or some times outright impossible.
You can gain experience/ability from playing with people who are brilliant musicians/better than you and even people who frankly arent as good as you and that makes you up your game too to carry them (Unless they really are that $%&#ing bad.....). If youre really lucky youll find people that compliment your playing or even make you sound better too.
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Richard: I can pretty much, although I must confess I have to learn more licks from other players to incorporate them into my own playing. I know the notes and scales I can use and have "stolen" quite an amount of licks, however I'm practicing right now on the "less notes, more impact" approach, to let everything breath, more feeling less thinking. One thing I'd really like to learn is how to switch keys so I can solo on my own and the listener hears the shift from say A to D then to E back to A without a second guitar that's playing the chords for me. But I guess I will need to consult a teacher for this.
JDC: Thanks a ton mate, I will certainly order those. I like to use unforgiving equipment as well as to sweep on my bridge pickup so I clean up my playing, certainly helps you to benefit even more from "cheats" like a rubber band on the guitar to mute strings or the neck pickup for fluid stuff. Regarding the Meshuggah stuff, I guess I could use Guitar Pro as well to retune the song to my 6 String and practice speed.
Thanks, you all have been very helpful so far to push my ideas, cheers! :D
More feeling less thinking ? You have the room to think more when you play slowly. If you're looking at a Red House type 12 bar playing only a few notes really gives you the opportunity to consider which note to play next. I don't think that anyone that plays at Yngvie speeds is thinking about each note - that's why I find YJM so incredibly boring. You're just hearing patterns repeated over and over again. Nobody thinks that fast. Slow playing gives you the space to really consider how one interval sounds against another.
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Most blues all sounds the same to me...
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I find blues to be great for playing with others, and yes the thinking part works, however I find it waaaay more fun to just let go and play whatever your fingers play without thinking (works fine when you memorize licks and scales or you had too much beer :lol:). And yes blues can be repetitive but that's the art: playing without sounding the same all the time.
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Nice sweeping man! i only started learning sweeping properly (and started with that same lick :-)this year and this is after about 15 years of playing lol; my motivation was to tackle techniques i hadnt been fussed in learning earlier on-as i mostly come from a metal rhythm background.
Dont be too harsh on yourself but certainly playing with other people will help. What i always found useful was learning things that interested me, be it a jazz song, a blues solo, metal riffs,etc. Try and play along to the material as well as you can and as you go along concentrate on the nuances. An example is Master of Puppets, ive come across so many people who say they can play the main riff-and yes they can play the notes but they dont really get it, they miss the attack, the details-and that imo is what makes the biggest difference in guitar playing (how you phrase a riff, lick, solo,etc)
Good luck man
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Cheers Chris!
Yeah man I noticed from your videos that you're a rhythm player, and a very good one as well. Metallica is all about downpicking, or rather Hetfield is all about downpicking. I was a sucker for them for over more than a year and had a certain phase I was going through, learning to play Master, Dyers Eve, Battery, Blackened and so on. All the stuff that's downpicked at 220 bpm and to the point where you think you're hand will fall off before you really master it to have the endurance to go through a whole song. So Metallica are a reason why I actually was able to develop my metal rhythm playing to a good point :D
Btw do you know the "live shite binge and purge" from Seattle 89? It's about the most kickass live stuff I have seen from them and for me they where at the zenith of their career:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FciTGyLKPzg (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FciTGyLKPzg)
This is even faster than on the album and all downpicking, still wonder how they were sooo good...
Btw hows your Sabre coming along? Christians work looks phenomenal :)
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Cheers dude!
Of course! that whole album is insane, ive got the box with the vhs + cds,etc; love it, and yes they play stuff at beastly speeds-it really shows how with the adrenaline pumping through you can really do stuff that may be hard to recreate in a practice room,etc.
The sabre has started not that long ago, waiting for more updates and will then start a thread on it :-) needless to say i cantw ait, i think finish dae is early August, so not that long. Glad i got in early because their waiting list has grown to 5 months i think (which is still very good); i think they will properly explode onto the scene very very soon
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Yes, I'm pretty sure the waiting list will soon get to 2 years just like it did with Dylan from Daemoness, amazing instruments coming from the UK these days (not even mentioning the Blackmachine hype) :P
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I'm very shy about my playing so having a teacher is actually a way of becoming comfortable about playing in front of other people (and making mistakes!)
My only comments here would be:
1. Metronome. Or, even better, find a good drummer to jam with. You don't need a full band. There are usually drummers out there who aren't in a band at a moment and are looking for a guitarist to jam with.
2. I use the same pick as you. I find it works, plus it's easy to find at any guitar shop. I've moved away from large picks just because the smaller one is better for alternate picking and when you get used to it you can do all that you used to do with the larger ones.
3. If you want a laugh watch the DVD that Nick Bowcott (Grim Reaper) made. It's all about power chords and really basic, but good for a few laughs if you can pick it up cheap.
4. I have tons of guitar books but don't find them to be very useful. They are mainly for reducing anxiety about playing knowledge. In practice I rarely refer to them. A teacher is better. It's good to have that other perspective on your playing.