What Are You Working On Right Now?

[la szum]

(But I'll play this every day, so I don't lose any ground on it either.)

That's my greatest challenge in technical improvements. Keeping the gains is never-ending. Like my
fingers want to get fat and lazy, lay on the couch and eat Doritos and drink Pepsi.

It's really become more like a fitness challenge for me. Have to apply myself at least 5 days
of the week or increases in my own personal capacity get lost..... or at the very least, regress.

 

[TSJMajesty]

The final sextuplet run in the Bark at the Moon solo. It's faster than I can even pick, but at the tempo I can pick it, I don't have my technique dialed in, which is all upward pick slant for me, since I start it on a downstroke.

Even when playing a riff that doesn't involve changing the pick angle, I still have tendency to rotate my wrist (like opening a doorknob) slightly, and jump over a string, instead of keeping my pick motions completely straight. (Shortest distance between 2 points is a straight line.)

Need to keep the pick moving in a straight line, and using the "escape point" to allow me to clear the string when changing strings, instead of trying to "hop over" it. Just one more bad habit I'm working on cleaning up, that I never even realized until I started getting serious about my technique, and watching guys like Ben Eller and Bernth show the mechanics.

So I'm trying to build the muscle memory, playing it slowly, and keeping all the picking coming only from an up/down motion of my wrist, and eliminating that damn rotation!

I've said it before..., I SO wish I'd practiced this stuff when I was much younger! Those brain pathways, that are bad habits, or at the very least, inefficient technique, are like paths worn down to dirt, through a grassy corner lot.

 

[Ed DeGenaro]

The final sextuplet run in the Bark at the Moon solo. It's faster than I can even pick, but at the tempo I can pick it, I don't have my technique dialed in, which is all upward pick slant for me, since I start it on a downstroke.

Even when playing a riff that doesn't involve changing the pick angle, I still have tendency to rotate my wrist (like opening a doorknob) slightly, and jump over a string, instead of keeping my pick motions completely straight. (Shortest distance between 2 points is a straight line.)

Need to keep the pick moving in a straight line, and using the "escape point" to allow me to clear the string when changing strings, instead of trying to "hop over" it. Just one more bad habit I'm working on cleaning up, that I never even realized until I started getting serious about my technique, and watching guys like Ben Eller and Bernth show the mechanics.

So I'm trying to build the muscle memory, playing it slowly, and keeping all the picking coming only from an up/down motion of my wrist, and eliminating that damn rotation!

I've said it before..., I SO wish I'd practiced this stuff when I was much younger! Those brain pathways, that are bad habits, or at the very least, inefficient technique, are like paths worn down to dirt, through a grassy corner lot.

It’s also faster than he can pick since out of those 7 1/2 sets of 16th triplets only two are sixes the others are 5th.
But 150bpm is pretty hefty for 16thtriplets.

 

[TSJMajesty]

It’s also faster than he can pick since out of those 7 1/2 sets of 16th triplets only two are sixes the others are 5th.
But 150bpm is pretty hefty for 16thtriplets.

Yeah, I've gone back and forth on that one, whether the bottom note is repeated or not..., and it really doesn't matter. It's so fast (and he's not 100% accurate anyway), that as long as you hit the top note of each one on the beat, and stick the ending, it's good enough.

Ben Eller even played it by picking the 1st 4 notes, then doing a pull-off for the next 2, (ala Paul Gilbert) and you really can't hear any difference.

I'm mostly using it as an exercise to get my picking motion improved.

 

[Ed DeGenaro]

Yeah, I've gone back and forth on that one, whether the bottom note is repeated or not..., and it really doesn't matter. It's so fast (and he's not 100% accurate anyway), that as long as you hit the top note of each one on the beat, and stick the ending, it's good enough.

Ben Eller even played it by picking the 1st 4 notes, then doing a pull-off for the next 2, (ala Paul Gilbert) and you really can't hear any difference.

I'm mostly using it as an exercise to get my picking motion improved.

The old Steve Morse picking etude might be fun for your pick slanting exercise…

 

[TSJMajesty]

The old Steve Morse picking etude might be fun for your pick slanting exercise…

View attachment 46469

View attachment 46470

I'll check it out.

I have this area of alt-picking tempo that starts getting uncomfortable (falling behind, then catching up) right about 400 notes per minute. So I've been practicing that BATM riff from 100 to 130, but half-time, so triplets, and right about 130 it starts giving me trouble. (390 notes per minute, which isn't all that fast, with the types of stuff I'm after. And I can play some 16th note riffs at 150, as long as they're more "linear", i.e., not string-skipping.)

But if I stay at 130, but switch to 16th notes, I can play it fine. So usually, I skip over this tempo "problem area", and just bump the metronome up past it.

But today I decided I need to work through that. So I'm staying with triplets, and going to see if I can get from 130 to 140, comfortably. Iow, not increasing the speed until I can land every down-beat note, and play it clean.

And if I can get through that tempo 'dead-zone', and into more comfortable, albeit faster, territory, I'm fairly certain it will translate into me being able to play everything better/easier.


Someone characterized this 'zone' as the same type of transition from walking to running, saying that to run, you don't simply continue to walk faster, but instead, the mechanics of your stride actually change. I think this is quite accurate.

 

[TSJMajesty]

So I'm staying with triplets, and going to see if I can get from 130 to 140, comfortably. Iow, not increasing the speed until I can land every down-beat note, and play it clean.

So just as I suspected, triplets from 145 to 160 were a breeze. 130 to 145 is better than it was, so I'll need to spend some time "filling in that hole" from around 380 to 450 notes per minute. 16th notes at 110 still give me a little trouble.

But back to BATM..., so now I'm playing that ending run as sextuplets, starting at 80 bpm, and see how far I get until I either top out, or get completely bored with it, since that's pretty much been my focus today. But at least I improved my picking motion quite a bit.

 

[TSJMajesty]

THIS is my G.A.S! Just ran that sextuplet run up to 95 bpm, and even though it's still about 50% faster (which I may never get), that shit really excites me! And sounds cool as shit! I couldn't do that a few years ago.

And if I'd've whipped something like that out back when I was gigging, just as a little "seasoning" in a solo, it would've gave me a lot of enjoyment! And yes, I would've also eaten up turning my bandmates' heads.

I'm not trying to be a shredder, but the gear I've bought, mainly the Axe III and the Music Man guitars, have inspired me SO MUCH to practice, and has greatly contributed to keeping it all fun for me, even though I'm not in a band any more. I fucking LOVE this shit!

On to see if I can hit 100 before I call it a night.