What Are You Working On Right Now?

[TSJMajesty]

I'm working on my background vocals. Playing bass and singing what is NOT the melody at the same time is hard (for me at least)!

Back in my 3-piece days, our bass player sang lead, and that MF could play this bassline WHILE singing "But I keep on trying till I reach the higher ground." I hated him.

Cued to the part:

 

[TSJMajesty]

I'm gaining on it! Been putting in the time trying to get 2 really fast leads from 2 Dream Theater songs..., one is @ 88 and the other is 96 bpm (32nd notes.)

It's one of the technical things that I've wanted to be able to pull off since back when I got really serious and started truly applying myself, about 6 -7 years ago. Shit, I couldn't even play 16th notes at 110 back then, and I couldn't even tremolo-pick at 150. (I'm talking strict alt-picking stuff.)

I'm up to ~80 bpm, but just barely able to get through it. But the thing I've been doing lately is every day I start them at around 90 (counted as 16th notes), and work my way up to wherever I can, really trying to nail that muscle memory thing.

And I can feel the tempo where it starts to get uncomfortable, is slowly increasing. It takes a LOT of practice, so I'll work on it solely for a few days in a row, then I go back to other things like arpeggios and getting my triplets consistent.

Come to think of it, I've been slacking on my legato stuff.

I love this shit! There's a lot of things that I really have to muster up the motivation to do, but playing guitar ain't one of 'em!

 

[Mikael Dez]

I'm gaining on it! Been putting in the time trying to get 2 really fast leads from 2 Dream Theater songs..., one is @ 88 and the other is 96 bpm (32nd notes.)

It's one of the technical things that I've wanted to be able to pull off since back when I got really serious and started truly applying myself, about 6 -7 years ago. Shit, I couldn't even play 16th notes at 110 back then, and I couldn't even tremolo-pick at 150. (I'm talking strict alt-picking stuff.)

I'm up to ~80 bpm, but just barely able to get through it. But the thing I've been doing lately is every day I start them at around 90 (counted as 16th notes), and work my way up to wherever I can, really trying to nail that muscle memory thing.

And I can feel the tempo where it starts to get uncomfortable, is slowly increasing. It takes a LOT of practice, so I'll work on it solely for a few days in a row, then I go back to other things like arpeggios and getting my triplets consistent.

Come to think of it, I've been slacking on my legato stuff.

I love this shit! There's a lot of things that I really have to muster up the motivation to do, but playing guitar ain't one of 'em!

What solos are you tackling?

 

[TSJMajesty]

What solos are you tackling?

In Home, I'm not really trying to learn any complete solos, but instead, I use this part as an exercise:


88bpm

And in The Shadow Man Incident, I just about have this final solo, except for the sextuplet arpeggios and the crazy end run (all the fastest parts of course!) 96bpm:

 

[Mikael Dez]

In Home, I'm not really trying to learn any complete solos, but instead, I use this part as an exercise:


88bpm
View attachment 52701View attachment 52702View attachment 52703

And in The Shadow Man Incident, I just about have this final solo, except for the sextuplet arpeggios and the crazy end run (all the fastest parts of course!) 96bpm:

God I love Home, and that whole album