I mention often that I work on keeping my notes from overlapping, and it's always something to do with my technique..., something that I never got right long ago, that I now have to fix, if I want to play cleanly. Which I'm obsessed with. I figure, I want to at least be able to play the stuff I
can play, cleanly.
So a while back I learned the beginning riff to
The Dance of Eternity, just cuz it's so cool, and a bit weird, timing and note choices and all. I'm playing it tonight and I realize when I play the 5/root notes on the A & E strings, or octave/root on the D & E strings (in the 7/8 measures)..., when I hit the root note, I'm getting this odd overtone, and I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong, and it's driving me crazy!
I'm trying different amps in the Axe III, thinking maybe the amp isn't "tight" enough (but I have this voice in my head saying, "Remember dummy..., It ain't the gear. It's YOU!"

)
I find the problem, and it's definitely my bad form: When I fret the note on the low E, I'm trying to keep my 1st finger low, to 'drape' across the A/D strings, so as to choke out the note on whichever of those 2 strings I just played, but I'm holding my finger
just a bit too low, and it's trying to fret the note on the A string as I strike the note on the E string. Duh!
Back in my band-playing days, this never caught up to me for 4 reasons- I didn't really care, I didn't have my action this low, I didn't play a lot of high gain, and I rarely played single-note riffs that low. Although I don't really have my gain all that high for this riff. Just enough to give it some 'bite.'
Damn! Even keeping the simplest stuff tight, and articulate & clean..., the difference in finger placement can be measured in the tiniest fractions of an inch/mm. That's a huge reason why I SO respect the players who are super-articulate: They've put in the work it takes to play like that!
There's 2 things I have to focus on until they get "muscle-memorized" into my technique: Releasing the note on the A/D string
only enough to choke it out, (which is very hard for me to do this low on the fretboard, since the difference between fretting and only muting a string is SO slight), while also making sure I don't drape my 1st finger too hard onto the A string. Which won't matter, if I do the first part right!
Gotta keep that thumb
behind the neck a bit more.
One part of this that I
am encouraged about is, I've gotten a lot better at keeping my fingers
right above the notes, since I've practiced fixing
that bad habit (lifting my fingers way too far off the strings) quite a lot these past couple years with this riff:
and playing single note, Maj7 arpeggios across the top 4 strings. VERY helpful!