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

 

[Mikael Dez]

Working on memorizing my triads again - I stopped after my lessons stopped in May lol, they’re coming back to me though

 

[ABe©eDarian]

Here are a couple new live diddies of me layered on me that I'm building off of and since started adding chord progressions and alternate tracks etc.

 

[Mikael Dez]

Made a cheat sheet

 

[DrewJD82]

I'm just starting to get this around album tempo, I've only been focusing on the speedier parts in the beginning and the very end and keep making up the normal-speed notes in the middle, but I will get this fucking song this time.

 

[TSJMajesty]

Trying to get better at anything that involves 1 note on a string. I have several solo parts I practice that involve playing 1 note on 2 adjacent strings, back-and forth, before continuing on, and they're the hardest. But this very cool-sounding Pentatonic-based lick only has one place where it's 1 note on a string, and it's not blazingly fast.

From Dead Asleep, @ 169 bpm, tuned down 2 steps:

All downward pick slant until the end (assuming starting with a downstroke.)

I like how he added/removed notes from the typical Pentatonic scale to make it more interesting. Which also means you don't need to change your pick slant, since it's an even # of notes.

In all the interviews I've watched, Petrucci never even talks about pick slanting. I never was aware of how important it is until I started watching instructional YT videos. Most of what he says about technique is to just start slow, then gradually increase the tempo. Yeah, that's all you need to do!

 

[Jazz Padd]

On a bit of a Thelonious Monk kick lately. I played Well You Needn’t at a gig with a quartet last week, and earlier this week called Straight No Chaser at an open jam.

This morning I worked on Blue Monk. It’s more or less a 12 bar Blues in Bb, but he messes with expectations in places. I used to feel my way through the subtle oddities, but today I read the original chart and soon realized there’s more there than I’d thought.

So I pulled it up on iReal at 90BPM to start plugging away. Just when I think I got it to feel natural, I drifted back to smoothing out all the little edges he put in there. Perhaps Monk, who was very particular about his idiosyncrasies, wanted us to use them to see the blues anew, to break from habitual patterns, stay true to the blues, but off, too.

I’ll stick with that till next week’s open jam and try it out on stage with whoever’s there.

 

[LemonBurst&OrangeCrush]

I'm using Justin Guitar to remember what I was taught, and find out what I wasn't.

 

[Jarick]

Learnings some 80's rock.

AC/DC...it's really simple but really tricky to nail. Anyone can fake it with some power chords but playing this stuff is an exercise in precise minimalism.

 

[jay mitchell]

An excerpt from Chopin Nocturne in Eb arranged for guitar, pages 54-55 in Noel Johnston's Creative Guitar Fundamentals. The book, which only came out within the last couple months, is incredible, Highly recommend.

 

[megametal7]

Im working on new solos for new song and cant come up with anything worth keeping.

I think i need guitar lessons

 

[FuzzyAce]

Im working on new solos for new song and cant come up with anything worth keeping.

I think i need guitar lessons

Maybe take a break from it, come back to it at another time?

 

[FuzzyAce]

An excerpt from Chopin Nocturne in Eb arranged for guitar, pages 54-55 in Noel Johnston's Creative Guitar Fundamentals. The book, which only came out within the last couple months, is incredible, Highly recommend.

I'd be interested in that. I loooove Chopin's nocturnes.

 

[jay mitchell]

I'd be interested in that. I loooove Chopin's nocturnes.

Here's Noel playing it himself:

 

[megametal7]

Maybe take a break from it, come back to it at another time?

this is first one, need to write same length second one. Its for our new song, me and other guitarist gonna have fretwank live. So need something melodic and good. Took few days off gonna go at it tomorrow again. Lets see what happens.

How dose first one sound?

 

[TSJMajesty]

Im working on new solos for new song and cant come up with anything worth keeping.

I think i need guitar lessons

Here's some stuff I came across over the years...

Paul Gilbert had a great idea when it came to creating lead lines: Tap out any kind of rhythm, then put notes to that beat pattern you just came up with. Change it up if it sucks..., keep at it until you have something you like.

Here's the video, cued to where he shows the idea:


For the notes, I like what John Petrucci uses for many of his solos: His note choices stay fairly close to the chords, sometimes simply outlining the root/3rd/5th.

This entire solo is crafted in that manner:
Chords are Dm Am C G Dm Am C Bb



Here's a video of JP showing this in action. It has more going on than the other song, but it's the same idea: