Have any of you felt anything like this? I dont mind practice but if i dont see results Im thinking is it even worth it me to keep at it????
Yeah, I've felt like that. I also don't mind practice.
I practice 2 ways basically- Riffs and solos I enjoy playing, and the techniques that make them up. My stuff is probably 80% alt-picking, and 20% legato.
I have trouble with palm-muted alt-picked stuff. Tonight I sat down to work on the main theme in the early part of
In The Presence of Enemies Pt.1 (not the opening riff, but the very next theme.) The first time it's played normally, but it comes in at a later point, palm-muted.
I played that section at tempo, and my picking was uneven, in both time, and where I was placing the accents. So rather than continuing to work on it, I took it back to its basic elements, which as a start, is simply playing an open D, muted, to a metronome. I literally had to slow it way down to get it even, so that's where I practiced it. Then I varied the tempo, then I added 16th notes to the 8th notes to mix it up, kind of like doing speed bursts, where you play something 3x's at one speed, then twice at double speed.
And I just worked on that, on different notes, until I got bored with it. But I realized that before I go back to that riff, I need to get that muted picking motion fluid and even, or there's no sense in going back to the riff.
TL;DR- I try to focus on the building blocks that make up a riff/lick that I'm having trouble with, and get that tightened up, before I go back to the actual riff. One of the reasons is because that "technique" will apply to other riffs, so that's more important to me, than just continuing to play the riff sloppy.
It's a little more tedious that way, but having fantastic-sounding tones sure do help to hold my attention. (Man, that D note sure af sounds awesome with that MK IV and some Opera House reverb!)
Plus, I think a lot of guitarists go straight to the licks they want to master, and forget that the problem areas can be handled by dialing it back to the basic parts that comprise the licks. It's very easy to want to jump ahead and skip the more mundane aspects. But by using this approach, I have noticed that new riffs/solos come to me now
much quicker than they used to. And I attribute that to not neglecting to practice the fundamental parts of whatever it is I'm trying to learn.
) and need to be honest with ourselves too.
