Vote_for_Kodos - I looked at your quick practice update. I think you need to make much, much smaller picking motions. It looks like your picking motion is what I do when I want to get a snapping "funk"-sound and sort of dig in behind the string to pull it out and release back against the guitar-body for a snappy sound. For the type of playing in the video, I think you want small motions and just the tip of the pick hitting the string and as little "air" after hitting the string as possible. This is something I've struggled with recently, as well, being that I have a fast hand (fast-twitch muscles, I guess) so my contact through the string is fast, and I slowed myself down by clearing more air after striking each string instead of slowing down the contact through the string. I've found that by doing downpick-only, I help minimize the motions, so something like 20 minutes downpicking could help -- but you need to also there focus on small motions. The reason you want smaller motions is, well, (1) it easier to pick faster, but also (2) it improves the timing from when your brain says "pick" to when the pick hits the string, larger motions creates a not very helpful asynchronicity/delay from when the brain says pick to when the pick hits the string.

Hope that helps some.

Hey folks,

Quick vid of my revised attempt at 3-note-per-string scales. I've slowed down a bit, and tried to keep the picking motions to a minimum per string (using scalpel), and then using my forearm to switch strings. I also found that lifting my left-hand fingers as I ascend the scale helped the next one come down accurately and in time. Please let me know what you think (good and bad):

Man that is a crazy ass guitar...

Cliff, my one line gut reaction was that there was lots of string noise in this one, but that everything else looked ok.

In the beginning, you're practicing a floating picking technique and so I think you're letting the strings ring on purpose. Ok. Make sure you can do the same exercise while muting and completely removing string noise too though. You should be able to do this with scalpel or wrist picking. Maybe some people can do that with Sarod too, but I haven't seen anyone do it super clean with decent gain.

In the middle, when you're running the scale, the string noise manifests as harmonics. Maybe this is because you're near fret 12 which produces very strong harmonics and therefore accentuates minimal string vibrations that wouldn't be heard elsewhere. I don't know. Watch that part again and try to hear the harmonics I hear. At 1:56-1:57 it's pretty clear. As the gain/volume increases, I can think of situations where you're not going to want to hear that.

Single string picking at the very end looks good as a warm-up type thing. After doing that for a bit I find myself trying to control the accents too. Like accents every 3rd, 4th, 5th, Nth note instead of random.

Thanks Damon - great notes.

You're right about the open strings. I need to practice muted too, but for the particular problem I was trying to overcome, it seemed a bit more challenging letting 'em ring. And yep, that harmonic has been bugging me, and I've been foolish not to be sure to stop so far. I'll definitely work on that.

Listening back, I also notice my timing is pretty bad.

Thanks again for the feedback. I've been working on this all day. I still don't seem to be able to improve the speed much. Here's the fruits of my labour:



That harmonic keeps creeping in from time to time, but sometimes I have it under control :).

With this take, I picked slightly differently from normal. I've been picking with my thumb muscle for months now, thinking I was using scalpel. This time round, I'm pushing the pick forward in its own plane, but previously I've been pushing the pick more or less at right angles to its plane. Which is the correct motion for scalpel?

Okay, I've just re-watched Pebbers video about scalpel, sarod and alternate picking. For a few months I've been using some sort of scalpel/alternate-wrist hybrid, hence my confusion.

Anyway, that last vid sounds awful when I listen back. Someone please hurry up and post something else.

Your fretboard hand looks ok but your picking hand looks really stiff. Gotta work on getting the picking hand more loose.

Thanks Ursin. I can feel the tension there. Perhaps I'm just pushing it too hard.

Hello
I am trying to do 7 notes per beat scale sequence. In this video I am doing pentatonic scale sequence. I find it easier to do with metronome than the drum beats. I cannot really figure out the timing in drum beats. Please advise if my timing is correct or off in this video.

Diego, when you try to lock into this groove what are thinking about most? Are you counting 7s, are you hearing the drums, are you hearing yourself, are you thinking about the scale, are you thinking about the picking, etc, etc.?

To groove with this particular beat, which really isn't the easiest beat one might choose to practice 7s, I would try to lock into the snare accents on 2 & 4. Obviously I'd want to play two even 7-tuples in between each of those hits. So instead of trying to "hear" one 7-tuple per beat, I'd try to hear two 7-tuples per two beats. If you try to hear the groove that way, I think it will be easier. Trying to hear the groove in groups of just 7 will be harder because there isn't a strong accent on 1 & 3. Once you can lock in though, you can try to "hear" it differently. Ultimately I think you want to be in a place where you don't have to think about any of the things I listed above. You'll need all your brain power for the changes/scales. Maybe at some point you will no longer need your brain at all (I wish...).

A bit easier method to get the sound of 7s is to up the tempo of the drum track, and perhaps pick another, so that each note of the 7-tuple is accentuated. With a metronome, think 1 note per click at like 280 bpm. This is equivalent to 7 notes per click at 40 bpm. So you play along to the 280 track for awhile, accentuating every 7th note, until you hear it in your head. Then you dial is back to 40 bpm and play the exact same thing until you can hear that in your head.

Anyway, I think that spending more time with these two methods, which I believe you've shown us before and therefore are already doing, is the way to be able to progress to grooves that accent at different times than when you want to accent when playing 7s. By this I mean that you'll be accenting on 1, 2, 3 & 4 while the drummer in this groove only accents on 2 & 4.

Of course others may have better ways to go about this...

Sounds off diego. Listen to more songs in 7 and try to count them. I did this a lot when I was a kid. Me and my friends would throw on a song and challenge the others to count it out loud correctly and determine the time signature. Listen to this tune "Outshined" by Soundgarden. It's in 7/4. Count out loud to yourself. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 it's slow

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLZBhlTXHuo

Then you can listen to this tune "Tom Sawyer" by Rush. Starts in 4/4 so count 1, 2, 3, 4 but watch for the parts in 7/8. You have to change your counting to 1 an 2 an 3 an 4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJoTxywiRG0

Or, the 7/16 fret burning "Attitude Song" by Steve Vai

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0-OvL2pHsM

Also, get out the metronome and just count 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 evenly

I am not trying to lock into a groove in this practice video. I received "Rock Phrasing" lesson from Pebber a week ago and he shows to practice Triplets and 16th notes on a 4/4 drum groove. I thought why not do 5 notes per beat or 7 notes per beat as well. I am not doing anything but trying to count 7 even clicks in my head.

Those are excellent examples. Thank you ursin. In "Tom Sawyer" by Rush, I can hear the 7/8 parts only in the piano solo.

Thanks

Maybe I'm confusing you by using the term "lock in," or by the suggestion on how to do it, but that's the term I think of to describe the goal of playing one rhythm over another and having it sound good.

If I'm off here, I'd appreciate some help getting back on track.

I thought the (very advanced) goal is to be able to play any rhythm over any other. Truly playing any combination is out of my reach in my lifetime, but playing many combinations are very doable right now by all of us.

Easy examples: Play 7 notes every time the drummer plays 1 beat, or 7 beats.
Harder examples (for me): Play 7 notes every time the drummer plays 2 beats, or 3 beats (weird?), or 4 beats.

I've seen videos from Pebber on how to practice these things (polyrhythms?). They are somewhere in his picking video series/DVDs. They typically start by first speeding up the metronome so that you are playing one note per click. Get that locked in. Then cut the metronome speed to represent what your drummer will do while playing the exact same thing.

"Money" was my first intro to 7/4 time.
youtube.com/watch?v=cpbbuaIA3Ds

Tom, thanks for your comments. I do tend to dig in a lot, and I think I pay for it technique wise. I think I listened to so much Steve Ray Vaughn growing up that I just got in the habit of hammering on the guitar and never really gave it much thought. It's a problem. I've been learning Duane Allman's 1st solo on Stormy Monday over the last week and his left hand technique is so different, especially his bending, it's been good to emulate.

You're absolutely right in that timing is the issue, and I'm trying not to get frustrated...

I hope I can do a good job on my final video shot for the new paco lucia song I have been doing Sarod style for Entre dos Aguas...Maybe It will be all ready within a day...maybe not...having way to much fun when shedding,,,it seems like that must be wrong...should be ready soon tho

[img][/img]

Obviously as the video would imply, I am really getting interested in the more intuitive musical aspects that surround sarod picking technique (Obviously there are many questions that pop up with Sarod; e.g. how replicatable or non replicatable are the Sarod picking runs themselves after you have specifically improvised said runs via sarod...in other words, these are not the sort of phrases that would normally have been the sort of thing that you get by playing them 10000 times building them via metronome) So whenever you bust out doing sarod picking there are a whole host of ways that it can warp any and all of the phrasing that is around it...BUt the specifics of the sarod phrases just by themselves in a vaccum is of equal interest to me.

I am sorry for all the parts that suck...I am just trying to be happy with what I can do well/\.

Very soon now we shall shoot video and enter the aguas!! It has required much patience for learning up to normal tempo PAco's lickidy split 16th note picado scale runs...and while this is normally not a big deal for the sarod flutters of the right hand, when the song is faster rumba going @ 220 B.P.M. things can sll to easily fall apart.

hi, so i've been practicing some techniques just thought id post them here to get some feedback. I have been playing for almost a year now but havent been practicing much, just learning riffs and bits of songs. Now im starting to actually practice technique so ill post progress videos here.


Picking





Having a lot of troubles on the chromatic scale.. I'm one of those people that while descending didnt have all fingers down. Going to take quite a bit of practice on it.




And this is just a pattern i found i think from one of paul gilbert's lessons. Im trying to play at 6 notes per beat at 60BPM

Even Al dimiola did this switch over after he realized that his chromatic muted sextuplets where gettting floor moped by Mchglaughlin to a free floating Flutter (no disrespect intended because he is Al and I am not)...I think in many ways wrist picking is a sinking ships that only Paul Gilbert and Aldi meola would want to captian...Ive never met either... but I dont know any other fast people that would want to pick like that.

Though your current picking approach (grip and whatnot) look alot to me like this guy so you could probabli get really fast if you went balls to the wall for a directional approach...

you seem to have pretty long fingers (longer than mine anyway) So you could probably pull off arpeggio oriented playing easier than I could.

Quote: MatGeorge wrote in post #270

---

hi, so i've been practicing some techniques just thought id post them here to get some feedback. I have been playing for almost a year now but havent been practicing much, just learning riffs and bits of songs. Now im starting to actually practice technique so ill post progress videos here.


Picking

Having a lot of troubles on the chromatic scale.. I'm one of those people that while descending didnt have all fingers down. Going to take quite a bit of practice on it.

And this is just a pattern i found i think from one of paul gilbert's lessons. Im trying to play at 6 notes per beat at 60BPM

---

Quote: NicholasJacquet wrote in post #272

---

Even Al dimiola did this switch over after he realized that his chromatic muted sextuplets where gettting floor moped by Mchglaughlin to a free floating Flutter (no disrespect intended because he is Al and I am not)...I think in many ways wrist picking is a sinking ships that only Paul Gilbert and Aldi meola would want to captian...Ive never met either... but I dont know any other fast people that would want to pick like that.

---