Ok everybody, let's start challenging our left hand now. Arachnophobia (fear of spiders) is one of the most common fears in humans. So let's start there, shall we?

I'm sure all of you that are participating in these have the syllabus and are working spiders already. If not, WHY NOT? Anyway, I'm starting us with exercise 5.21 today. Have a look:



If you watched, you saw that I suggested a few different ways to work these. But, in case I didn't explain it well, or in case you can't bother watching a 4 minute video, here's a tabbed out version of one way to do it. I absolutely implore you to practice the many variations I discussed, as well as anything else you can dream up.

Have fun and post your progress, observations, alterations, etc.

LH_Challenge_1.png - Bild entfernt (keine Rechte)

Great vid, Damon. I'm in. Well, I'll do my version of what I think I've interpreted hahahaha Cool thread!

alright, i couldn't get a faster speed recorded(kept hosing it)...got this at 1/8 notes 60 bpm.

Nice work dude! I don't think speed is important here, just accuracy and minimal motion.

Here's my take at 60bpm, 16ths. A few hesitations, but I think that's mostly down to unfamiliar finger patterns. For me, the hardest definitely seems to be the down/up combo. Not sure if this is a physical issue that needs work or just because it's the least familiar pattern of finger movement.

Cliff, student - Keep it up guys. The more you practice these permutations, the less awkward it will feel. Of course these are only 4 of the 24 permutations of 4 fingers...

Where is everyone else? Was this challenge too easy? Too hard? Did I not explain it well enough?

People, you can't play well with only one developed hand! Let's see it.

Damon - thanks for posting the challenge. I think these things are a great idea, especially for those without too much time to practice.

I think it was explained perfectly fine. C'mon folks - let's keep this ball rolling!

Nice one Damon.. Can't do videos at the moment .
But believe me i'm getting stuck into this one.

will post today. i missed last 2 challenges

Here's my version;

Hey guys, here's my take on it. A bit rough as usual, but a good starting point. I wanted to see if I can include tabs in my videos, and lo and behold I can! hahaha We'll see how it goes in a week!

1st attempt. inspiring stuff everybody. and thanks for making this challenge damon. it's quite challenging indeed. need to work on these a lot. this isn't easy at all imo.

Nice videos guys, now we're talking!

Here is my take on this challenge. I m sorry for being late. I am not home these days and not much time to practice either.

Spider Exercise Challenge at 150 bps

Today's warmups @ 120 bpm. Still a bit awkward.

Please bear with me on the tone too as I'm still trying to figure out my new Pod.

Damon, you're a monster! I'm not sure you mentioned what speed you started off with at the beginning of the week?

Tone sounds pretty good to me. And I've been meaning to say for some time, I really like your clean tone.

I've been slowly pushing up from 60bpm to 70 something over the week. Seeing this, I was inspired and have just pushed up to 84bpm, but a little sloppy with one of the combos. I'll try and post results on Sunday, and see how far I get in the interim

I put about 10 hours in on this one and I think my control has improved more than my speed. I measure control by the length of time I can play a pattern clean without glitching.

I don't really know what my maximum speed was last weekend or what it is now. What I do know is that my picking hand's maximum speed for what's needed in this exercise--2 picks per string in both directions--is still a bit higher than what I can do with both hands. I also know that my top speeds are not the same yet for each of the 4 combinations. Because of this I dedicated more time on the up/down and down/up combinations. Last weekend I was under 100 on both of those and they just felt goofy. So, I guess I learned that for this exercise my left hand still needs to play catch up. Trying this exercise on 5.23 told me the same...

Thanks for the tone compliments. I haven't been able to reproduce my favorite clean tones on my new POD yet.

And here's where I'm at after a week of practice, probably six sets of half hour practice:



It's a little sloppy at 84bpm, but I think that's me being camera-shy. I was clean at 88bpm before I hit record ;)

Hey everyone, looks good. Like Damon, I'm not sure where I started tempo-wise, but I ended up on 116 BPM. lol This one sort of did some weird stuff to my picking hand; the 2 notes per string thing, in conjunction with a bunch of pentatonic stuff I was doing really has me evaluating my pick hand positioning, for easiest and quickest execution of stuff like this. I used this as a warmup. No more than 5 min through it per day, then on to some music.
http://www.scottkerrmusic.com/DCS.mov

after a week at 66 bpm

Left hand challenge progress.

   First video     Second video   
     75               100
 
 

Spider Picking at 100, 16th notes

nicely done diego!