I had much enthusiasm about trying thicker strings on my strat (this one to be specific http://www.guitarcenter.com/Fender-Delux...609-i1147157.gc ). I ultimately went back to 9-42s because I found 4 packs for $15 and I honestly didn't notice a difference between 9-42 and 10-46s (still have 3 packs of 10-46s with no D strings). When I tried to go any thicker, the grooves in the nut proved to be too small, making the open strings not in tune with the notes going up the neck.
After looking for nut files online, I determined I was just wasting time, and would stick with the string gauges already used by thousands of incredibly good players around the world rather than focus on one story about how SRV would use 13s and superglue his finger tips so they wouldn't bleed or whatever nonsense it was that inspired me to try to change up the string thickness in the first place.
I feel like the innocent nature of the question is "What does it take to amaze a virtuoso? Vai is so incredibly good, yet here is this other guy who impresses even him. Please help me try to conceive what this other guy is doing to leave such an impression on someone who has such a vast education in musical theory as well as skill in technical execution."
Granted, the way he asked sounds more like "I think Allan Holdsworth sucks balls. The general public agrees with me. Why are EVH and Vai so stupid. You have nothing better to do with your time, so try to convince me why EVH and Vai are not stupid."
I'm a little confused on if you are asking about potential, or just fishing for inspiration to keep playing.
The way I see it, with enough time, anyone (minus a few select imbeciles) can do anything, but no one can do everything. Annoying things like food, shelter, health, and sanity end up being far more limiting than how naturally fast your fingers twitched before you held a guitar. If there's something you're not accounting for, it's how much easier that is to say than it is to execute. It takes a tremendous amount of effort to even suck at playing, and you're in deep trouble if you don't plan to get any joy out of it until you hit world class status. When you've practiced ~50 hours a week for ~2 years and don't seem to be getting any better, then I would start to worry about not having the potential to progress.
Since I don't think that's really what you wanted, I suggest noodling around on a hot tube amp near max volume for awhile, always lifts my spirits :)
And finally, this guitar = isolation thing you have going on... many play music with people, for people. If you could make a friend who plays the drums/bass, or convince an existing one to try to learn to, even if you only get together once a month, I'd imagine you would like this much more than exiling yourself to the woodshed.
I just want to reinforce the concept that what these people do is 100% trolling and nothing more.
Anyone who has ever truly wanted to "play like buckethead" realizes that Pebber Brown's youtube channel is a Mother.Fucking.Miracle. -- and probably at least considered literally thanking God that their search lead to more than painfully incorrect Jordan tabs.
If you play the major scale with the position 1 pattern from that sheet, starting with the circled 1 on G, you will be playing G major. If you do not shift that position AT ALL, you could also say you are playing in E minor, in which case the scale would be starting from the number 6.
The minor pattern down lower on the page is the shape that you would use if you kept your starting note in the same spot and wanted to play in G minor. Moving the whole first shape to start on E would have you playing in E major.
If you already knew all that, and there is just some sort of translation issue, my guess would be that you do not understand the purpose of the position systems. The positions are intended to teach your mind, ears, and hands to be comfortable playing the scales up and down the neck, regardless of where your hand is located.
They do not define the notes of the scale. You could add new patterns with some dramatic slides and call it a 17 position system if you so desired. You should never avoid hitting a note you want to hear because "it's not in the position" you are playing in.
I have a sarod picking concern. I understand the concept. I'm pretty sure I understand the motion. What leaves me confused is the speed. In the videos I've seen of both Pebber and yourself, it seems like sarod is a code word for "ABOUT TO PLAY REALLY FREAKING FAST."
Is doing it quickly a fundamental part of the technique? I'm assuming it's a matter of long-term practice, but sarod picking at 1/4th the pace of my regular picking, which isn't breaking any speed records in the first place feels... wrong enough that I should ask a question about it.
The concept behind higher-grade instruments is that a player spends an incredible amount of time with it, constantly training precise muscle movements. This can make what seem to be relatively tiny differences feel huge. If you practiced on a M3 for the last 10 years, it is not surprising that your vibrato would feel/sound different on a Les Paul Studio.
I would caution that almost anything that makes you sound different, you may falsely perceive as sounding better. Think of the people who go overboard on wah, fuzz, delay, reverb, etc, when your ears are just begging for the clean channel.
As for the worth of expensive guitars, my personal and rather cynical feelings are: If you can afford it, you probably can't play it. If you can play it, you probably can't afford it. If you can play it and afford it, well-done sir. If you can't play it and can't afford it, nice to meet you and I hope we find ourselves in a different category in the future.
One is that module 1 is exclusively about improving your picking. He is still showing you the same(ish) exercise of picking on adjacent strings, just suggesting some different scales and notes you can play to preserve your sanity while you learn to mechanically pick the same 6 strings for hours/years. There was no intention of teaching you the actual scales.
You also missed and would probably enjoy... the video I can't find that was all about using pentatonic scales to work on your picking. It focused on E minor pentatonic though, http://www.pbguitarstudio.com/pdf_files/...tring_Pairs.pdf - he was applying the same concept to A minor in the video you watched.
It can be very helpful to actually print the lesson sheets, get a binder going with some dividers to sort them by module, and then add in whatever else you feel would help you understand them better, songs you would like to play, etc.
You can find a lot more if you search through his uploads on his youtube channel ( http://www.youtube.com/user/pebberbrown ). I would suggest looking up some of his right and left hand technique basics if you haven't, it is very applicable to practicing scales in a productive way.
As for your specific questions...
- F# is the 7th scale degree of G major. Keeping things free of any complex musical concepts that I won't pretend to understand, playing any note in the scale is fair game while in the scale. For the sake of practice, you may not want to start with the F# so you can more clearly "hear" the G major sound, as Pebber explains in the video.
- The G major scale officially starts with G and ends with G. You can cycle through G A B C D E F# G in as many octaves from as low as your instrument allows to as high as it allows and still be in the key of G major (that includes the open low E string, the lowest F#, etc).
- If you mean the same scale, literally just keep playing the same notes in a higher or lower octave/pitch/position/choose your word. If you mean different scales in a musical setting... learn a major scale first.
- G is generally the guitar standard to start with. All of the open strings are contained in the key of G major, and is the relative major of E minor (nice to have the scale tonic on both the lowest and highest open strings). C major isn't terrible, all the open strings are also contained in the key, and has the relative minor of A, both of which contain no sharps or flats. Just go with G though.
As some general advice, if you crave understanding of the things you're working on, head to a library, book store, whatever, and find the most BASIC music theory book you can. There are a lot of great, free learning resources out there, which you can not benefit from without a certain baseline of knowledge. Phrases like "major third" and "aeolian mode" can halt any sense of learning from any source if you just legitimately do not know what they mean.
If you go to Pebber Brown's youtube channel, there are literally 85 videos that have been uploaded under the catagory "scale systems," including those that are more basic, but that one specifically I recall doing a great job of showing how to start simple, and then progress on from there. (Ok, watching through it again, it may be quite confusing if you don't even know the major scale yet, but still a very good video in terms of concepts even if you don't understand all the musical terms).
Hello, topic title sums up my question pretty well. I've seen the videos on memorizing chords, the ones on playing scales over certain chords, as well as the ones on the process of learning new chords by raising certain scale degrees (great stuff).
What I have not been able to find is anything on how to play already learned chords ...better. Other sites / teachers obviously have practice songs and such that you're supposed to pat yourself on the back on for being able to play in order to drill them (wooo yea, 3 power chord version of All Along the Watchtower), but I was hoping Mr Pebber may have some method of his own that is possibly a bit more... honest? Maybe something that goes into more detail about "understanding the groove" than "play this strumming pattern?"
(and of course many thanks to PB for the videos on picking and trills and so on that I have been able to learn from)
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