Your Picking Probably Sucks

One of the best ways to practice anything is to break it up into many small sections. Let's say, for instance, you're trying to master this simple A minor scale idea:

Rather than continuously trying to blast through the whole thing, try this etude I've created... it nails just about every possible problem spot you might have. It's an etude with attitude; and attetude?Take a gander and MIND THE PICK DIRECTIONS, OR BE SMITED BY THE GODS OF SHRED:

Now here's the heartbreaking news... you are going to be limited in how fast you can play the initial scale by whatever is the hardest (slowest/least clean) part of this etude for you. For example, let's say you can play the first 2 beats worth of notes (A B C D E, down up down up down) over and over again at 200bpm... well, that's just swell! But when you get to beats 3 and 4, D E F G A starting with an UPSTROKE, you start sucking all over the place and can't break 140bpm without sounding like Vernon Reid. What that tells you is that you can't play that scale cleanly faster than 140bpm, and that sucks!

Disheartening? Don't let it be. In fact, be heartened, if there is such a word, because now that you know WHERE you suck, you can fix it far faster than before. Everytime you've run through this scale, "practicing" it from beginning to end, you've made the part you're already strong at stronger, while trying to force the hard part to catch up. This is little more than a highly effective way to waste your time. Take the part you suck at (whatever it is), drill THAT hard, and only then play through the entire scale a handful of times... notice how much better it sounds? You're welcome.

One final thing to take a look at, a Paul Gilbert idea taken to extremes. Rather than play notes at all, we'll take the left hand out of the equation entirely. Lay your fingers across the strings to mute them, and try this:

We are picking the exact sequence for the Am scale, but now we can know without a doubt if there is a right hand issue. If you can rip through this, then your left hand is actually the problem (I'll cover strategies for that soon), but if you can't, get to work!

Hey there, Wolfgang Amadeus Brozart

Ah, classical music... it brings to mind powdered wigs, tea, clothing with inordinate amounts of ruffles, and other things that are not metal. You may, in fact, think classical wholly sucks, but it doesn't; really! Even if you aren't a huge fan of the likes of Mozart or Beethoven, there's still a lot you can learn from them. Take, for example, this well-known epitomy of twinkliness:

Man, that's just... not metal and has nothing to do with shred guitar. Until I made this devastating arrangement, that is!



This first part is relatively straight forward, with tons of alternate picking in the middle. Mind the pick directions I marked; it may feel a little uncomfortable, but following them will get you used to weaving between 16th note groupings with downstrokes falling on the beat, and with upstrokes falling on the beat. Mastering both is pretty much essential if you want to be a great alternate picker! There's also a tiny bit of sweeping in the last section which sneaks up on you quick, so make sure to keep those 16th notes even. On to the next part!

Look at the first beat of the second measure above... it's a grace note, followed by a dotted 8th note trill, followed by a 16th note. Time-wise, I would err on having the grace note be slightly early, essentially part of the previous measure, so that the G A trill falls on beat one. This idea repeats twice, ending with the first measure of the next section... then all Hell breaks loose.

This sweepy mess would be played using both hands on piano, but we can make do as written (although it's tough!). I highly, highly, HIGHLY recommend you follow the pickstrokes and legato I notated precisely, or it will be almost impossible to execute. Playing this up-to-speed will require patience; work it REALLY slow, and good luck! If you have any questions on fingering (which powertab sucks at notating), ask and I'll gladly answer! We're coming up towards the end...

Things to note here; there is a very quick beat of 32nds in the first measure, a long trill in the third, and more sweep/economy picking madness in the fourth and fifth. You might want to use hammers and pulls for the 32nds, and you'll definitely want to follow the notated right hand motions for the fourth and fifth. And once you get to the end, repeat it all again from the top! hahahaha!

Hopefully I've shown you that even this piece, twinkly and piano recital-y though it may be, can yield many shred benefits. Practice it and enjoy it, but just don't go around calling it your own arrangement, or I will kill you.

See you next time!

Do the Impossible with Tapping!

The guitar just wasn't designed to play certain lines, at least in the traditional manner. Many relatively simple ideas that can be played with ease on the keyboard, various woodwinds, accordion, zither, didjeridoo, or whatever, just plain suck on the guitar. For the most part, this is due to the fact that huge jumps in range at high speed simply can't be done... with one fretting hand. But many moons ago, some wise guy decided to start fretting notes with their picking hand as well, and over the following decades, quite a few people went nuts with the whole idea. "Tapping" had arrived, and we are going to use it to play an otherwise unplayable line.

First, a little history; imagine, if you will, a 10 year old Apex Shredator, bespectacled and with hair not yet 8 feet long. It is probably about 4am Christmas morning, way too early for any sane person to start opening presents, but goddammit, there could well be a Sega Genesis under that tree, so everybody is gonna get up, if they know what's good for 'em. And after tearing through a bunch of less-desired gifts, there it was... Santa came through. I now had a Genesis, and everybody knows Genesis does what NintenDON'T, suckaz!

Why the story? Well, one of the first games I got was a rather obscure, super-difficult, scary-as-hell-to-a-little-kid number called "Mystic Defender". You played as some guy who definitely did not look like his name was Joe, named Joe, and fought demons and other wacky things only the Japanese could think up. It was awesome, and here's where the article ties in; the music left a big impression on me.

Flash forward decades later. Through the power of the almighty interwebs, I've revisited many of the old games from my youth, including Mystic Defender. The opening music burned itself permanently into my brain 23 years ago, and now that I can actually hear it again, I'm going to play it on guitar, and so are you! Let's listen...

There is a lot of stuff going on there, but we're going to focus on the main ascending line that modulates around. The first time it appears, it uses the notes A, Bb, D, E, and F (not in that order), with the BWWOOOOOW voice playing D, so it's kind of like a Dm arpeggio with E (2nd note from D natural minor) and Bb (6th note) thrown in. You can also just as easily think of it as a Bbmaj7 arp with a #11, or an exotic-sounding pentatonic scale (the "Japanese" scale, if you're a Jason Becker fan); it doesn't really matter. What matters is that it's impossible to play on guitar... or is it?!

After taking a while to figure out exactly what the notes were, I was then tasked with discovering how to friggin' play it. It didn't take long to decide tapping was the only effective weapon to use, and I came up with this fingering; cast your eyes upon its glory!

Fingering-wise, think of it like this; left left left right right left left right, for the whole piece. I tap using my middle and ring for the successive notes, and pinky for the highest ones; so should you! The index finger on your left hand must act as a muting device all the way through; no hair tie nonsense allowed. If you aren't used to multi-finger tapping, I would work solely on the first line, breaking it up as such:

Example 1

Example 2

Example 3 (the whole thing)



And a video demonstration...

Questions, comments, hate, and praise are, as always, desired. Until next time, I'm going to get to da choppa!

A Bit of Fun

Serious post coming this weekend (at least, as serious as they ever are), but for now enjoy this video I put together today! If you can guess what movie the ending music is from, I will give you an internet high five...