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...

Shreditation Follow-up

(Due in part to the surprising amount of views the original Shreditation post received, here is another article, which will further expound on visualization technique... the regular shred madness posts and videos shall resume shortly.)

Last time, I left off with a basic visualization practice to use along with a legato piece I'd written. I'd like to start off even simpler this time; let's work on any short lick which you haven't fully mastered. It can even be something as simple as a single chord; it really doesn't matter. The only two rules are that it must be short, and it must be difficult for you.

I want your practice to be painstaking, for now. If you decided to tackle a lick, all notes are to be articulate and even in volume, and all physical movement economical and relaxed. If you are working on a chord, play it slow enough that all of your fretting hand fingers are moving to their destinations at the exact same time. Make sure each note in the chord is fretted well by arpeggiating it (play it one string at a time). Above all, make sure this feels easy before you move on.

The key here is your own awareness of what it feels like when you are doing everything correctly. Think about how it feels for both of your hands when they are working in perfect coordination, listen to the sound the guitar is producing when you've done everything right. How do you feel? Be aware of as much as possible; we are going to need to recall this information for our shreditation.

After you've practiced thoroughly, sit comfortably. Close your eyes, and slow your breathing; count along with your inhalations and exhalations, keeping them the same length of time. Neither inhale nor exhale maximally; just keep things comfortably slow. Once you feel fully relaxed (don't fall asleep!), the shreditation starts.

Picture yourself where you normally practice; as mentioned in the previous article, the more details you can recall, the better. Imagine the typical temperature of the room, what it smells like, etc... we want to make your brain feel like you're actually there. Then, see yourself playing whatever you decided to practice before, but see yourself gradually doing it faster, better, while recalling all the playing details you became aware of in practice earlier. Do not allow any negative thoughts to take control; if any slip in, keep concentrating on the idea of your own perfection, and they will fade away.

The goal is to convince yourself that you can achieve incredible swiftness or accuracy by envisioning just that, while recalling the feelings you noted earlier, of correct playing and effortlessness. Regularly using shreditation will, at the least, aid in removing mental roadblocks and enhance confidence, which when combined with typical practice will yield tremendous results. Keep these visualization sessions down to approximately 10 minutes daily, but don't keep eyeing the clock; if you go too short or too long sometimes, it won't matter, but constantly breaking the visualization to check the time will.

If you have any questions or comments about mental techniques, fire away! More articles and videos are on their way; stay tuned!

Wanna Be Good, Maybe Great? Come On Y'all, Let's Al-ter-nate!

Pick, that is. Nothing else quite sounds like an electric guitar firing off a salvo of precise alternate picked runs; the "arrrgh! I mean business!" factor simply can't be matched by any other instrument (no matter what you say). For the maximum in sonic assault, alternate picking is your weapon of choice.

In this post, I'm going to show you how to take ordinary alternate picked 16th note patterns, that are 16 notes long and phrase all nice and tidy, and spice them up a bit by adding 2 notes (creating 16th note patterns that are 18 notes long). This will turn an otherwise cool, but plain-sounding run, into a whirling vortex of ear-bullets. Here's what I mean; take a gander at this D minor idea...

Finished gandering? It certainly sounds nice as is, but if we add 2 notes to it, we can make it sound much more complicated; how about we repeat the A and G in beat 4 of measure 1, and the D and C in beat 4 of measure 2? Let's see...

EXAMPLE 1:

Whoa! Our humble little pattern, perfectly happy to last exactly one measure before beginning anew, has mutated into a monster more at home in 9/8! What have you done, Apex Shredator!?!? WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!!!??!?

As you can see, by adding the two notes to the run, we now have something that doesn't quite fit into 1 measure anymore, but that's what's cool about it. We have a pattern which, when played over a chord progression in 4/4, doesn't sound quite so pattern-y. To land on my feet in the above example, I finish off by running through the scale linearly, and ending squarely on D.

Let's check out some other 18 note runs I constructed from standard patterns; runs-of-the-mill, if you will.

EXAMPLE 2: A 3 measure descending delight...

EXAMPLE 3: and a Michael Angelo Batio-sounding thing...

Here's a video of me playing all three. I hope you enjoy it, and please, give me feedback!

Until next time, keep firing off salvoes of whirling vortexes... of ear-bullets.

Shreditation

You're practicing your butt off, slaving over alternate picked runs in lydian augmented mode until they're perfect, but despite all the effort you hit the stage and immediately become afflicted with a terrible case of the sucks. "Gee whiz", you exclaim, "those licks worked out fine at home. What went wrong!?" Well, I'll tell ya what went wrong... your brain.

Playing the guitar at a high level, much the same as any other physical activity, requires both movement practice AND "brain practice". Since I dig ludicrous word-play, I hereby dub it "shreditation" for you guitar nuts. If you want to get the most out of your guitar playing, and your life in general, you must shreditate.

Sound like hocus-pocus? It's not. In a 2004 study, it was concluded that the subjects were actually able to increase physical strength merely by thinking about it; they visualized making strong contractions for 15 minutes, 5 days a week, over a 12 week period, and increased strength between 13.5% and a whopping 35%, depending on the movement. Again, that is with no physical training at all, only using visualization. Imagine what results you could get from combining the two!

While I'm not aware of any studies examining musicians and visualization, there's certainly a lot of anecdotal evidence, and there's obviously a strong connection between what one thinks and what one does. How can we use this to enhance our guitar playing? While there are a multitude of mental practices one can use, we will start simply.

Our shreditation will consist only of visualization exercises for now; namely, you will spend a bit of time simply imagining a specific thing. First, loads of legato for you to learn:

Spend an ample amount of time learning the piece first, and once it's memorized, the shreditation starts. After practicing the piece as you normally would, I want you to then sit comfortably, close your eyes, and envision yourself playing it flawlessly. Get as detailed as possible in your visualization; "feel" the strings under your fingers, hear the notes, and believe that it's all completely effortless. Imagine you can play it better than anyone else ever could, and don't think for a second that it's hard in any way.

Apply this technique to any specific exercise or piece you are working on, but be specific. The more general your visualization is, the less you shall gain from it. Give it 10 minutes daily for a month, and let me know the results! In a future article, I will discuss further tactics one can employ to get your brain squarely on your side.