I’ve been working this week with some of my students on a basic “rolling triplets” legato pattern–e.g.,
e|-5-h6-h7------------
B|------------5-h6-h7- (repeated),
(I call this the “don’t make me look bad” lick, because of Mark Knopfler dropping it on Chet Atkins at 6:04 in “There’ll Be Some Changes Made” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIKt_WQHia8 )
and I’ve noticed something neat about guiding beginner-to-intermediate students towards getting that phrase to be metrically consistent.
I’m typically nudging students to focus on the sound that’s coming from their guitar or amp as their main source of informational feedback, but for the rhythm of this phrase specifically, I’ve found that students lock in on steady triplets WAY faster if you can steer them into using the sensation of their fingertips “clicking” the strings into place against the frets.
Here’s the process I’ve been using:
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Feel-finding demo: [If they’re playing electric, have them turn the volume to zero] “I want you to put your finger on any string, and touch it, but don’t press it to the fret. Let the string sit in the air where it naturally wants to, but with your finger just resting on it. Now, slowly press it down, and see if you can feel the moment it touches the fret. [once they’ve done that] Can you feel it? To me, it feels like a tiny little “click,” like a computer mouse or a button on an old calculator.”
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[optional, if needed] Fretting pressure-angle demo: “Experiment for a moment and see what happens if you try to click the string down diagonally to the fret, as if you’re pushing the string towards the near edge of the fretboard or pulling it towards the far edge. Notice how it takes more pressure to get that click, and how it feels less controllable, when you fret with pressure at those angles? See if you can find the spot dead in the middle where the softest possible touch gets that click–pressing with the finger straight-on 90 degrees towards the fret.” (A very common beginner mistake is to not press the strings in a direct line through space to the fret; this helps show them how it feels to do it right. This demo can be more intuitive if done first with the guitar lying flat in the lap, facing up.)
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With strings muted, have the student repeat step 1. with their middle and ring fingers, while keeping the lower-numbered fingers held in place (just like they would if doing hammer-ons). I have the student lay their picking hand across all strings to mute them, so the feedback is definitely from the feeling in the fingertips, not the sound.
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Have the student start repeating that fretting motion so they can feel a repetitive “1-2-3” rhythm. Since the lick doesn’t require the index finger to move if repeated on a single string, I’ve been having them alternate it between adjacent strings, like e and B or A and E, which requires replacing the index finger for each repetition.
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Allow the student to un-mute the strings. This can result in “hammer-ons from nowhere” if their guitar is decent, but that’s not the goal and shouldn’t be emphasized, since that can result in punching the strings harder than needed. If their rhythm goes inconsistent once volume is added, have them re-mute and find it again, and then add in just a little volume, e.g. by palm-muting, so that they start to get some audio feedback, but it doesn’t overwhelm the tactile feedback.
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Start to increase the speed and chunk the rhythm. I’ve had the most success doing this by NOT saying “faster,” but instead just showing the speed I want them to try, not even explicitly mentioning speed (“okay, now try it like this.”) I also narrate my counting out loud as I demonstrate, which allows me to subtly introduce the chunking emphasis without describing it (“ONE-two-three-ONE-two-three.”)
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[optional] Play with the chunking emphasis by punctuating the lick on note three instead of note one. I will describe this one to the student: “now, think like the first two notes are leading into the third note, as opposed to the last two notes following up from the first one.” If the student totally aces this, you can offer chunking emphasis on note two as a sort of bonus challenge.
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Finally, add picking, only on the first note of each group of three (with the string change) at first. If the timing breaks down here, there may be a problem with their pick coordination, which I’ll post about some other time.
Despite the long description for detail’s sake, this only takes a few minutes, and I’ve seen students achieve big progress in a single session by trying this.
The interesting thing to me as a player is how much more easily students get metronomically-perfect timing when the guitar is muted and their main source of feedback is coming from the fingertips. I think this is worth exploring in my own practice to see if it holds true for more advanced players trying harder repertoire.
Anybody got any insights into this, or related ideas?