Do you practice with deadened strings?

[carranoj25]

Not sure I follow. If I’m playing deadened strings, then there is no melody?

[Tom_Gilroy]

I mean that you’re likely focusing on melody when you’re practicing something which involves your fretting hand, either in isolation or with the picking hand, rather than following your internal clock.

Without a melody to follow, you’re finding it difficult to practice the picking hand in isolation because you aren’t used to letting your internal clock drive your movements.

[bradejensen]

@Tom_Gilroy

Without a melody to follow, you’re finding it difficult to practice the picking hand in isolation because you aren’t used to letting your internal clock drive your movements.

Yeah the best way I could try to describe what he means by this is say the phrase you are working on has a specific rhythmic flow, you would at least want to try to emphasize this also when you are just plucking away on deadened strings. Listening for where the chunks are or accents.

At your level, it doesn’t seem like you’d be doing this for very long before returning to fretting. If you’re just trying to re-engineer the lick for a one-way escape path, you have enough skill to move on pretty quickly.

[qwertygitarr]

@Tom_Gilroy

The fact that you have some difficulty performing this movement in perfect time suggests to me that the temporal positioning of your “flag” isn’t clear enough for you to find it consistently at your highest speeds.

Thanks for all the great feedback, Tom! I think you’re right about accents being important for keeping rhythm and chunking stable. For me, at lower tempos accents are no problem. And at upper speeds there is a span of tempos that feels comfortable and unproblematic to lock into. The problem for me is that there is a span of middle tempos that are really hard to play controlled in time. It’s like the motion has no power at that speed and wants to accelerate up to comfortable tempos. And you’re absolutely right about that in this middle tempo area, accents are especially hard.

I have worked on this but my hands wants to do something different so at that time usually the wrist activates and te motion becomes more rigid and controlled. With wrist I have no problem keeping time but the playing feel is a lot less enjoyable. It feels almost like gearing down on a car, you have to work harder to maintain the same speed and the top speed is reduced.

@Tom_Gilroy

You’ve mentioned in another thread that you’ve been performing this movement for nearly a decade and you still occassionally lose it. That seems very discordant to me. There is something, somewhere which is interrupting your haptic or rhythmic connection to the movement.

Yes, this problem more often occur if I have used wrist motion recently. Then my hands can jump into wrist motion mid playing by their own choice. Especially if I’m performing live and I’m stressed and tense. Wrist motion was my first motion so it kind of makes sense that the body goes back to what has felt “at home” in the past.

@Tom_Gilroy

However, if this is a matter of shaking your forearm as fast as possible, why can’t it go faster?

I have no clue about this. I also have no clue how one would work on this.

@bradejensen

Do you think you could handle this on a classical or acoustic guitar?

I’m sorry to waste your time about this again, but I had to see if this technique works on acoustic and it kind of does, but for me I have to bend the wrist more gypsy style and I still have a hard time getting a solid attack, especially on the low strings. You can hear in the clip that I flub out on low E. I have no clue why playing the low strings is less stable. Any ideas?

IMG 3344

[bradejensen]

@qwertygitarr

Any ideas?

Maybe you just got to give your body time to find the sweet spot probably? GIve it a few days, I always have better success with the tremolo stuff really early in the morning, right when I wake up, coffee (i like to ice mine down) helps big time, or get one of those bang or reigns.

[joebegly]

That is ripping and sounds great!

I appreciate the detour you’ve taken on the thread (qwertgitarr’s picking part 2) but…

I have actually been trying the deadened strings myself lately, in the context of the DBX playing I’ve been working on. Too soon to tell but I do think it is helping.

[qwertygitarr]

@joebegly

I have actually been trying the deadened strings myself lately, in the context of the DBX playing I’ve been working on. Too soon to tell but I do think it is helping.

Cool! Good to get the thread back on track. Looking forward to your findings!

[Jacklr]

@qwertygitarr

Yes, this problem more often occur if I have used wrist motion recently. Then my hands can jump into wrist motion mid playing by their own choice. Especially if I’m performing live and I’m stressed and tense. Wrist motion was my first motion so it kind of makes sense that the body goes back to what has felt “at home” in the past.

Interesting you mentioning this

Shortly after feeling like I was getting a grip on my new wrist + forearm motion (being able to recall it everyday in around 5mins) I started practicing a completely economy picked phrase which must of used my old trapped motion, after 20mins of solid practice with a metronome on this economy lick I went to switch back to my new motion and couldn’t do it!

It seriously took me a whole week of trying to replicate it to get it back, it was really depressing and I’m a bit traumatised by the whole thing

[bradejensen]

@Jacklr

It seriously took me a whole week of trying to replicate it to get it back, it was really depressing and I’m a bit traumatised by the whole thing

Don’t worry I have been trying to coordinate this tremolo for over a year now. And I will have days that I am literally about to toss the guitar out the door cause it just will not rev up enough to get through the string. That is why I was suggesting to @qwertygitarr to try doing it on the classical guitar right when he wakes up cause that is when I can do a super articulate free flow tremolo for a good while. Kind of like a rooster wake up call for my family to throw me out of the house for waking them up early.

haha you thought metal was bad wait until you hear me tremolo on a classical guitar nice bright loud and obnoxious at 6 in the morning.

[qwertygitarr]

@bradejensen

And I will have days that I am literally about to toss the guitar out the door cause it just will not rev up enough to get through the string.

You’re not alone here. Actually I have a hard time just after waking up. My arm literally can’t do the motion at all at first and then starts off very weak. It makes you realize that you can’t take your body for granted.

[jptk]

@Jacklr

It seriously took me a whole week of trying to replicate it to get it back, it was really depressing and I’m a bit traumatised by the whole thing

I’m right there with you! It’s happened many times and I’m actually worried about it happening again! It sounds ridiculous when I type it out like this

[Scottulus]

Of late, I have been practicing with deadened strings for a bit and then transferring that into playing fretted notes. It’s been a tremendous benefit and Tom Gilroy has been helping coach me through figuring out just what the hell works for me with my RH; He’s been awesome and it’s going really well - new discoveries and breakthroughs every day.

Here’s the criteria and it makes perfect sense now that I am working towards it.

1. Efficient muscular activation against a low background tension.
2. Strong connection to internal sense of time.
3. High dynamic range.
4. At least one consistent escape direction.
5. Tracking capability across all six strings (or seven, etc).

Anyways, short answer is yep, I practice against deadened strings for a bit each day.