Dumb Elbow question

What kind of tech does Frank Gambale use? Elbow two way directional economy slanting wrist both ways depending on ascending or descending musically? Or is it thumb index two way directional economy?

Or a gypsy ascend, and economy descend?

Here’s the Yngwie type one. (We’ll sort of, I don’t know what notes he actually plays but it’s close to something like this). The last three notes are likely an up pull off and a ghost hammer on, but I kept pick strokes in there. It’s pretty neat:

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I want to play that lick gypsy style. :smiley: all downs baby, but yeah I could burn through that way easier. I will soundslice the gypsy way or no?

Best not to scare everyone?

Should do color up color down and just do minor add 2 up and diminished down.

I will keep it rather tame just one downstroke on the descending portion.

Well I think really the heart of the matter is making sure you have quite a few consecutive upstrokes on the descending portion. That’s where the op is trying to gain the improvement.

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Yes very true, for myself to get the ops lick the fastest with the techniques I half way can do decent it is either thumb index economy the entire thing, or gypsy ascend and thumb index upstroke style economy descend. And really to do it quickly with no prior knowledge of ever seeing the lick until now, thumb index economy is my fastest well relaxed fastest anyways.

thats why i am wondering how frank gambale does it. is he wrist or elbow?

the lick is more dorian though sorry not mixolydian. does he play it with a backing context or drone note in this instructional?

The problem I have with the lick is the rock back and forth on the single notes on each string between the 3 notes on the other strings. my middle finger wants to jump in and do the second one but its suppose to be the index fingers turn. i am just not familiar with the lick. but that is definitely going to be a trouble spot because you have to do some prior setup of barring or rolling finger action the note coming up.

the 5 on the g string, c note, descending, you can do it on the ascending portion also start barring on the c note on the g string of both the c note on the g string and the e note on the b string.

there is a process to learning licks for me, picking comes first, then fingerings, then these fingering complexities, then smoothness, then rhythmical flow, then finesse and control.

i think this is what is stopping me from playing it really fast, because the first portion is all finger dance, then the upper portion you have to do this extra rolling across string step with index fretting hand finger on the strings so its foreign to me and prevents the lick from really feeling smooth.

Just so we are clear these are the intended fingerings and picking motions, right?

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Troy has up an extended interview with frank I believe, you can probably just YouTube it or pull it off this site, and you can see how he plays there. If I remember correctly from that silly REH workout video he put out, he uses a bit of elbow on sweeps, but that’s just him you should be able to play these however is comfortable to you, but that said, the upstroke portion will likely require a bit more elbow to pull off if only slight.

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haha check out the hair, to bad we go bald when we get older. :frowning:

Yes. However one thing to note is that if you want to make this a cyclical, it may be easier to either make the last note a “G” so you can start the lick over on the A with the same pick strokes you started with, without having to double pick the a, or add a note somewhere convenient so that the lick ends on an upstroke on the b note, so you can cycle again with a down on the A. (Adding an “a” before the “b”note on the high e string is a good candidate)

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I was watching the video, and he uses even notes on the end, the turn arounds, so normally he does 2 or 4.

You could do the cute loop around trick at the end on the top 2 strings like in that major part in measure 3 and finish with the 123 123 thing. Then end it with the Yngwie harmonic minor descending run but in major. :laughing:

But you can figure all that out, and make it your own. Or end it on a gypsy major ascended arpeggio kinda thing, but you gotta map out a way to get to that G on the low E. If it was me I would throw in some diminished to really shine it up. On the ascending lydian side you can do a 2 note per string kinda thing playing on the 1,3,4,6 notes of the scale, then shift on the d and g strings and do same thing, and shift again do the same thing then hit the high e or do some diminished thing on that f# before ending on the g.


Thanks for thinking of me, I really appreciate it!

I messed with this one for quite a while last night; for whatever reason it’s extremely difficult for me as written to speed up; those last 4 notes I just cannot get past 116bpm as straight 16ths, 84bpm as 7:4 16ths. Definitely a snag there. And it contains one of the moves that is absolutely kicking my butt. 1+2 Descending sweep ugh lol

Now what I CAN do, is rearrange the notes technique a bit: 1) last 5 notes are all on 1 string. 2) Screw picking and just use hammerons/pullofs 3) Swybrid this sucker

It disappoints me a bit that my playing ability is so flawed that I have to do that (rearrrange), but hey it is what it is I guess.

(Yep, the more I play this lick and others like it, it looks like Swybrid is the solution)

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This is kinda why I like some of the gypsy jazz resources because you learn full solos, doing exercises over and over can prevent you from progressing with flowing speed. You need to be able to develop some dexterity, in order to kind of speed up. Because what I notice with the very beginning lick of the post from Frank Gambale’s program is that the dexterity required is quite steep, compared to how Fossegrim and I were showing you other minor arpeggio runs that require very little dexterity since the finger patterns are so basic you can fly very quickly through them. I was trying to explain why I wasnt able to speed up the lick in a prior post, which deals with this dexterity issue. But this is why learning and memorizing solos, many different solos, all the way through and working on speeding them up over time can help with speed overall. Your hands need time to ingrain the motor skills necessary to fully speed them up in a relaxed manner. And learning or creating solos with varying licks for diversity can help dexterity.

These guys can do these whole lick based videos and do them quickly because they play these licks all over in varying ways in solos which helps develop dexterity which can help deepen the muscle motor memory really deep so it feels effortless when fretting, and picking them.

A trick you can try to help with dexterity to deepen the relaxation of the hands is swing tempo it on and off beat. I will put up another soundslice of the original frank gambale lick in a minute utilizing this trick.

Hey thanks, man! I really appreciate the feedback!

Yeah, I have had this material since it first came out and have been working on it since then on and off (literally decades) so I thought I’d try and hone in on the problem areas and see if i could “fix” it. I have been playing for over 45 years, so I have learned a lot of solos, licks etc and at the end of the daymusic is always my main focus, so I am safe from only being a speed exercise player hahaha Plus I play other instruments too.

Here’s where I am at with Fossegrims lick (using swybrid) and the Gambale Amin9 Arpeggio using sweep, and that “upstroke” exercise (It’s the first thing I play, it’s been kicking my butt for a good 30 years hahaha but introduced a bit more thumb and finger movement. Just trying to hone in on the problem tangles and smooth out the burrs…

lol I am actually playing this probably twice as fast here as Frank does in the book’s audio examples, so I don’t know - maybe it’s just not supposed to be played that fast? Definitely needs work, but it’s better today than it was yesterday.

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This is a trick I use when learning very difficult gypsy jazz descending licks that are very brutal that require downstroke half rest stroke string changes.

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Ah yes, that’s always the true test isn’t it, to see if it can be swung? I hadn’t tried that, thanks man. On it.

EDIT (Actually, alternating between swinging it and cycling through accenting different notes in the phrase really helped a lot. Cool, thanks again!)

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Try to push the speed alittle here beyond the 120 you can change it on soundslice to however fast you can manage it. Because the 2 different swing tempos will iron out the dexterity issues in the hands. It might not happen in a day, or week, but eventually if you love the lick enough and play it inside solos it will get faster. This is a very complex lick on the left hand so its causing synchronization problems would be my guess. I say this because, how fast can you 3 note per string up and down? I can do this incredibly fast, but this lick has speed bumps all over. And its my left hand causing the hang up.

And because I know I can rip through a minor add 2 gypsy style lick across the strings mean I should be able to make it at least to the 7 5 on the high e but even this is causing problems. So it is definitely my left hand just unfamiliar with the lick. This just takes time, sometimes it can take along time, but to help speed it up you gotta start using the lick inside solos. And maybe altering the rhythm of it as well.

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Another thing you could try is to do a 3nps run starting on the low g on the e string, run it all the way to the high e string, then do the descending side of the lick if this is giving you problems. This way you kind of get a vacation on the ascend to give your left hand a breather before getting to a difficult section, so you have the most amount of power for the hardest part.

like this

The problem with the swing tempo thing though is its going to want to force triplets, when the lick is sixteenths. But still use the trick just know this will alter the flow, so just keep that in mind. It will still work so don’t worry about this side effect. :laughing:

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Yeah, my 3nps stuff is pretty slow compared to the virtuosos here, I am at about 16th note Sextuplets (6:4) at about 130bpm. That Amin9 Arpeggio I can do pretty quick as a cascade. 140 or so, but it just sort of sounds 'bloop-blorp" to me hahaha All good I guess - if that’s how it sounds, that’s how it sounds. I actually put the sequence transposed through every degree, all 12 keys in Major, Melodic Minor and Harmonic minor so I am pretty familiar with the note pool/sequence and can steal/borrow from it while improvising.

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Does that frank gambale book have any complete solos or just licks? I would say use that video I linked and tab out the solos he does in it after the whole lick showcase. Then learn those solos at 50% speed for a week or so. You eventually want to be able to play through the entire solo at 50% speed perfectly, before you start speed it up. This will net you some speed, but just take your time doing things by ear. Eventually you will get them faster once you memorize them completely. Utilize the slow down feature on youtube, or rip the entire video to mp3, and use this site or audacity (in audacity you can change tempo, its under the effect tab).

I know this can appear to be very difficult, but just be patient. Each note you figure out is a brick you are laying on the foundation. The more you do this, you will get faster, but it takes about a year or can to get quicker at doing things by ear.

You can even use audacity, do a slow tempo effect once to about 75% on the entire track, then again do another slow tempo effect on the entire trackto another 50%, so twice do the effect. Then use this file on music speed changer to slow even further. Chop out the solo sections, or learn the entire song. I use this alot to learn stuff. You can always slow things further beyond 25%, just got to do it twice. This is why around 75% first you can retain some quality to the sound when you need to slow it way down beyond 25% which is what most programs bottom out at.

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