DWPS and keeping track of unevens?

Playing Technique
#1

Hey y’all.

I purchased Inside the Volcano and as far as I understand it, Malmsteen does a pull off on uneven numbers of notes when descending.
But something that is very unclear to me is how does one keep track of a set of notes being uneven or even when improvising? Are you supposed to somehow keep track of uneven and even when improvising at 180BPM? I don’t understand how that’s possible. Perhaps it becomes ingrained somehow in the brain to pull off on unevens without making a conscious effort of keeping track if it is uneven or not with lots of practice?
Very confused about this.

Cheers lads!

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#2

Pretty much this! I think that in the same way 2 way pickslanter get used to rotating at the right point.

#3

Thanks for the reply, I guess I will just have to keep the faith that it will become automatic in time.

#4

It’s all about chunking. Troy has a lot of info on this and I recommend searching it up. Chunking, in this case, means learning and connecting a few notes (4-6) into chunk. You learn to play the chunk a certain way and practice it a LOT of times until that the body thinks of these notes like chunks and not individual notes. In a long lick, you connect more chunks which means that the brain doesn’t have to think about all the individual notes on certain strings and what not, but instead just a few chunks. It’s like learning words out of letters and connecting them effortlessly when talking.

Thing is, just like learning to talk, learning chunks takes time and a LOT of repetitional practice.

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#5

Thanks for the reply, but certainly the ultimate goal is to get this all to work unconsciously. I have a hard time seeing Malmsteen improvising at the speed of light thinking “Is it an even chunk now? Ok, I can switch the string now”.

#6

Yes, it’s definitely the goal! And much like how you don’t consciously think of how many letters each of the words you use has, you can still connect them into sentences, the same goes for chunking licks. It makes you not have to be aware number of notes while playing. Your body learns how to feel where the changes are possible. This I think is especially true for free time player like Yngwie.

#7

Thank you for your reply, I’ll just stick to the method and practice hard every day. Thank you all for your contribution to this thread.

#8

Sounds like a good plan! :slight_smile: In time these things will feel natural. Repetition is the key.

#9

One of the misconceptions about improvising is that it is “improvised”. The best “improvisers” use phrases that they have practiced thousands of times. They know how to make them fit the piece they are playing (over).

There are, it seems, infinite way to play scalar runs on guitar, you could stay in a box position or you can move laterally. The point is that for more complicated runs/phrases, you must stay “on the tracks” and use runs you have practiced a thousand times. You can mix and match, but you are always transitioning to something else you have practiced a thousand times.

Your fingers intuitively know whether to start phrase with up/down stroke, where to use economy picking, where to change pickslant. Its in muscle memory. If you “leave the tracks” thats when you will have problems.

Also, being completely honest, you’re not going to improvise a phrase that sounds better than ones that were carefully crafted and practiced 1000 times.

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