Practice: correcting mechanics vs. plain repetition

[Drew]

This absolutely makes you a fascinating case study, especially since you’ve been very open, transparent, and - for lack of a better word - talkative about your struggles, your thought process as you’ve tried to figure them out, etc.

Which, aside, is one of the coolest things about this place - it’s a very open, open-minded community, and I think I’ve learned as much from the discussion here as I have from the CtC content. I’m stoked to be part of this community.

I’ll add, though, sometimes having all that fretting-hand progess is counter-productive in two ways, one obvious and one not. The obvious way is it’s very easy to get around problems with your picking hand - I can (and do) just rely on legato if I want to play a “fast” line somewhere, which definitely limits my progress on picking technique simply because it’s less of a priority.

Second though… it’s very easy to take it for granted that if you’re struggling with a picking run, the problem is definitely your picking hand and not your fretting hand. I’ve been struggling with variations of the gilbert 6s pattern and 3nps two-way-escaped runs for a while now, and I’ve pretty much figured it was either a position-shifting issue, or something up with my picking hand. Literally within the last week I realized if I tried to do the three note pattern on a single string as a series of hit ons or pull offs - like, say, 7h9h10p7h9h10 or 10p9p7h10p9p7, I was actually struggling to do that at tempo, cleanly, and the coordiination issue was almost certainly my fretting hand and not my picking hand.

The irony here is finally getting my picking chops closer to up to snuff has exposed weaknesses in my legato playing, which I thought was pretty good before I started putting it under the microscope, so to speak, by combining it with something that was naturally pretty rhythmically tight. Go figure! So now I’m spending some time a week basicaly “trilling” three note per string patterns in a single direction like that, three hit ons or three pull offs, just to build up some better control there (for some reason it’s easier lower on the nck than higher), and I think a couple weeks of this and I should be able to run some of these picking runs and have them sound clean and coordinated quite a bit faster.

Idunno. Guitar is fascinating, and if it was easy, it wouldn’t be nearly as fun.

[PickingApprentice]

@Drew

The irony here is finally getting my picking chops closer to up to snuff has exposed weaknesses in my legato playing, which I thought was pretty good before I started putting it under the microscope, so to speak, by combining it with something that was naturally pretty rhythmically tight. Go figure! So now I’m spending some time a week basicaly “trilling” three note per string patterns in a single direction like that, three hit ons or three pull offs, just to build up some better control there (for some reason it’s easier lower on the nck than higher), and I think a couple weeks of this and I should be able to run some of these picking runs and have them sound clean and coordinated quite a bit faster.

This feels very much like my world in the last week. Fretting hand is being shamed at every turn!

[Yaakov]

@Drew

I can (and do) just rely on legato if I want to play a “fast” line somewhere, which definitely limits my progress on picking technique

As I look more at sheet music, I’m getting a sense for the real world work-arounds when it comes to playing fast without single-escaping. It’s interesting how when I listen to some of the Clapton/Mayall stuff, he’s playing a lot of notes fast - but then you see in black-and-white that it’s almost entirely HOs and POs, as opposed to single-escape.

I do think that sort of bolsters my theory, though - that using articulation (PO/HO) for speed helps lay groundwork, in terms of giving each hand some skills they’ll need for single-escape. Makes me wonder if I’m skipping a step by not taking “fast” as far as I can w/artic and legato before focusing on USX. (Actually, @Troy, if you’ve got thoughts on that, I’d love to hear them.)

@Drew

it’s very easy to take it for granted that if you’re struggling with a picking run, the problem is definitely your picking hand and not your fretting hand

I hear that. And I’d guess it’s easier to make this mistake when you’re a seasoned player. Maybe this is a point where my inexperience will serve me well - I always have to suspect both hands of being the culprit;)

[Drew]

Hey, I think there’s no wrong way to learn how to play guitar, provided you DO learn. And, you do seem to be getting the hang of identifying weaknesses and trouble-shooting them, which IMO is the most important part of learning.