Practice session videos

Playing Technique
#1

The goal of this forum is to unlock the secrets of guitar techniques that usually cannot be explained even by the masters of said techniques. On a related note, there have been a number of interesting threads about different techniques and approaches to practice. It seems that many skilled guitarists (such as Troy) say that their practice time isn’t (and wasn’t ever) particularly regimented and mostly consists of… well, just trying different approaches to licks until something clicks. They make it sounds so easy. :slight_smile:

I’m wondering if anyone has made video recordings of their practice sessions, whether it be practicing new techniques, licks, etc. Even better if it’s a practice session for a technique/lick that the person eventually managed to learn. I would love to see what is actually involved when someone says “I practiced this for 20 minutes a day for 3 weeks”.

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#2

i prefer not to put myself out on the internet because it just seems unsafe. although i use my real name, i do so as a courtesy to seem authentic. i dont have any video to share but i can offer my process to learning a song that is not mine.

i normally just learn other peoples material, but my approach is i start out with the song and start at 50% speed or lower depending on how fast the song. if i am really digging the song i can probably churn through the memorization in about a week, maybe less.

this means each day i play through the song slowed up a few times through following along with the tab, i turn my tv vertical, hdmi my laptop, hit ctrl+alt+left arrow to rotate the screen, pull up the tablature, hit play on music speed changer web app setting speed to like 40ish percent. i have gotten quite decent at turning pages, its not that hard really at slower speed, especially if the lick is cool and unique enough you have some leeway when to turn the page because some licks just seem easier to memorize very quickly. i do this for a few days, eventually i can just play it without the tab, this is when i can start to increase the tempo. i just keep working it up as far as i can get it until i top out. i can get them even faster the more i play em, but the plateau happens and to go beyond it means i have to play it everyday for life. :sweat_smile:

i prefer a complete song as it just seems more complete to me to be able to play something rather than pieces of something. although somethings are challening and you have to break them into pieces, but eventually i would use the above as the process to try to finalize it into a complete picture.

on the side i kinda tool around in loops of licks or create my own licks. i have two song ideas churning, but no melodies to kind of finalize them. oh and i try to soundslice things every now and then to keep my notation skills up to date, or to help memorize licks i come up with because you will forget so always notate them. fretboard manuscript paper is highly recommended for licks that you might be having problems seeing with your minds eye that way you can see the entire lick on the fretboard and the location of it. heres an online one i found so you wont need paper. Fretboard Diagram Creator

theres other areas i got into as well like when i learn i piece i try to break into the chord progressions, analyze the melodies and licks to see what soundscape they reside in. work on rhythm, learn more chords.

now if you really want to be courageous you can learn a piece all by ear which i have only done once, you must put on your monk outfit because this requires some extreme patience. it will teach you about audiation though which is something that every musician should try to work on. but i would say try to learn about 5-10 songs first before doing this so you at least have some sounds flowing in your mind.

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#3

Pretty cool, thanks for this! It’s just what I happened to need based on my current ‘detour’ lol

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#4

Awesome, thanks for the detailed response! That sounds like a pretty foolproof strategy to learning song as long as you have the technical requirements down. My approach for songs is similar (start slow until it’s memorized and slowly increase tempo). What trips me up is when I hit something that involves a technique that’s foreign to me - it could be a simple as an unusual chord transition. Stuff like that will sidetrack me down weird rabbit holes and I’ll never end up even finishing the song!

Anyway, perhaps this is a bit silly but I recorded a 10 minute video of me practicing a pentatonic run. It has economy picking and requires a helper escape motion, both of which I suck at! I try a few different approaches (chunking, playing with a swing rhythm, etc.) and didn’t really get very far by the end.

It’s boring and I don’t actually recommend anyone watch it. However, maybe it will encourage someone else to record and post a video of themselves practicing a lick that they find challenging. Don’t worry, I set the bar real low :slight_smile:

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#5

just keep at it there are plenty of these i encounter with stochelo rosenberg, that man is a chord fingering monster. some of the things he can do with his hands, i literally cannot do. he can banana fingers while fretting with the remaining ones to do insane jazz chords, and fast! so i have to do these daily everyday play the song 50% speed, sometimes it can take a few months for things to ingrain into my hands. and of course since my hands sometimes aren’t capable of fretting specific chords i have to either take away a note, or find another chord position.

yes sometimes he will do some of that really tricky gypsy jazz rhythm chord strumming, and that is a nightmare. i have to go to 30% speed, and anaylze it exactly, then begin to ramp tempo back up. trust me just keep grinding it will happen, it just takes time.

#6

think about runs that you can just blaze through do you have both ascended and descended phrases that you can just burn through?

use this kind of concept and alter that pentatonic run to something similar to one of those runs you can blaze through. utilize what you know and strengthen it even further by playing other soundscapes in those blazing picking pathways. if this isn’t possible, try to alter it to your fastest natural one way escape picking motion.