This is going to sound stupid, arrogant or maybe a combination of both?

Playing Technique
#1

My friend is making an album and asked me to wrote a solo for one of his song. It’s the
first solo I ever wrote. Most of it is mid-tempo, except for one part that has a quick ascending scale run. When I recorded it, I nailed it. I am very happy with it. However, I don’t know what I did, meaning I know the notes I am playing, but I can’t tell how many times I am hitting certain notes etc because of the speed.

It’s supposed to be something like:

PM----------------------------------->

G----------------------------------------12-13–15–13–12-------
D------------------------12-13–15---------------------------
A-----12–13—15-------------------------------------------
E--------------------------------------------------------

but if I play this at speed as I did for the recording, I can’t tell that I am hitting each of those notes or maybe I am even hitting some of these notes even twice?

So my question is how can you get your brain to figure out what you are playing at high speeds? I could play the same lick multiple times and will probably get 3 slightly different versions :pensive:

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#2

If you practice a lot at high speeds a few things will happen:

  1. Your ears get better at picking out nuances and with working with high-speed passages.
  2. Your fingers will grow more sensitive if you train them to feel the string vibrations.
  3. Your right hand will grow more sensitive to the feel of clean passages.

Point 1) is akin to driving a car. The first time you drive you’re overwhelmed by all the things you have to focus on and every speed limit feels fast. Then, As you gain experience, you learn to filter out the mundane and focus on what’s important.

Point 2) is easier if you get in the habit of muting the lower string neighbor with the tip of your index finger. The finger tip is super sensitive and if you accidentally hit that string you’ll feel it.

Same for 3) if you’re muting the lower string with your palm after you’ve moved on to the next string you’ll feel vibrations there too if you miss.

Sometimes I practice with a dunlop .46mm pick to help with 3). The pick is so floppy that each pickstroke is felt to a larger degree. I use this as a practice tool for crosspicking and I know for damn sure I can’t do that :disappointed:

I’m by no means an expert on all things picking, but I’ve spent a significant amount of time and energy on this, and these are the changes I’ve noticed in myself over the last two years of CtC type efforts.

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#3

I like point 2. I’m kind of trying to do that anyway to stop strings from ringing. So I guess it is not so unusual that my brain can’t keep up with my hands, or am I the only one with this problem?

#4

This feeling of “can’t keep up” usually happens to me when I don’t know something well enough. The rest of the time when I mess up I feel like I’m in charge and I know what I’m doing I just failed to execute (audible unintended swipe, accidentally hit another string, missed the first note after a slant change, muting failure, missing pickstroke etc etc).

To see if this is the case for you too, try putting a fret wrap on and only playing the left hand hand voice, using legato. Then, while keeping the fretwrap on, let the left hand take a break while you only practice the picking hand. Can you play them both perfectly? If not, then it’s no wonder you can’t get them to work together!

I was working on the run in Dream Theater’s Another Day recently and I got this feeling of “can’t keep up”. When I did this exercise to figure out why, I found that my left hand wasn’t as solid as I had thought and was both causing the two hands to get out of sync and that some notes weren’t being fretted properly.

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#5

In addition to lars’ post, I’ll also add that the more time you spend practicing transcribing solos, both your own and others’, the easier it gets to “hear” what’s going on.

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#6

I’m gonna try this, thanks!

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#7

My suggestion is to ask yourself a different question other than “How many times am I hitting those notes”? Ask yourself “What did I get into is for”? If the answer is: “To make good music” then ask yourself “Does the solo sound good”? If it does sound good, what does it matter how many times you’re hitting the notes?

#8

I see what you are saying, but don’t you want to be able to play the same thing twice accurately?
I would love to be able to play the solo note for note like I did on the recording, but I can’t because i can’t figure out what I did! what if my friend wants me to play with his band live?

#9

Made me curious, when can we listen to that solo? :slight_smile:

#10

:grinning:, thanks for the interest. I’m not sure when he plans on releasing it. Maybe I’ll come back here and post if it ever comes to that? but he’s getting other guitarist friends to be guests on his albums so I think it may take upwards of a year or so when all is said and done.

#11

Yeah, for me… this tends to be the best way to fix problems. Split them up. Not only will it expose problems better… but it will help ‘clean up’ your playing in general. Even phrases that you think you have already mastered can benefit from this strategy.

What I also like to do is constantly go back and forth between legato and alt-picking, multiple times for a phrase.

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#12

If that’s your goal - to be able to play it live note for note, then yes, you will want to keep working on what you’re doing. Just keep in mind that although that’s one way to do things, it’s not the only way. Some of the greatest guitarists in the world, like Ritche Blackmore for example, would improvise their solos every night. Personally I think his live renditions of his solos blow away the studio recordings he did in the original version of the song. When he had Ronnie James Dio in Rainbow, they’d take a 5 minute song and improvise on it, making it into a 14 minute song in concert. I love that approach. To me it’s the most exciting thing to see because you’re witnessing the band play something new, actually creating something right in front of you as you watch and listen. Led Zeppelin would do 20 minute versions of Dazed And Confused. I find that infinitely more interesting than if they were to have played note for note copies of the original recordings of the song but that’s my personal taste.

#13

yup that is my goal. I actually don’t care for it when my fav artists improvise. I need my expectations to be met (I’m probably in the minority). Besides, I’m no Ritchie Blackmore :grinning:

#14

Then my suggestion is to practice that run at a speed where you know you’re playing it accurately and just do that over and over. Repetition is the key to building your coordination and make you more comfortable with the lick. Then gradually increase the speed, still keeping it at a speed where it’s completely accurate. Over time you’ll eventually develop the coordination to play it the exact way you want to at the speed you want. You might want to use a metronome so you can keep track of your progress. What is the tempo at which you play it on the recording? You wrote that you weren’t sure how many times you were hitting the notes which tells me that it’s a tempo at which you aren’t entirely comfortable at yet. It’s going to take a lot of repetition and patience playing it at tempos where you are comfortable and then gradually increasing your practice tempo as your coordination and control build to get it to where you want it and to be sure you know exactly what you’re playing as opposed to playing something so fast you don’t know exactly what you did because you weren’t entirely in control of what you were doing. What you’re trying to achieve is consistency. Practicing it slower to build the coordination to achieve that consistency may not be as fun or exciting but it will pay off in the long run.

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#15

the tempo of the beat is kind of plodding, but my scale run is fairly fast over the riff. I can’t even tell whether i’m hitting 16th, 32nd or 64th notes??!! I have been using a metronome ever since finding CtC. I think you’re right though. I’m just not comfortable enough yet despite practicing.

This leads me to another question. If I play the intro of Fight fire with fire by metallica,

I’m not actually counting the 6 open PM E’s when I play. I just make sure it “feels” right. You guys aren’t actually counting the 6 notes are you???

#16

Is there any way you can share audio of just the solo you recorded? I’m sure any number of us here could transcribe it for you.

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#17

sure here it is:

but that’s not really the point. I feel I should be able to know these notes as i’m playing them.
I’m just going to have to take it slower than I have been.

#18

Hmm… Link doesn’t seem to work, but it looks like I can open it directly and download it. I’ll try to get it tonight and see what I can do.

To your second point, “I feel like I should be able to know these notes as I’m playing them…” That comes with time. :+1: