What is everyone currently working on? How do you practise?

Playing Technique
#1

Hey guys i just thought id ask what everyone is working on at the moment?
How are you practising and what results are you getting??

I am currently working on 2wps.

I have been drilling the ascending 6’s and the descending 6’s pattern every night since last week. I normally do around 3 hours a day with these two simple patterns (simple but not easy) whilst i’m going around the sopranos series again.
Ive found that doing something simple but many many times over yields me the best results. If i don’t occupy my mind tho with something else i’m soon noodling around with any old thing and not making any real progress.

Last night i started with the stacked gilberts lick both ascending and descending. Just one rep of the lick ascending on the g and d strings and the same in reverse. I gave it 3 hours again last night (3 episodes of the sopranos) and today I’m flying!!!

So i’ll ask again

what are you currently working. How are you practising and what results are you getting?
If you have recently mastered a technique how did you get the results?

I hope to start a decent discussion here

have a good day guys

Tom

Fender boy till the bitter end

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#2

Interesting that you’ve done it that way, just using one or two exercises.

When I was working on 2WPS, I just went through each antigravity seminar example in order, playing each exercise for maybe 15-20 mins maximum each (at least until I felt I had a good handle on it). Once I’d gone through all, I’d start at the beginning again. Usually takes me a week or two to do that. I write down what tempo I can manage each at so I can keep track for next time.

At the moment, though, I’m going through the Martin Miller ones (in the same way). I was inspired by that to learn some jazz techniques, so I’m separately also trying to get a bit of a grip on arpeggios generally, learning all the maj7, dom 7 and min7 arpeggios shapes and learning to play through changes better.

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#3

Thanks for the reply mate I was starting to feel like an outcast :joy:

Yeah I always practise this way as I find it works best for me to really get the technique/phrase nailed.

I wish you luck in your arpeggiated endeavours :muscle:t3:

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#4

Do you manage to stay focus for such a long time on a single short exercice ? I noticed that the brain kinds of “goes to sleep” after a few repetitions. On such short patterns, the first minutes seem effective when practicing but not much after. How do you stay focus ? Do you interleave the exercices ?

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#5

While I also have the tendency to practice exercises too long (bad habits die hard!), I agree with you that there are only so many repetitions you can do while maintaining focus. In fact, often when I over-obsess over an exercise I start playing it worse!

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#6

Interesting thoughts guys.
I have always found I make huge gains doing it this way?

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#7

Not a fan of practicing. For now I’m trying to learn how to do normal legato. I practice about 1-2 times a week. Practiсe takes about 30-40 min. Sometimes I can spend 5 or 6 hours with my guitar but… I definetely don’t spend all this time practising! Playing this and that, making fun noises and melodies.
I can’t even imagine how could you guys practice for so long time! And so many days in a row! Is it because your band members press on you?
I mean, I could spend a day once a month in a “Rocky Balboa mood” but it’s exhausting, and the next day I become calm again…

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#8

@ASTN

LMAO!!

i play guitar all the time too as i’m a full time guitar teacher. I always just have fun with the guitar and jam around but when i really want to make a breakthrough or see something different in my playing i set time aside to ‘woodshed’ new ideas/techniques. otherwise you end up playing the same old s**t every time. I feel strongly that if i wish to continue to develop on the guitar then i have to have a plan. otherwise it seems like going the gym but get in ‘buff’ by just trying different machines here and there. Few reps on this, few on that etc… its too haphazard for me?

just my experience
everyone is different

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#9

Hi Tom. Sounds like you’re making progress which is great. I’d simply caution that three hours is a serious chunk of time, enough to cause injury if you’re straining or tense the entire time. If each time you complete a repetition or group of reptitions and you stop, you feel that wash of relief in your forearm or upper arm, like you just put down a dumbbell - that’s a warning sign to back off. I would definitely not do that kind of muscular intensity for that much time on a daily basis.

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#10

Hey @Troy

Thanks for the heads up.
I’m always cautious about that kind of thing as I’ve heard some horror stories about tendinitis etc.
I pay close attention to anywhere I’m holding tension in my body whilst practising like this and over the years have managed to relax a lot more. It’s amazing just how much tension the body can hold onto without you even realising it! Coming from the srv school of smashing every note it was a learning curve for me to chill and not use so much attack all the time!

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#11

My “practice” consists usually of writing songs by jamming and composing, but in terms of “technical” practice, to improve my playing, I’m doing two main things:

A. Trying to understand how Al di Meola/McLaughlin pick. I still can’t understand if this is 2wps all the way or they sometimes mix things up when improvising. Any help is welcome. I know how to do the dwps thing, but I would like to be able to pick blazing lines without considering the amount of notes on each string and without legato. Is there a set system for this? I started doing 2wps exercises just to make a start.

B. Learning all the names of each and every note all over the neck. Considering I have been playing guitar for 25 years now, I regret that I didn’t start doing this sooner. It makes improvising and composing much more enjoyable and deeper when you actually know the names of the notes on every fret instantly, for example, 2nd string, fret 8 is a…? The goal is to know this instantly. There is a good tutorial on YT on how to do this.

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#12

Covered in quite a bit of detail:

https://troygrady.com/primer/upward-pickslanting/john-mclaughlin/
https://troygrady.com/seminars/antigravity/chapter-20-al-di-meola/
https://troygrady.com/seminars/antigravity/chapter-21-john-mclaughlin/

However I’d caution that even when you’re dealing with picking systems like two way pickslanting and crosspicking, where in theory, you can play “any” number of notes per string, you’re still “considering” the number of notes per string you play. Everything on the guitar, both picking and fretboard, is at some level memorized. If you’re using jazz-style fingerings where you mix three- and two-notes per string, you’re not just going to automatically play those fingerings and pick those notes. You still have to know when to transition from one string to another, and which pickstroke is being used for the transition, so you can maintain hand synchronization. These movements are basically all memorized. If you then make phrases using those fingerings, those movements are also memorized. And so on.

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#13

When I actually do practice I seldom use purely technical exercises. It’s too boring. Typically I create some kind of micro-melody that includes the stuff I’m learning at the moment.

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