Year Long Struggle with Prison Born by The Faceless

Technique Critique
#1

Introduction
Hello everyone! I’ve been a lurker for a while. I’ve read a lot of amazing advice from amazing people, but I think I need someone to help me out with this one by looking at my playing. I hope this is the proper use of the form!

A bit about me and the song
I’ve been trying to play Prison Born by The Faceless for over a year, and this one diminished run, in particular, is giving me the gears, it happens at 0:11 in my video below. I’ve had breakthroughs mostly significantly when I discovered CtC. I’m still hitting a brick wall. I just haven’t made any progress over the past 6 months. I’ve practiced every day; this riff is by far the thing I’ve played mostly on the guitar EVER. Thousands of times, but no progress.

I’m trying to use two-way pick slanting with the three-note per string run-up. For the turn around at the top of the riff, I use a pull-off to switch strings and hybrid picking to prevent another string outside picking, which gets me trapped in the no-escape zone.

Usually, I can sloppily play the run at 260 BPM but today I can barely play it at 230 BMP?! I’m super frustrated by it and inspired me to turn to you lovely people to help me out.

What can I do differently? Is it my left hand? My right hand? My coordination? I’m obsessed with playing this thing up to speed. I need to!

Video
I recorded the video on my DSLR and the audio through my AXE FX into Reaper. I tried to sync up the two but the timeline resolution on my video editor wasn’t amazing. I will happily record!

Thanks soooo much!

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#2

Thanks for posting @Lichtung! Sounds cool :slight_smile:

Would you be able to record only the riff you are struggling with, perhaps doing a few repetitions (maybe one slow, so we understand the riff, and 3/4 fast attempts)?

It’s difficult (at least for me) to decode what you are doing in between the various song parts of the above video :slight_smile:

2 Likes
#3

Hey @tommo I’ve re-recorded the riff at a slow speed and 75% speed in the first clip and 80% then 90% in the second clip. Let me know if I should change anything.

It’s strange everything feels super comfortable and relaxed at 75% and falls apart at 80% and above.

Obligatory disclaimer: My hands are not 100% cooperating today, they just don’t want to warm up.

Thanks!!! :slightly_smiling_face:

Slow and 75%

80% and 90%

#4

Sounds cool. Have you checked that your left hand is capable of nailing it full speed? Try it legato and see how you get on. Recently I have found that when I just can’t get a lick/run a little faster, it is because the hands are not entirely in synch, but its not obvious. Or go to 110% and give your hands the feel for the speed.

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#5

Yeah it sounds really cool!

What you are doing looks pretty good to be honest! And if this is triplets at 260, well that’s very fast for anyone!

One question would be: are you consciously trying to do the “two way pickslanting” thing when you do it fast?

We are trying to move away from the idea that you need to continuously change the pickslant when playing 3nps. You just need to change escape paths, and the wrist can do this without significantly changing the picklant [you can check out the wrist chapter of the primer - as I see you are a MIM subscriber]!

So it might sound weird but you could try to play the lick at full speed without doing any twisting of the arm / changing the pickslant of the pick - what happens then?

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#6

Going up the run is no problem; I can hammer-on the notes at 260BMP comfortably.
When the riff throws it into reverse, at the highlighted part in the image below, is where I run into trouble and cannot play it at 260 BMP legato or alternate picking. I’ve developed a few exercises to help me out (starting on a downstroke for both with numbers referring to fingers…4-3-1-3 p 1-3 repeat, and 4-2-4-2-1-2 repeat), but I don’t think I’ve been practicing them enough.

riff
riff840×264 15.4 KB

I do you think that these little exercises are enough to get my left hand up to speed for the highlighted section?

Thanks so much for your insight :smiley:

#7

Thanks, tommo!
Sometimes I do use the “Use the force Luke. Let go” method. I have had the most success when I don’t think about slanting and try to hold my wrist at a neutral angle neither up or downward, but then I thought I was missing the point of “pick slanting,” so I tried to avoid this. This is good to hear that I’m not ignoring the lessons!

I’ll definitely check out the wrist chapter! I think when I saw it I was overwhelmed by the new vocabulary. I’ll give it another spin :slightly_smiling_face:

My right hand is kinda pooched for the day, so I’ll let it rest, and start this stuff tomorrow. I am in my final exams for my degree at uni, so I might not seriously get into it until Monday.

Thanks again!!

Edit:

And if this is triplets at 260, well that’s very fast for anyone!

Ya, haha, that’s an excellent point, do you think maybe I should shelve this one are return to it after maybe learning some different shreddy stuff? 3-notes-per-string stuff is tough for me.

#8

To quote Paul Gilbert (I think) “the fretting hand is like steering on a car and the picking is the accelerator. If you can’t steer then don’t press the accelerator!” Or at least something like that. If you are good at single escape motions and you are not too wedded to the fingering you gave above, you could change it to suit say USX:
B string:13-12-10-12-10-9-10-9
G string -11-13-11-10
This avoids the 1nps part on the g string which can be awkward.

Or go slippery with legato (or pick) - keeping it all on 1 string!!!

2 Likes
#9

Oh man, I’ve tried some alternative fingerings but my thought was “this is how people on YouTube play it” so I figured it was the most efficient. Whoops.
It never crossed my mind to play it this way! I’ll give this a go.
Wow, thanks so much :grin:

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#10

And show us the results whenever you’ve improved !

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