Ben's Practice Journal Options

[Ben Higgins]

Righto, I thought I'd share my current practice regime with you. Until very recently, I was concentrating on several licks. Some of them from my own songs/solos and some I created to improve a certain picking motion. However, as some of you know, I've been busy with recording the first album from The Reckoning, my band. This necessitated that I was able to deliver the best possible performances of my solos. Alas ! I've become a bit rusty at some of them, most of all the solo from a song called Wall of Eyes.

So, I've devoted all my practice time (and any spare time I get) to concentrating on 3 tricky alternate picking licks from the solo, mainly this one:

      |--3-| |--3-|  |--3-|  |--3--|  |--3--|  |--3--|  |--3--|  |--3--|    --  
      S S  S S  S S  S S  S  S  S  S  S  S  S  S  S  S  S  S  S  S  S  S        
E||-------------------------------------------------------------13----13-|----||
B||-------------------------------------------12----12-15-12-15----15----|----||
G||-------------------------10----10-13-10-13----13----------------------|----||
D||----------9----9-12-9-12----12----------------------------------------|----||
A||--11-8-11---11--------------------------------------------------------|----||
E||----------------------------------------------------------------------|----||

It's tricky because it involves lots of outside picking in quick succession. The song was recorded without a click track but the tempo is around 110-112bpm by my guess. Now, that doesn't sound very fast. If you were to alternate pick at 16th note triplets on one string it's not that bad. However, the nature of this lick means that there's a lot more being demanded of the picking hand.

You can hear the lick at 3:16 on this old recording of the song.



As I said earlier, I'd been spending time working on licks and solo bits, mianly because I want to improve my picking technique. It's a lot sloppier and tense than I'd like it to be. I started out by practising 8th note triplets at around 80bpm. The extra clicks from the metronome make it easier to keep time. I had various other licks and speeds but I'll stick with the triplet speed because this lick is a triplet lick too. I kept at that speed for about 2.5 weeks until I felt I'd developed a much more even alternating motion.

When I had trouble laying down my solos, however, I ditched my excessive library of practice licks and narrowed my focus. It's made quite a difference.

So, any spare time I get, I pick up the axe and start cycling through some slow reps of this lick. If I'm actually having a practice session, then I'll warm up by doing slow reps of the lick. The faster I go, the more reps I do at each speed because that's where I need to put in the work. So I'll start by doing about 10 or so reps at 80bpm (8th notes, which would be the same as playing 16th notes at 40bpm), go to 90bpm, same again or more, 100bpm, increase reps... all the way to my comfortable limit. At the moment, it's somewhere around 160 - 170bpm, which translates as 16th note triplets at 85bpm. I increase the bpm to about 180 or more and try a few reps to get the hand and brain working harder but I bring it back down again to somewhere perhaps a bit higher than I was previously to do a few perfect (or near as possible) reps to finish before moving on to another lick or finishing practice until the next time.

(It looks like I'm increasing the speed by large increments but it translates as only 5bpm increments in 16th notes)

I'm pushing things along a bit quicker than I would normally do, because I have to record it. Although I know that I'm not going to be able to perfectly and effortlessly play it at the required tempo, I certainly know that the increased accuracy at lower speeds mean that I can push it even further at higher speeds for short periods of time. So, although the technique may not be perfect, it will get the job done. Afterwards I'll be free to hone the lick at my own pace.

One thing I'm finding interesting is the idea of discovering the 'secret' of alternate picking by just doggedly persuing one lick. It reminds me of the Zen phrase 'From one thing, know ten thousand things' and also of Michael Angelo Batio's story:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_QEk1Fyi8w...feature=related Watch from 4:50

I'll keep you informed with my progress !

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[Ben Higgins]

Friday 03 Feb 2012 : Working on a level 8 GMC lesson by a former instructor. It's a great piece of music and a real challenge. However, I've got to work hard on my nemesis, which is sweep picking. More specifically, 3 string sweeps. Give me 5 or 6 string sweeps any day but 3 string sweeps are just evil. I think it's the changing of direction in such short spaces of time that make it so damn hard.

Oh well, back to the grind stone !

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