Ben's Practice Journal |
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Ben's Practice Journal |
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Mar 25 2012, 01:40 PM |
Sunday March 25th 2012 : I've made quite a cool little discovery. It really proves that the best way to seek answers to your questions is through your own practice...
Over the years I noticed that my wrist has a tendency to want to 'roll' over the strings when changing direciton.. this occurs when picking and when sweeping. For a long time I thought this was an undesirable trait and that I should have a more planted, straight hand position all the time. When I watched other players do sweeping and play AP licks that cross the strings with inside picking and things like that, they appear to keep their hand on a constant plane and a lot of players seem to use their thumb and finger to push and pull the pick back and forth to perform sweeping, rather than rolling their hand across. However, I realised that I should utilise this feature, seeing how my hands are telling me they want to do that. Plus, I'm a very rhythmical kind of guy who feels like I can get a better grasp of a technique if it has a physical, rhythmic feature to it. So I decided to embrace the 'rolling' effect and it's made a prety big difference already. The principle is that the picking hand slightly moves into the direction of the next stroke that's required. Luckily, Jose Mena has exactly the same approach and has already made a lesson about it so watch the spoken video to understand what I'm talking about.. https://www.guitarmasterclass.net/ls/Altern...ing-MyApproach/ So, if you're having troubles with changing direction when picking or sweeping, it could be that you're a 'roller' and you'll find it easier to use that method instead of doing the push/pull method with your thumb and index finger... give it a shot ! P.S. What Jose says about it making you slower, didn't happen with me. |
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Apr 9 2012, 09:23 PM |
Sunday March 25th 2012 : I've made quite a cool little discovery. It really proves that the best way to seek answers to your questions is through your own practice... Over the years I noticed that my wrist has a tendency to want to 'roll' over the strings when changing direciton.. this occurs when picking and when sweeping. For a long time I thought this was an undesirable trait and that I should have a more planted, straight hand position all the time. When I watched other players do sweeping and play AP licks that cross the strings with inside picking and things like that, they appear to keep their hand on a constant plane and a lot of players seem to use their thumb and finger to push and pull the pick back and forth to perform sweeping, rather than rolling their hand across. However, I realised that I should utilise this feature, seeing how my hands are telling me they want to do that. Plus, I'm a very rhythmical kind of guy who feels like I can get a better grasp of a technique if it has a physical, rhythmic feature to it. So I decided to embrace the 'rolling' effect and it's made a prety big difference already. The principle is that the picking hand slightly moves into the direction of the next stroke that's required. Luckily, Jose Mena has exactly the same approach and has already made a lesson about it so watch the spoken video to understand what I'm talking about.. https://www.guitarmasterclass.net/ls/Altern...ing-MyApproach/ So, if you're having troubles with changing direction when picking or sweeping, it could be that you're a 'roller' and you'll find it easier to use that method instead of doing the push/pull method with your thumb and index finger... give it a shot ! P.S. What Jose says about it making you slower, didn't happen with me. Something I've been struggling with myself, but more so on the turn around from an ascending pentatonic to descending run in the following snippet - ( think I typed this correctly...) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------->>> Turn Around <<------------------- E: ---------------------------------------------- (d) 9-------------- (d) 9------ (u) 12 -----||----(d)9 B: (d)9 ----- (u) 12 ---- (d) 9 ---- (u) 12 ---------- (u)12 -----------------------------||----------(u)12 ---------- (d)9 Going from a down stroke on the High E to an upstroke on the B, you have to really concentrate on getting over the High E, and back in picking position for the B string, then all the other strings on your way back to Low E. At high speeds, it's nothing less than IRRITATINGLY HARD! LOL. I've found that as Jose observes, you really have to pay attention to the upstroke (in this turn around) while ignoring the rest of the strokes to even have a chance at hitting that string correctly. I've been working on just this for the past several months in my daily exercises, and honestly, the improvement has been negligible for me. What is really odd, is that ascending (moving from low E to high E is a breeze - I'm able to pay close attention to the down stroke hitting its target, and can get really good speeds - 170 bpm, but the turn around is MESSY! I'm fortunate if I can make the descending AP sound decent at 100 BPM! This topic by far is the toughest obstacle I have encountered in the years I've been practicing! Chris! -------------------- The more I practice, the more I wish I had time to practice!
My Band Forum: http://passionfly.site/chat |
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Apr 10 2012, 03:27 PM |
Urgh ! Inside Picking strikes again !! Do you ever allow your thumb and finger to move when changing strings ? I would recommend doing so because it allows you to feel your way with a lot more accuracy than trying to change strings and keeping a rigid thumb. Some people are able to do it but you'll see a huge amount of famous pickers allow their thumb & finger joints to take care of the smaller movements. As we all pretty much agree, you don't use the thumb and finger for straight out alternate picking because it's just not possible but for smaller movements it's like the difference between using a scalpel or a big hammer There's a point in speed where I stop moving the thumb and finger joints and rely solely on wrist action. So I do when playing slow, but at some point those actions wouldn't be able to keep up with the speed. I just gotta practice more at that threshold and be (***shudder*** patient with myself -------------------- The more I practice, the more I wish I had time to practice!
My Band Forum: http://passionfly.site/chat |
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Jun 8 2012, 09:07 AM |
Friday 8th June, 2012 : Well, this actually an entry for the last couple of days. I've been practising some pentatonic runs after getting into a pentatonic frame of mind after Tuesday's video chat. I started a thread with some basic penta ideas, designed to help with picking co-ordination but they're also commonly used shapes as well, so they're not just an exercise.
https://www.guitarmasterclass.net/guitar_fo...showtopic=44716 As usual, I've just been working on it free time with no metronome, just feeling the technique and feeling the groove. Would be very interested in seeing some video takes from the GMCers too ! |
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Jun 8 2012, 09:15 AM |
For me the ultimate pentatonic run is the one at the end of Tritone Terror lesson by you If I can do that whenever I want, I am happy..
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