What Are Your Weaknesses Options

[Andrew Cockburn]

Fantastic topic Daniel

As for my weaknesses well I think I may crash GMC if I list them all But some of what I've been trying to correct lately is my alternate picking - same as Andrew said the cleanliness and speed. I've noticed as well since I started recording myself that I tend to cut notes short, I don't let them ring so I've been working on that a lot the last few days and my vibrato is horrible, again something I noticed since I started recording. Those are just a few I've been trying to improve lately but the list goes on and on my friend.

rok

Thats why recording yourself is so cool - it really brings you down a peg or two

[Jad Diab]

i think i have a lot of weakness when i go to vacation, so i stop electric guitar for about 2 weeks, and then come back, so it's like i've forgotten everything, and i have to play about 10 hours (maybe more) just to try to get back to what i can do
i also got a big weakness while singing and playing guitar at the same time, i can do it with easy chord progression.

[rokchik]

Thats why recording yourself is so cool - it really brings you down a peg or two

Well I was only up a peg or two so I guess I'm back to square one

But yes recording really does open your ears to what your doing, right and wrong. It is really showing me how sloppy I was before and is forcing me to really pay attention and fine tune. But as embarrassing as it is, I'm becoming a better player

rok

[DeepRoots]

Hmm..weaknesses...

I'd say my sweeping has gone downhill because i've practised nothing but alternate picking for a while..also my legato could be waay better.

One thing i need to start practising is finger-picking, i played the greensleeves lesson a while back and stopped practising fingerpicking for some unknown reason..

Also..im not great working over chord changes, like changing scale but keeping in the same position not just moving around the same shape to different positions.

All will come with time tough i am sure

Good idea for a topic btw, now i know what to get practising right away

[Nick325]

i would say my sweeping, 5 string more than 3 string, because i cant really start to speed up while mutting. i always seem to lift my palm. and maybe a little tapping but im practicing it a lot more (cause it sounds awsome )

[Gus]

Sweep picking, definitely...

I gave it more than one try, but I always lose motivation.
Maybe I am too addicted to alternate picking. When I try to speed up the sweeping I automatically move to alternate picking....

I am not practicing too much right now, but as soon I finish my thesis I decided one thing. I will always practice my worst technique every day. That will be sweep picking as a start. And when I think it is not the worst anymore I move to something else...

[Outlaw2112]

Playing in front of people... I can play stuff perfect by myself, but when im in front of people i tend to mess up and get nervous..

[The Uncreator]

8 finger tapping, I have never progressed so slowly at a technique

[fatb0t]

SWEEPING
and legato are my weaknesses....
----
For a while it was descending AP 3 note per string runs - Fixed it though! Took a solid weak of practicing the aeolian in every key descending, with some legato slides to expand all over the fret board - Now my descending is faster than my ascending - gotta work on that too I suppose!

I love the feeling of accomplishment when you start to become really comfortable with something that was so awkward to you in the beginning...

This post has been edited by fatb0t: May 6 2008, 02:39 AM

[audiopaal]

8 finger tapping, I have never progressed so slowly at a technique

8 finger tapping? Is that even possible?

[DeepRoots]

8 finger tapping? Is that even possible?

Apparently so...

http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/solo-guit...tapping-lesson/

[audiopaal]

Apparently so...

http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/solo-guit...tapping-lesson/

Yes, but that's Muris, I'm speaking for the rest of us

[DeepRoots]

Yes, but that's Muris, I'm speaking for the rest of us

I see

[Daniel Robinson]

I feel that my waekness lies in my legato and espacially my pulloffs.... i cant get it to sound smooth when shifting strings i often make i little paus

Lets try to start and tackle these things, lets start with Supersize.


My advice to you on this problem area is not so much metronome work,.....although very important it sounds to me like your problem is in string transistion and not timing.

First off start by analyzing hand angle and posistion as well as how you move from one string to another. Hand angle can play a big part in pull off resolution to another string. It may seem uncomfortable at first but when making a transistion to a lower string try changing the angle of your wrist. So that you have a sleight turning of the wrist counter-clockwise (towards the bridge) it doesnt have to be a huge angle change just very subtle. Typically when doing a descending legato phrase your leading into the next string with your pinky or ring finger, which obviously isnt as long as your index and middle finger. Get your finger closer to the next string before getting there may help reducing that "Pause" your speaking of.

Also try very hard to avoid the "Fly away fingers" syndrome where when you pull off your fingers go flying far from the fret board.

Another good excersise for working on this is not trying to do say 6 notes descending, practice 4 notes descending then 5 notes descending in an alternate way.

For example start at the 12th fret high E string with your pinky on the 12th play legato 12----10-----9 then shift to the B string with your pinky to the 12th B string. then starting again on the High E string 12th fret 12----10----9 shift to B string with your pinky doing 12----10. Work on this pattern alternating between the two working up the speed.

Pay special attention to hand posistion and how close your fingers remain to the fretboard. Conservation of motion is absolute key in solid legato playing. The less motion you have to have the smoother its going to sound.

One other thing you can try to get your legato smoother dealing specifically with your problem is just to do hammer on pull off excersise on 1 string and try to get your pull off motion to be as small as possible and still sound the notes.

For example just start on the 12th fret again with your pinky and pull off to your index finger on 9th so how little of motion is required on your guitar to just sound the notes. You constantly have to trim motion size the faster you get.


Keep working on it you will get it.

Daniel

[Nemanja Filipovi...]

Great topic Daniel.My weakness is that I don't haw electric guitar.

[Daniel Robinson]

I have many weaknesses, and the things I should work more on atm are harmony constructions.

This is something that alot of guitarists struggle with later in their development, myself included. Its when you start realizing you need to really get into the nuts and bolts of the theory aspect.


My friend and I have been working together on solving this slowly over time, what we are doing is finding actual music scores for symphonies, and analyzing the intricate web of harmonies that are taking place between all the instruments.

When you start to see the patterns in this way it becomes much easier to create those harmonies on a single instrument because you start to develop a sense of the intervals involved and how they interact with the other instruments your playing with.


My recommendation is to try it and see what you can get out of it.

Daniel

Great topic!

Alternate Picking technique for me - cleanliness and speed. My legato is reasonable and has improved a lot over the last year as I find it comes very naturally, and I practice it to the detriment of AP. With AP it is purely about practice time and discipline for me - I believe I have the mechanics right but I am skimping on the time and effort needed to build up speed in a smooth and controlled fashion!

This comes back to the intital reason i started this post, we tend to ignore where we are weak. My friend always tells me you make time for whats important to you and the rest falls by the wayside.

My advice in your particular case is try mixing up your legato with AP riffs...as an example lets say your doing a 3nps pattern across three strings. Play legato on the first two string and AP the last string. This has several things going for it.

First your working on AP while still maintaining your legato technique, your also opening up the possiblity of a different rhythmic sound to your phrasing.

And at the same time your starting to work on the basics of hybrid picking. Try this approach and see what you can come up with.

Daniel

This is a great topic, thanks Daniel!!

I have a few weaknesses in my playing that no matter how hard I try I cannot put right, the first is fast runs, if for example I am playing a 3nps sequence, I can play it very well up to a certain speed, then I just freeze and my fingers go into meltdown......I try going over and over it with a metronome at a slow speed, then try building up but it is taking me FOREVER to develop the speed I want, my goal in life is to play a few Malmsteen classics note for note perfect, but I am barely able to play them at anywhere near the right speed, its so frustrating!!

Secondly, a mixture of techniques....tapping and legato!! Not combining them, its just that the same problem arises with both techniques, I try and do them.....and playing slow, fine and sounding very clean!! When I speed them up it sounds sloppy and I can often hit wrong notes when tapping!!

The speed problem is the most boggling and annoying!! I can play slower stuff perfectly, and with good phrasing and vibrato then once I get up to a difficult speed I just cant seem to do it, I seem to get lost, and no matter how much practice speed is still elusive!!!

Any tips or help would be GREATLY appreciated!!
Thanks,
Iain!!

Iain,

I certainly agree with how boggling the speed aspect is. Its something i still struggle with. What i have found though in breaking it down it comes down to a few key things. First off i find that in alot of ways the speed issue especially with Alternate picking comes down to a sync issue between left and right hand and not 1 or the other. For instance i can easily pick 32nd notes at 150bpm if i am just on an open string not fretting any notes.

I can also hammer on and pull off 32nd notes at 150bpm on a 3 note pattern with just my left hand. When i tried to do both it fell apart. I started to realize that it was indeed a sync problem and not a picking or fretting problem.


The other aspect of the speed issue is there seems to be a space at least for me in AP skills at a certain range of BPM.

For the longest time when trying to play 16th note triplets for example at 120 to 125 or so BPM i just couldnt get any kind of consistency....lower BPM i had no difficulty with. Nor with playing 32nd notes at that speed. At first i just thought it was my ears playing tricks on me but i actually recorded myself at 120BPM playing alternate picking licks at 32nd notes and slowed it down and listened for inconsistencies but there wasnt any.

So why was it falling apart at 120bpm with 16th note trips?


I then realized the problem had to do with the syncing between left and right hand, but the sync issue was being caused by my picking hand. I realized that when i was playing the 16th note triplets at that speed i was using more arm motion to pick with then wrist action like when i play faster.

Once i realized what was happening i started to physically watch myself when playing with a metronome at that speed and made sure my picking angle and wrist use was consistent thru the speed ranges i could play.

Perhaps the same is occuring for you. Without actually seeing you play the difficulty your having is hard to judge but take the time on your own to really analyze what is actually happening when you have that "Meltdown" zone.

I think i can safely say that when you reach a certain speed your either tensing up too much so force yourself to relax, or....you are altering something as you approach that speed threshold.

If you find out what the trouble is let us know you can probably help someone else here having the exact same trouble.


Daniel

One of my many weaknesses is that i'm completely and utterly useless with the whammy bar. I just cant operate that thing without it sounding drunk

Another one that annoys me is that i cant do sweep-tappings without making a bunch of unwanted noise. Well, my sweeping in general could use some work.

As far as either of your problems are concerned i have little advice to give, i completely ignore the whammy bar. The only reason i don't use a hardtail guitar is because i find bending is easier on a guitar with a whammy because the springs will give enough so you don't have to push as hard to reach the pitch you want.

My advice on this particular area would be to take que's from people who use the whammy bar with a great deal of precision and try to emulate what you hear.

A good place to start imo is with someone like Kiko Loureiro from Angra, he has some excellent whammy usage.

Check out this vid, especially the center section of this song is some really awesome whammy work.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQL2cLE7HpA...feature=related


As far as string noise well....its all a matter of just getting tighter, especially for you Trond. Your rhythm and lead skills are very clean so its just a matter of working it out i guess.


Daniel

[superize]

Lets try to start and tackle these things, lets start with Supersize.


My advice to you on this problem area is not so much metronome work,.....although very important it sounds to me like your problem is in string transistion and not timing.

First off start by analyzing hand angle and posistion as well as how you move from one string to another. Hand angle can play a big part in pull off resolution to another string. It may seem uncomfortable at first but when making a transistion to a lower string try changing the angle of your wrist. So that you have a sleight turning of the wrist counter-clockwise (towards the bridge) it doesnt have to be a huge angle change just very subtle. Typically when doing a descending legato phrase your leading into the next string with your pinky or ring finger, which obviously isnt as long as your index and middle finger. Get your finger closer to the next string before getting there may help reducing that "Pause" your speaking of.

Also try very hard to avoid the "Fly away fingers" syndrome where when you pull off your fingers go flying far from the fret board.

Another good excersise for working on this is not trying to do say 6 notes descending, practice 4 notes descending then 5 notes descending in an alternate way.

For example start at the 12th fret high E string with your pinky on the 12th play legato 12----10-----9 then shift to the B string with your pinky to the 12th B string. then starting again on the High E string 12th fret 12----10----9 shift to B string with your pinky doing 12----10. Work on this pattern alternating between the two working up the speed.

Pay special attention to hand posistion and how close your fingers remain to the fretboard. Conservation of motion is absolute key in solid legato playing. The less motion you have to have the smoother its going to sound.

One other thing you can try to get your legato smoother dealing specifically with your problem is just to do hammer on pull off excersise on 1 string and try to get your pull off motion to be as small as possible and still sound the notes.

For example just start on the 12th fret again with your pinky and pull off to your index finger on 9th so how little of motion is required on your guitar to just sound the notes. You constantly have to trim motion size the faster you get.


Keep working on it you will get it.

Daniel

Thanks for the advice

[OrganisedConfusi...]

I'm just superb all across the board

My weaknesses are theory, downpicking, alternate picking, sweeping, hybrid picking, economy picking and many other regions.

My strengths are my trademark slowlos

[Daniel Robinson]

My weakness is playing guitar
But my main problem is probably my vibrato and that I can't pick fast :/
And I nearly have no idea about theory
But these are weaknesses that just need some work.

Chast,

I have the same weakness The guitar is like crack to me, if i pick it up i can't put it down. I really have to focus on things i have to get done around the house and what not so i don't spend 5 hours lost in guitar land


As far as vibrato goes its really a preference as to what you do vibrato wise. There are so many vibrato techniques and variations on them i could write a college essay on them lol.

Me personally i have two vibrato styles that are pretty much my staples the first one is with my index finger i don't use a wrist vibrato i just shake the string with my finger back and forth i also almost always really pinch the string when i use this vibrato.

The other vibrato i use is shaking the guitar and sleightly moving my fingers back and forth. Because of the way i shake the guitar it makes my vibrato when i do this eliptic too, which adds another element to it.

As far as practicing vibrato first you need to decide on the technique your going to use for doing it. But once that is settled practice with either a metronome or a backing track...the backing track is more fun for obvious reasons. But try to time your vibrato in natural tempo's that compliment the BPM your using. You dont have to match perfectly but it makes it sound so much nicer when your close to a natural tempo. Alot of newer players i see tend to get very spastic when it comes to vibrato, and it shouldnt be spastic. Fast vibrato is not wrong nor is slow vibrato but it needs to have some kind of order to it. Unless for musical purposes your speciafically trying to sound chaotic.

Now when you say you can't pick fast are you saying that you can't AP fast...or just can't move the pick across the string quickly in general?

If its an AP problem there are several lessons here that can get you started in the right direction. If its picking in general i.e. just sounding the string. Start working on whats hanging you up. In the beginning i remember not having any consistency sounding the string with my picking. First off my hand motions were too big, and secondly my pick angle was all wrong for playing fast.

Don't get me wrong there is nothing wrong with picking the string with your pick parrallel with the string, if...and thats a big IF, you can get your pick touch light enough so you barely have to move to sound the string at speed. But for the most part precision of that kind is hard to come by without years and years of practice. Its far easier to angle your pick so its closer to 90 degrees to the string. This way when plucking the string with the pick the string will tend to "roll" over the string because the pick is curved on the end. The other way with the pick parallel to the string if your touch isnt super light it will "Hang" on the string making it very difficult to get a smooth picking stroke.

Music theory is just like learning math..or science, you have to study it to understand it. A good first step though in your road to theory mastery is to memorize the notes on the neck of the guitar, to know without thinking about it for example that if you fret a note on the low E string on the 7th fret that its B for example. If you learn the notes to the point you can just call them out in any order, it will make it much easier once you start to apply the theory skills you will learn as you go.

Daniel

Great Topic!

I think my weakness is trying to play but not get mad and frustrated when I dont get something quickly.

TreyDeschamp,

I know the frustration road you speak of all to well. There are even licks now that i have practiced for weeks and weeks that i just can't get my body to cooperate.

I find the best thing to do is when you learn a lick pattern to incorporate it into your own playing as quickly as you can. Lets say you learned a lick pattern thats meant to be played at 130BPM but you can't play it that fast. Find a backing track you can jam along with thats only like 100BPM and try using the lick in the context of that BT at that speed. I find i assimilate a certain pattern much faster if i do this rather then beating myself over the head with a metronome.

Daniel

[Muris Varajic]

Probably note choice...million dollars question I would say.
Plus some techniques.

Off to practicing