I've made a simple but efficient exercise so you get used to pass through the five pentatonic shapes.
Once you've mastered the exercise you'll have to transpose it.
Part of this exercise is to name the notes while you're playing and also if it's possible to sing along the tone.
So the practice would be:

1- Start with the exercise at a slow speed
2- Once you've passed the part where you are dealing with the techincal aspect of the instrument start singing the exercise along
3- The next step is to sing the pitch and the name along with your playing
4- Play the exercise in other key (the one I've written is in Am/C). I suggest Bb and D to have different situations to think about, sing and play.

Thank you for the exercise Ramiro. I will follow all the instructions and post a video of my progress at the end of the week.

Hey Ramiro! Here is the exercise played at full speed. I did not sing in the video, but I have been during practice at slower speeds. I have also started playing it in other keys, but did not have them up to full speed yet to record.

Awesome mate!

You nailed it

I'll be uploading the next assigment as soon as I can.

Let me ask you this: do you see now a little more the connection between the shapes of the pentatonics?

Yes I can see the connections. I will continue to use this exercise as well as a few other pentatonic exercises here at gmc until I have have the transitions in muscle memory and don't have to stop and think about the transitions.

New assigment!

Sweeping time:

I've prepared a progression of three strings sweeping for you to practice.
The exercise is made like in two parts:

1- Sweeping motion from low to high
2- Sweeping motion from high to low

The idea is that you get the task done at a speed of quarter note = 60. If you want to take it to the extreme go ahead but if you achive the speed that I've told you that would be ok.

Any questions you have don't doubt to ask me

Great lesson! I will start working on it tonight and record my progress around the end of next week.

Hey Ramiro,

Here is the sweep exercise played at 60bpm. I tried using muting and rolling technique as best I could and used fingerings that felt the most natural to me. The second part of the exercise going high to low was more challenging for my picking hand than the low to high patterns.

Hi and sorry for spoiling your thread !

First of all I would like to say that your take was very clean and well played, johnvg, and you just made me steal the tabs for that sweeping progression ! Very Yngwie-like...

You rock, merry Christmas, and sorry for spoiling this thread !

No problem Alex and Merry Christmas to you as well. Ramiro makes great exercises and I think more people should request him for the next round of MTP

You nailed mate!

That's really great

Keep working on that sweeping until it becomes natural and more fluid. I think you did a great job and now you have to improve even more to be very confortable with the sweeping, I don't mean that you don't play the ex. in the right (like I've said, you nailed it) but I think that if you keep practicing it, and with time increase the speed, you'll get more confortable with the sweeping motion. Although I think we will keep working on more sweeping.

So, I'll be uploading the next assigment pretty soon (if I have some time maybe tomorrow I could upload the next one).

Great work!
Keep rockin'

Cheers!

Ramiro.

Well John, this time we're gonna deal with creativity and improvisation.

The asigment will be divided into two parts:

1- Create 2 or 3 solos an record them (at least the audio)

2- Improvise and use some of the ideas of the previous created solos

The first step is important because, you know, improvisation is not made right in the same time when you get the backing a first look. You have to been improvising over a lot and that's why the first step is to create 2 or 3 solos so you get some ideas that you like and you've tought them. So when the time of the improvisation comes you already know some phrases that you liked and are of your own.
That been said now you understand the importance of the first step and why you have to record the composed solos, so I can listen to them and then compare the improvised solo with the composed.

I'm leaving you a backing track that's in Am, it's a blues in Am, so you can use all Am pentatonic and of course it's also a good exercise to practice the transition from a shape to another.

So, the video that you upload to you tube must be the result of the phrases of the composed solos and of course the spontaneity of the moment.

If you have any doubts don't hesitate to post them.

Good luck with the new asigment

PD: You don't have to make the solo as long as the backing track, actually is better if it's not too long. You can cut the backing track, but make sure that's not shorter than 50 sec.

Hey Ramiro, I have submitted the mandatory REC take for December in the appropriate forum. Please let met know if there is any lesson in particular that you would like me to learn for January. I have been having a pretty difficult time with this weeks lesson. I am still trying to record decent sounding material for the solo over the backing track. This is one of my biggest weakness in that I know the scales and where to put my fingers but I'm a bit lost in that most of the things I play are just randomness within the scale. So, I think that I will not have it completed for this weekend and will need an extension.

No problem mate.
If you have questions I'm doing very often video chats so maybe you can be aware and watching when I'm in so we can talk about the asigment

What kind of lesson you would like to learn, I mean, in which style and what level of difficulty?

I think this lesson has some nice blues licks and it's level 5

http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/ls/12_blu..._you_must_know/

This one is also about blues but a more jazzy sound oriented, also is level 5

http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/ls/jazz-blues-lesson/

Any of those could bring some ideas even to the asigment, but if you'd like a more metal lesson I could recommend on that topic too, just let me know.

Cheers!

Ramiro.-

I for the most part play level 4 and 5's. I will practice 12 Blues Licks You Must Know and see how it goes.

Here is around a minute of improvisation. I recorded it in about 20 second segments with a few takes for each one. This is my first time trying to improvise over a backing track and have a lot to improve on.

Click to view attachment

Nice take mate

The next assigment will be about improving something of the recording that you've posted.

VIBRATO

I usually tend to make a little chart with this techinique so we can explore the whole spectrum of posibilities

We can classify vibrato on two big groups:

Wide Vibrato

Narrow Vibrato

And then there's the obturation time or the amount of speed of the vibrato.

Fast

Slow

So with those parameters we may have:

Wide vibrato at a slow speed
Wide vibrato at a fast speed
Narrow vibrato at a slow speed
Narrow vibrato at a fast speed

And at last but not least we have the modulation from one to another:

Start with Wide vibrato at a slow speed to Wide vibrato at a slow speed
Start with Wide vibrato at a slow speed to Wide vibrato at a fast speed
Start with Wide vibrato at a fast speed to Wide vibrato at a fast speed
Start with Wide vibrato at a fast speed to Wide vibrato at a slow speed

Start with Wide vibrato at a slow speed to Narrow vibrato at a slow speed
Start with Wide vibrato at a slow speed to Narrow vibrato at a fast speed
Start with Wide vibrato at a fast speed to Narrow vibrato at a fast speed
Start with Wide vibrato at a fast speed to Narrow vibrato at a slow speed

Start with Narrow vibrato at a slow speed to Narrow vibrato at a slow speed
Start with Narrow vibrato at a slow speed to Narrow vibrato at a fast speed
Start with Narrow vibrato at a fast speed to Narrow vibrato at a fast speed
Start with Narrow vibrato at a fast speed to Narrow vibrato at a slow speed

Start with Narrow vibrato at a slow speed to Wide vibrato at a slow speed
Start with Narrow vibrato at a slow speed to Wide vibrato at a fast speed
Start with Narrow vibrato at a fast speed to Wide vibrato at a fast speed
Start with Narrow vibrato at a fast speed to Wide vibrato at a slow speed

So I want to you practice this thing and watch the lessons about vibrato made by Marcus:

http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/solo-guit...ibrato-lesson1/

(In this lesson you'll find narrow and fast vibratos, in the sec 29 there's a wider vibrato as well at the end there are some wider ones)

http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/solo-guit...ibrato-lesson2/

http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/solo-guit...ibrato-lesson3/

(in this one there are a few wider ones)

Also check this lesson that Lovrek made

http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/ls/When_the_Gutiar_Cries/

So I want you to record a new take of the improvisation with new material and with a little bit of more gain so you can work on your vibrato in a more sutil way.

If you have any questions or doubts don't hesitate to send me a PM and please remember to send me a PM to notify me when you upload the assigment.

Hey Ramiro, Here is my new take. Once again I was not able to have a minute of continuous playing to record for video, so I am only able to provide the audio.Click to view attachment

Nice take we have some improvements on the vibrato!

Keep working on the concepts we've already talked

I'll be uploading the new assigment very soon

Cheers!

The uploaded REC take

http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/guitar_fo...showtopic=32905