There we go Hello Cem!

Hey Cosmin, thanks for sparing some time for me .

Before speaking of anything musical, I need to get rid of something about guitar technique which is bugging me for way too long.

For that cause, lets consider this basic major scale shape:

---5--7--9------------------------------------ (I don't know how to post tabs with forum tools so I typed by hand)
------------5--7--9-----------------------------
---------------------6--7--9----------------------
------------------------------6--7--9----------------
---------------------------------------7--9--10--------
-------------------------------------------------7--9--10

Back then, I was playing scales, or lets say basically anything related with alternate picking with only one of my finger touching to frets. For example, to play 5--7--9, I put my index to 5 and pick the string, after that I lift my index finger and put my middle finger to 7, and so on..

This type of play is maybe fine for going down, but when it comes to playing backwards (like 9-7-5) it sounds so bad I can't even find the words to describe how terrible I feel. It sounds very unconnected, there are little gaps between notes which you can't hear exactly but enough to take away all the musicality, the flow of music.

I asked my former guitar instructor about that. He said, to play these type of partitions, I should do a kind of "spider-walk" on the frets. For example when a triplet like 9--7--5 appears, I must put my pinky finger to 9 and middle finger to 7 simultaneously. For a while I played like this but the problem was still there.

Now, I'm trying to incorporate pull-offs to play these, e.g. to play 9-7-5, every finger takes their place at the same time and, for example when going from 9 to 7, I both pick the string and pull off to the note. Playing like this sounds better than anything else I came up with, but still, STILL it didn't disappear completely.

I seriously need to get rid of this for whatever I play it simply does not sounds right. I'll post a rec as soon as possible for clarification. And again, thanks for taking me on

Good morning Cem!

your problem is solvable a video recording would greatly help, but out of what I am figuring out, you are having some sync issues which, with the proper practicing habits, will vanish in no time Nothing can't be fixed if worked on slow enough to sound perfect and sped up while sounding perfect!

Let's see a little recording and take it from there, ok? What else are you working on at the moment?

Cosmin

Hmm, synchronization.. I've never thought of that but it perfectly makes sense. Yesterday, I fooled around trying to take a record which would point out my problem, but strange enough I failed to do so . Currently, I am following Ben's Bushido tasks, I took a record for the third task you can check it out for a sight of my play.



I will take a record for the fourth task ASAP as it is rather relevant with my problem here.

Hey mate! Technically, it looks like your chops are pretty healthy indeed! Very nice! But there are little timing issues, so focus on being dead on time. It is very curious to me that you encountered problems such as the one described previously. Please try to film yourself playing, because I am really curious to see what you meant with the troublesome exercise

So, here is my question I mentioned in the video chat:

1 - I want to play with other musicians, but when I feel someone else's presence while playing, my hands go out of my control. I can't even play the simplest thing without making mistakes. How can I overcome this?

Actually had more but I forgot . Will ask here as they come, Cheers !

Cem! Do not panic, my friend I had THE EXACT SAME PROBLEM - time and playing A LOT with A LOT of people and around A LOT of people will help overcome this

Let me tell you a little story

In 2007 I had to perform in a guitar festival in another city here in Romania. The organizer was a very annoying guy who came to attend ALL the rehearsals and was staring at us in dismay ALL the time at some point I felt like I couldn't play one lousy note. I had to play Tender Surrender by Steve Vai and Baluchitherium by Van Halen. Needless to say, my emotions were killing everything, and the performance had to suffer...Well, I became more and more confident in my playing skills and grew a healthy attitude like 'I am the guitar player and I came here to play!' things went better and better until I ended up ENJOYING what I'm doing, not worrying about nasty faces

Keep this in mind and you won't lose control because of that, ever!

Looking forward to your questions mate!

Okay, today I got my axe back from luthier, so





As you recommended in video chat, I started Ben's Land of Legato series from head first, I will post recordings for every lesson as the time passes. In the meantime, I would also like to work on my rhythm play, I have surprisingly little experience in that area. So, what do you got for me, Cosmin?

Oh EDDARD STARK I love 'A song of ice and fire'! Just finishing the 5th book

Mate, rhythm playing is essential for lead playing a guitarist with a good rhythm sense will ALWAYS best a lead player who never payed any attention to this aspect.

I would focus on rock and funk for the beginning, as your chops will be greatly improved by these two styles. Let's see now, do you want something more aggressive or less? I am asking this because, out of the video, your technique will allow you to tackle stuff which could be a little more difficult than beginner lessons.

Let me know and let's rock n roll

Aggressive. Let's rock

About yesterday's video chat, I don't know whether or not I stayed until the end of video chat but the truth is I was fast asleep after 30 mins of my joining. Sorry about that

Take it easy my friend no problemmo - we can catch up next time. Check this out: http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/rhythm-gu...-rhythm-guitar/

Thsi lesson will help a LOT with improving your rhythm playing - it has phrases which are not so straightforward - it is not too easy as well, but as I said, let's push things a tiny bit

What say you my friend?

Truth is, you couldn't have picked a better lesson, and I sincerely mean that . This lesson is absolutely within my reach but refining and nailing it down is going to be tough. I really couldn't asked for a better first lesson, thanks Cosmin !

My pleasure let's rock matey!!

I can play the track at 120 but somewhat my palm-muted notes sound very sloppy. Can you give me advice regarding of this?

Hey Cem tightness in palm muting comes from confidence built on slow studying - slowing it down and make the chugged notes sound really well defined - follow this definition throughout raising the tempo you'll end up with the palm muting sounding as a machine gun

So standard approach is sufficient enough . Will post a record as soon as I get over it.

If you still encounter any trouble, I am here, but yes, it is pretty much paying attention to being tight and playing clean

I took several records yesterday, including the task you have given to me and random stuff as well in order to reveal more about my play.

http://soundcloud.com/cengiz-kaygusuz

I put comments on every track about my opinions on them. Will be looking forward for feedback.

Hey Cem! Wussup mate? I have listened to all of your recordings and I think that they will be greatly improved if you will play them against a metronome while recording - rhythmic support will greatly increase you confidence! The last track - I think it's very good, everything seems pretty clear and clean, good timing and tone

Would you like to move on to another one? Should we raise the bar a bit?

Cosmin

As I said, these are kinda reflecting my past where I was rushing progress and trying to play at tempos that I can never even get near of. My current focus is AP and rhythm so I'm not really practicing this stuff. I agree that, with some practice with metronome they will be much better.

Although I'm not content with the record I've submitted, I say let's do it . I will be updating the tasks regularly anyways so why shouldn't I learn something new along the way?

Good morning my friend good approach I say! Let's see how you would fare with this one:

http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/ls/metal-...ms-with-octave/

Palm muting and octaves are 2 essential elements in riffing and rhythm playing what do you think about this one?

Cosmin

Sure thing. Strumming is one of my weaknesses (as I practically never played stuff like that). This should be good.

Awesomeness! Let's rock then!

Having a rough week . Today I started to study this lesson but my attempts to strum are failing miserably. My arm simply refuses to move. I need to learn how to strum first, preferably on a lesson which specifically dedicated to this matter.

Also, my guitar's floyd rose is bit unstable, under this circumstances I can't tune down any of the strings. Let's stick with strumming on a different lesson.

Alright, no problemmo mate let's see...how about these two?

http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/rhythm-gu...6-funk-basics1/

http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/rhythm-gu...funk-basics-II/

they will get your hands used to strumming and using accents

Funk is the basic brick of grooving and rhythm playing - if you master funk, you'll be able to understand almost anything rhythm based on a rhythmic approach

what do you say my friend?

Cosmin

Oh boy, it seems like we're going to have sooooo much fun . It makes me feel like an absolute beginner. That being said, there are so much to be gained here for me. Let's stick on this theme for a while, I liked it.

Cool brother! I LOVE FUNKY MUSIC and would be glad to share some of it with you - it'll help tremendously!

Alex just posted a new funky rhythm lesson (talk about timing ). Shall we switch to that lesson? That's a well thought out lesson as far as I can say, also the man himself can bless us with his wisdom directly!

Sure Cem, I got nothing against it - the lesson is very good so let's go for it let me know what sort of stuff you would need help with regarding this one

Cosmin

I'm having the worst time of this year. I've been trying to get my driver license which only left me fuming in rage(government offices...), I'm out of protein powders (for body building) which practically leaves me without energy, got very little money, and in the end my ears decided everything is going so well for me and broke this whole magic with refusing to hear. Fun, eh?

In general I could've played guitar as much as I would like, in the meantime I'm trying to play funk lesson of alex with no success. Even strumming on one chord properly is a challenge for me. I've got a damn good rhythm ear but that chord is a nasty one to play properly.

Anyways, I want to fork the focus. Let's address my issue of synchronisation. It was so annoying to the point where I even considered quitting guitar. Now I see it as the biggest obstacle enshadowing my ability to make music.

Mate, I am really sorry to hear all this now, the idea is that if you want to start properly with strumming, we should consider tackling Bear Rose's Beginner Lessons - they are packed with strumming goodness take a look and pick one which you would like to start with, please

http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/search/be...0rose%20chords/

Cosmin

Hey man, I checked it out. At first I was like "meh" but I actually struggled to play it at first. After 3 hours of strumming I can play this stuff properly. That being said, we don't need to shift our focus on these lessons, I can easily spot my errors on my own.

Also I talked about synchronisation on my last post, which you seem to missed . The thing is, this august I'll be on my way to poland and will stay there for a year, when I get there I want to be able to rock the hell out of that country . Sync is the biggest problem I have related to my guitar skills, while it is there I don't think I'll ever be content with myself. The stuff I want to tackle is something requires intense alternate picking in clean tone. If I can nail some of these stuff, that'll be it.

And, thanks for all of your help man, you are the best .

Hey Cem! I feel honored to know I can help and happy that you are improving! Hmmm, sync you say - http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/solo-guit...nchronisation1/ mate I just discovered a series of lessons, treating this idea. The first one has two notes per string which in my opinion is pretty important to master

What do you think?

Cosmin

Sitrep:

Been derping around with Bear Rose's beginner series. Rhythm is going on but still I can't get that groovy feeling. This whole chord-slamming is alien to me, It seems it will take longer than I thought.

About synchronisation; I have been doing stuff like the lesson you posted, those patterns aren't much of a deal for me. The sync series is kinda interesting, I will post a record featuring one of these lessons to further clarification

hey Cem! Give yourself sometime regarding the groove my friend! It will come to you, trust me just keep on practicing it and you will start FEELING it, which will make that difference

Let's see the vid mate, sure! I'll set you up further on after seeing your progress

Cosmin

I took some recordings . Take a look.

http://youtu.be/AzdEHE-58LQ // Funky stuff.
http://youtu.be/lIuxbBqMDNI // Random strumming.
http://youtu.be/WQx97o2rx_k // Syncronisation stuff similar to what you've recommended.

I'd like to hear from you first before making any kind of decision. What do you think?

Ahoy Cem!

Let's take things one at a time

- the funky take - it's good, but it can be tighter once you get used to mute the strings with your left hand that dry rhythmic sound (like 'chaka chaka chaka chaka') is coming from being able to mute the strings with your left hand.

Check out players such as Nuno Betterncourt and John Frusciante they are good examples

- the strumming - it has good timing but, the tone should be a bit cleaner for this type of playing and a bit more consistent. Once you clean up the tone, consistency will follow, due to the fact that you won't be hitting the strings lighter because of trying to avoid unwanted sounds

- the AP runs - you are using a combination between AP and economy picking, right? Nothing wrong with that, if you want to develop your style in that direction. The take seems to be ok, as an ensemble, although a bit more practice could bring better results.

Have you considered using AP only?

Cosmin

Hey man, thanks for the feedback.

To be honest I don't know what exactly economy picking is. It is said that the faster player is simply the one whose hand movement is minimal around the strings-frets and I am following that lemma. In other words; I manage my picking hand movement (I am lefty by the way so you should use picking-fretting hand notation to avoid confusion)in a way that its movement is minimal when skipping strings. Can you clarify what did you mean by "AP only"?

About strummy stuff, I have nothing to say. It has been a frustrating task for me, even when I had a surplus of time to practice I barely managed to come up with something decent. If its okay with you I don't want to focus on these anymore, It is apparent that I just need more time to improve so there is no need for that.

Hey Cem!

the lemma is correct and when I was referring to 'AP only' I was thinking about picking in an 'down up, down up' fashion - so, alternate picking instead of sometimes incorporating movements such as 'down, down, up' as I have noticed you were doing.

Yes, practicing strumming and funky stuff will develop your rhythmic sense and right hand skills, so, keep working in that direction on your own if it feels good to you.

W=hat direction would you like to pursue? Should we dive into synchronizing further on?

Cosmin

That type of pattern only occurs when skipping strings. I never thought that strictly going down up while changing strings is a good idea, but if you say so I will give it a try and see what happens.

About our route, I'm in a dilemma. I need to get rid of this sync problem ASAP but I am grown sick of exercise partitions, I don't want to go up and down on scales mindlessly anymore, I want to play friggin' music!

I leave you this decision, whatever you say I'm okay with it but no more exercise-oriented stuff. Never.

Ahoy Cem if it's sync and music you want, well, let's find a combination between the two, right?

http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/ls/J-S-Ba...ond-Voice-pt-2/

a tone which will obligate you to play as clean as possible Bach is your friend man what do you think?

Cosmin

You definitely know what I like man I'm on it.

Awesomeness Bach never fails!

Sitrep :

Been working on the task, I would have already submitted a record if only that god-damn string skippy passages were absent -.- .
I feel my sync has significantly improved over the last two months but I noticed that I can't play as fast as I used to.

Regarding Pure AP runs I think I can't change that from here on. When skipping to farther strings (not adjacent ones) I play like exactly you do, as I remember in a video of Paul Gilbert he said he preferred to play that way because it helps him to not to accidentally hit the strings in-between. But when skipping to adjacent ones, it is always the shortest way possible, I really can't help it .

Hey Cem, the only way you're gonna get past this, is giving it time and playing each note as clear as possible stay relaxed and give yourself time man If sync has improved, now slow down again and try to get rid of the nasty habit

I would propose this exercise:

g----------7----------
d---5 7 8----8 7 5---

alternate pick every note as sextuplets and take two following approaches

1) starting with the first pick stroke down
2) starting with the first pick stroke up

This will help you alternate pick your way through the issue

Cosmin

Hello my friend

I did a little research and here's what I gathered for you:

http://www.amazon.com/Structure-Atonal-Mus...e/dp/0300021208

http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/bend...onal-music.html - no pun intended, but good explanations nonetheless

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Music_Theory/Atonal



let me know if you would like to discuss on this matter - I am not experienced but who knows what we can discover together?

Cosmin

Ok, this is going to be a long post, get ready .

I tried to listen to some atonal compositions on youtube. I felt extremely uncomfortable that I cannot put into words here. It made me feel tense for a good amount of time after hearing it. Absolutely unbearable.

I don't know if my opinions will change after I get used to atonal system, I do not know much about it (this subject was just briefly mentioned by one of the instructors at my music course) but my intuition says that atonal music is a great tool for ear training. If one can just voice a prime tone row I don't think that he/she will ever have any problems with anything related to tonal music.

To connect this with tonal music, I think this will definitely expand your horizon when composing. After all, the tonal music theory just gives us an abstraction which lets us know "which way the river should flow". Atonal music, on the other hand lifts this abstraction thus giving us more freedom in terms of musicality which means having options on where you should go.

But, atonal music is dangerous for people like me whose ear is nowhere near perfect. This danger is not to be trifled with, I can imagine getting comfortable to atonal compositions and being able to listen to them effortlessly, yet this will come at a cost. This will make me comfortable with hearing notes outside of the tone range, and I simply cannot afford that. I don't have a deep musical ability or understanding or an amazing music ear, all I can rely on is how I feel when I hear a stream of notes. If I'll lose this, music would be meaningless for me.

I would love to explore the mysteries of music regardless of the subject's property but in this case, I can't dare to do it for the reasons I described above. In addition to these, roughly an hour passed since I listened to the atonal composition and I still got that tense, distracted feeling. But I don't mind learning more on the subject without hearing anything of it . These are my opinions after a brief research on the atonal music.


Back to our course, I think I have found the root of my sync problem. It's simply relatively under-developed picking hand. I just joined Todd's shred bootcamp, luckily his first lesson was focused on the development of picking hand.I discovered that my arm joined to the picking motion slightly, it was extremely subtle yet it made my picking inconsistent and prevented the improvement of my wrist motion, not a big deal at low tempos but it gets exponentially bad as tempo increases. I have been working on wrist-only movement of picking motion and I can say that the progress was more than I have made in the past 5 months.

I went to a jam session with a fellow guitarist and a drummer. It sucked, I could barely played anything. This led me to realise that I have the skills to play guitar at a decent level but my repertoire is nearly empty. I'll post a record on the latest task within a week, after that I'd say lets stay true to the Rampage and work on a repertoire-oriented route, is that ok for you? I know I'm changing the focus too much out of frustration, but I feel this is the right path to take, finally. What do you think?

Hey Cem I have nothing against going for a repertoire based mentoring course. I will choose pieces which deal with sync such as the Bach one so you can cement your skills in both directions what do you think man?

Regarding the atonal music - this is uncharted territory for me as well, my friend I don't consider my ears as being perfected to an incredible height, but I think that I could get used to listening to different things without being afraid that 'I'll lose it somehow' if you get my vibe.

My suggestion would be the following: work on your ear training with the western music and then, when you can test yourself and realize that you are confident enough to recognize the intervals and chords (at this point your relative pitch would be pretty good) you can dabble into atonal music.

It's more comfortable to know you got some weapons when going exploring, right?

Let me know on your thoughts, my friend

Cosmin