I really like the lessons here at GMC. I have one humble request for instructors though: when you play the sections of a lesson, please play to a backing track. That helps greatly when trying to learn the exact rhythm of a difficult part (the tablature is often only approximate). See Cosmin's lessons as an example of how to do it. He plays to a backing track when demonstrating a section at full speed and also when demonstrating at slow speed.

Thanks for the mention mate I find it more useful to do things like that because as I already told you, in my opinion, tabs should only be used to have a landmark, otherwise, if you have a slowed down version showing all the details against a rhythmic landmark (backing track) your ears should do the work.

I would find this really helpful as well. either the instructor playing it slow along with the backing or being able to take the main lesson into a DAW to slow it down and play along with the instructor.
Recently I was learning the solo to paranoid and the only way I could get the faster bits were to take the song into reaper and slow it down, then I could play along and learn the timing much better. My ears are not good enough to pick out all the 'nuances' at full speed.

when you slowed it down in reaper, did change the tuning

Nope, it just slows the tempo but keeps the same pitch!

the slider at the bottom, next to the tempo called 'playback rate' ( at least thats where it is on my reaper) you can right click the slider and tick the option for 'preserve pitch'.

I only found this recently totally brilliant feature.

A backing track for each of the broken down sections would be helpful, often I am on 3rd section and have to play through the 1st two and might make a mistake and get distracted before I get to the bit I actually wanted to be working on!!!

Ok. I'll see what I can do while doing the april lesson Sometimes it's a matter of veeeeeery slow secion breakdown and it's like We should do a backing in th1/4 of regular temo wchich is insane

Thanks, that's very helpful. I think the only instructor who doesn't use backing tracks is Gabriel. IMHO, his great lessons would be even better if he played to a backing track.

I agree with the OP and Cosmin. Tabs are only a rough guide as to how to play it, and I think you should be able to 'play' the melody in your head before you go and learn it. If you have Guitar Pro, you can also download the tab for that, which you can then go and play.

Aye man, this is how I sort out Pantera solos - slow down the track and sometimes check a PDF to have an idea if I'm on the good path - Guitar Pro's big issue is that it sounds pretty mechanical on the bends and if you don't know the song really, really well, you might end up confused.

I do it this way since the topic was made. Probably last 3 to 4 lessons with the slowest backing track in the slow sections

It's fairly good practice for us as well Sometimes, playing slow is more difficult than you would think - I mean when the tempo gets REALLY slow and you need to keep a very tight balance and timing in order to adapt what you play at that particular tempo.

True story Cosmin Those breaks between notes last forever and it's hard to keep timming focusing on video to look properly at the same time. Also it's hard to keep exactly the same picking direction and left hand fingers assigned to the frets because in that slow tempo You could play it anyway You like...even with You foot

if we were able to download the audio of the main lesson, the instructor playing along with the backing at full speed, we would be able to put that into a DAW, and slow it down to a speed we could play along with.
Personally, I'd find that incredibly useful with learning the timing and articulation of 'fast' sections.

I get Your point partly but learning how to recognise and use particular rhythm sections is a practice itself. I had some "real life" students who came to me after even 7 years of self-taught playing and gues what? We had to go back to the very beginning because they had problems with very basic things such as rhythm. Thyey couldn't make any even little step further because of this lack of simple things. So I get it's nice when You can just grab the guitar and play but the whole trick is to learn all those basic important things by doing each lesson so they can profit in the future.


P.S If You'll be going to a traditional music school You will learn rhythm, notes and different techniques through first few Years. You wouldn't even use tabs for it. You will play very simple stuff from notes only. Teacher wouldn't let You touch any semi-advanced songs before You're nopt done with it. And this profits for all Your future playing. The problem of present days is that some people would like to do some things too fast, to much at the same time...or just play stuff without understandig what is exactly going on there. This creates the problem of learning the same thinbgs with any other lessons instead of have it done first and then do any other stuff much faster.

I know what you're saying, but its just that if you take for example your 90's chops lesson where you play the sections at various slow speeds along with the backing track, which I think is excellent, because you get to see exactly where everything flows with the backing track in a way you might not pick up on as a less experienced player.
Essentially that lesson already offers the chance to play along with you accompanied by the backing track but at a slower speed. So there must be some value in presenting the lesson this way
if it were possible to get the main audio from other lessons it would then add the same thing to the older lessons which dont have the same breakdown as your 90s chops lesson.

I think You all create some ideas to improve the lessons so Your advices are very precious Unfortunetely it would be a problem to upgrade some old stuff because seems like some instructors doesn't work at gmc for quite some time. What we can do is to improve every single lesson that comes new

Right you are, Darius! Us Westerners are WAY too obsessed with getting things to happen FAST. If you go to Japan and you will attend a traditional martial arts seminar and you tell the Sensei that you can't do something, he will have one word for you: Keiko - I strongly urge you to read the following article, for a correct understanding of the term: http://www.examiner.com/article/keiko-trai...-correct-spirit

Bump. The lessons here at GMC seem to have divided into two groups. In one group are the lessons where the instructor demonstrates with backing or a click to show how the notes relate to the beat. Gabe, Darius, Javier, Dallton, Cosmin, etc. do their lessons like this.

But Ben and Guido don't use backing or a click when demonstrating the lesson. You two create wonderful lessons, but they would be even better if you could let us listen to the beats so we can hear the feel of it when played slowly. If there is a technical problem that prevents you from doing so, perhaps check with the other instructors to see how they do it?

My apologies for bumping this, but without any reply, I'm in the dark here. I don't know if some instructors are doing lessons without any click or backing on the demonstration parts because they choose to or if it's because they're unaware of the issue. If they choose to, just tell me so and I'll shut up about this . You don't have to explain why.

Hi Ram! I think that the idea is that we all switch to that format, but as it's technically more difficult (and takes more time) I assume that some instructors will incorporate it later. By the way, I think that you can use Guitar Pro files to hear and play along at slower tempos.

Thanks. Simply including a click would help if they can't record the backing for some reason. I'm just looking for some feedback that the instructors are aware of this issue. Do you discuss issues like this among yourselves?

yes, we do. The metronome is a good quick solution.