What do you guys do when your having an issue getting a certain lick perfect (Gab's Power Metal Soloing Lesson 2 - lesson #3 to be exact).

It's an easy enough lick to play but at speed I can't come close to playing it correctly. (I've been trying for 3 weeks now and I'm starting to get frustrated )

I don't no if my brain just won't do let me do it, or what it is...

I can play the rest of the lesson but there's something with this part that just likes to challenge at me...

I've watched how Gabe plays it, my hand and fingers are in position to play the part but it's just not happening.

Any advice at this point will be EXTREMELY welcome

Thanks

Greg....

P.S. Gabe awesome lesson!!!!

I'm going to give you some very serious advice, because I have found myself doing this and it is very frustrating when you don't realize it.

Check the tab, and check what you are playing... are they the same?


If it is then try posting a sound clip or video of your playing, because I wouldn't know what else to tell you aside from PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE

(and I think you already know that method )

Play it very slowly, and make sure it sounds good, and controlled, then slowly increase the speed, and make sure you can play it so it has nice tone, and sounds and feels controlled. Practice like this can get boring but even playing like this for 10min helps. Just be patient and it will come with practice.

grab a beer and improvise because sometimes what you improvise could be better to ur ears

If this part is technically difficult for you to play at speed .. practice it slow as mentioned.

But maybe check as well if you got the timing right. Little timing issues can be a problem when playing licks faster. Play to the GP file very slow and try to find the notes to accentuate, those notes can help you to keep the timing and gives you some "security".

I have a different approach. I'd put it to rest for some time and play other lessons for a 2-4 weeks, not even looking at this one. This time will allow for you to develop new techniques and get them stuck into your brain and fingers.

I'd never put myself through several weeks like you did, because three weeks of constant failure isn't the way to go If you want to run 100 meters in 10 seconds you first have to start with what you can achive today, say 12 seconds. next goal would be 11,8, then 11,6 etc until you reach your final goal with small steps of energizing positiveness when you reach each new goal
Sounds to me achiving Power Metal Soloing Lesson 2 lick #3 for you is equal as going straight for 11,5.


So I'd drop it for now, learn a lot of other lessons and get back to this difficult one later on. I'm sure it will be easier after some time have passed IF you have learned other things in the mean time.

MickeM is right - doing this exercise over and over again, and doing it not correctly is not the way to go. You should approach the exercise with a lot of detail and patience. Start the sequence with whole notes at 60bpm and work your way gradually up to the desired tempo. DON"T try to push it when you feel it is becoming sloppy. There really isn't much you can do at that moment but leave the practice, and start practicing something else for a change. Then come back later on that one, and when you find yourself you can do it perfectly on let's say 83bpm and can't move to 84 without sounding sloppy, then you should make a 2 days break with this exercise and start building again.

Keep at it, one day you'll be able to do it, and you'll wonder why it was ever a problem

Thanks to everyone for the advice, I think I will move on for a week or so and come back to it later....
(it was getting kind of boring)

Peace

Greg

Try starting with an upstroke instead. This helps me alot in certain lick sequences.

i second that! it helps you to make your upstrokes more consicious.

Really depends on the pattern you're doing.

Shawn Lane said however, that he couldn't do s*** without starting on an upstroke.
Honestly, I agree a bit more with Muris though, master both down and upstrokes, and be ready for anything.


Edit for language - Smells

This post has been edited by Smells: Jul 25 2008, 07:12 AM

You need to practice the licks slowly, ensureing your have good tone and control.

Try to practice them daily to a metronome, make it fun by keeping track of your progress.

I am afraid this is the Only way to go if you want to master tricky licks! I for example have been practicing a very tricky string skipping lick for half an hour a day... for many months!!

just one more thing i often do when a specific lick gives me a hard time.

I replace this lick with something easier, so that i am still able to play the complete song/lesson. Which is important as well to play longer sequences.

I have a kind of ".. one day i will be able to play this .." list and those licks are going in there so that i can create exercises out of it and don't forget about it as well.

I am not sure this will help but I have been following a number of scientific studies involved with learning - particularly with repetitive actions (these studies use video games to measure learning but guitar riffs are pretty similar). Generally, what these studies show that there with continued practice, there is some improvement (no brainer here) but not enough to account for the learning rates over days and weeks. The largest increase in learning rates occurred following a good night sleep (includes the deep sleep phase and the REM phase). Interestingly, if either of the two phases were skipped, learning stopped. On a side note, people over 40 lose the ability to deep sleep and hence learning this way declines enormously. However, in testing of people over longer periods (7 day periods), age made no difference so over 40 individuals made up the difference through a different mechanism.

Applying this to guitar practices have been quite useful - for me, I like to take something I want to learn and sit down learning all the notes and get the timing down - for most lessons with some difficult sections (at least for me), I usually can only achieve 35-50% of the bpm's before I have to set aside the lesson. Usually the next day, I have little problem increasing the bpm's by 10-20% but further progress tends to stop. That is when I set aside the exercise for at least 3-4 days but more usually a week. I find coming back after a week can increase it another 10%.

This doesn't work for everything though - I have sometimes found that if I stop it for long periods of time, I learn other techniques that let me play easily something that I once found difficult (actually this is not unusual I think for most players).

Hope this helps.

I have to agree with what MickeM has said.

If something is giving me a hard time, and even if I practiced it constantly for a couple days, if I don't see improvement I'll put that lesson on the back burner for a bit and then come back to it. I like to keep things fun and if I'm getting frustrated it's just not productive for me. I find after I've been away for a while, it has given my brain and fingers time to relax and I tend to see improvements after this. It's sorta like taking a rest between gym workouts. If you don't take a break you run the risk of overtraining and you won't see any gains. In my opinion this is also the same for guitar practice... but everyone is different. So I say take a rest and then go back to it... you may surprise yourself.

lol two options.. SLOW IT DOWN.. play every note until you build memory of what needs to be played and play it correctly.. perfectly everytime until playing it at speed is no problem.. the other 1 is what everyone else said go learn a new lession.. improve something else about your hands and then once your a little better go back and try it again ive done this with so many songs.. where i try playing it and its like.. wow this is impossible.. 2 weeks later i go back and its the easiest thing in the world

Yes, that might even make things worse.

Because you are effectively comitting a lot of wrong moves into your finger muscle memory.
Very difficult to get rid of!

So switch to something else, when there's still time.