Have you seen John Petrucci's "Rock Discipline"? He showed there cool inside picking exercise. Inside picking is pretty important when it comes to 3-string sweeps.

My main problem is probably my picking technique (and my shocking theory knowledge, but there is a cure to in Andrew's Theory corner ).

I've been taught the various picking techniques, but not in a strict enough manner and unfortunately my natural comfortable picking is all over the place. Switching from economy to alternate at seemingly random times.

I'll take a good example from some one of the GMC lessons I've been practising.

Piotr Kaczor's Arpeggio Etude - Around the Chord lesson to be exact.

I can play the entire piece comfortably at the 89bpm backing track speed WITH strict alternate picking.

I can also play the piece at the 139bmp backing track speed, BUT my picking starts to do whats instinctive and not what I'm trying to train it to do.

To be more exact, the first arpeggio starts with an up stroke, and I continue to alternate pick correctly untill the upstroke on the 9th fret of the G string which then moves on to 10 and 9 on the B and E. When I hit the downstroke on the 10 fret, I can't seem to stop my self economy picking up to the E string. So going D U U instead of D U D. This means when I'm hitting the notes going down on the E string - I pick on the beat with a downstroke instead of an up.

If that makes sense!

I can keep my picking strict at slower tempo's, but at higher ones my picking just instinctive goes back to what I'm used to doing.

Finding it very hard to kick out the bad habits, they've been used for over 6 years so hard to rectify!

Looking at it right now, thanks alot

Bro, those are exellent. We have a store here called Trader Joes and they have the best coconut macaroons. We raid them every time we go and even our parrots eat them.

Right Hand technique, I need to get faster ( well I don't need I just want to be able to do some fast runs when improvising), I need more METAL (I'm focusing too much on jazz and blues I don't want to be limited when I'm just 14)! I already know the modes but I want to know them intuitively and I really need to know the chords that I should use in each mode. ( I will work a lot in my school break!)

Pinky seems to be a big issue for alot of people, i kinda know what you are talking about with the click. I posted in another thread the reason for my own problem, i broke my pinky when i was younger and never had it set, so it healed crooked. So it does some odd things, so my hand angle constantly has to change to compensate.

As far as your ring finger not moving to the fret posistion, it could be alot of things that cause this. It could just be you haven't stretched this finger enough to get used to fretting in that posistion. Or it could just simply be your playing on a guitar that has frets that are too big for you. For myself, although i like jumbo size frets for ease of chords, i find that my lead playing suffers because i am more comfortable with smaller fret size. The best for me is having smaller frets...ala Wizard II neck.

Barre chords take the most amount of finger strength of anything you can do on the guitar. This is just purely a strength and stamina issue. I would challenge you to just set aside time in your practice routine for just playing barre chords all over the neck perhaps towards the end of your work out. Just keep playing them until you feel the "Burn" in your hands and forearm. Do this every other day. Give your muscles a chance to get used to it. Don't overdo anything in your playing imo.

Its just like people who are body builders. They generally won't work on their arms for example every day. They will work arms one day, and legs the next...abs the next day etc. So it gives time for recovery to avoid injury. I think guitarists in general are guilty of overdoing certain things because they are determined to "Get it". And it can actually hinder you learning a certain technique because your muscles are fatigued.

Daniel




Getting your bends in pitch has a couple key factors. First is ear training to hear the note you are supposed to hit. A good excersises for training your ear is just sound a fretted note for example on the 9th fret, any string. Than move down one fret and bend up to that note. Replay the fretted note, move down 2 frets and bend up to that note.....etc. This will train your ear to hear the correct pitch.

Secondly is muscle memory for your guitar. Every guitar is different with respect to how much pressure you have to exert to bend to a certain pitch. As well as string gauge, hardtail versus trem system etc. Once you have trained your ear to hear the note your muscles will being to remember how much pressure to exert to hit that note. For me now its not even a matter of listening, it is a matter of just how much pressure i exert. I know my guitar inside and out and i know how much i have to push a string to get a pitch.

Daniel



Playing fast cleanly is a goal alot of guitarists have, i think the biggest issue here is how fast do you want to be. Having a clear goal of what is "Fast enough" is a good place to start. I would not consider myself a "Shred" player. That was never my goal though. When learning at my goal was to hit 13nps on average. Not really shredding per se, but good company in that average range...Randy Rhoads for example was a 13nps player.

Now of course some days will be better than others, on a really good day i can hit bursts of 15nps cleanly, and other days i really have to push myself for that 13nps range cleanly. At this stage in my life, i think really that trying to hit 18nps ALA Shawn Lane, with precision is unrealistic. I suppose if i had focused on that speed in the beginning i might get close or hit that mark, but you know you can't teach and old dog new tricks heh.

There are tons of threads, and lesson with theories on learning to play fast. I suggest you check them out and try out all the different methods and find one that works for you. Me personally i take the Shawn Lane approach. That is play beyond your ability speed wise...yes its going to be sloppy, but your focusing on cleaning it up. Imo in order to play fast you have to know what it feels like to play fast. Learning things slowly is not a bad thing, but i find that if i learn something i want to play fast at a slow speed and try to make it clean by slowly ramping up the metronome, that i don't hit nearly the speed i want. Think of it like this, lets say your a sprinter on the track. In order to get faster you don't walk around the track briskly to get faster. No, you push with all you have and clean up your technique as you go refining all your basic muscle movements so you can go faster.

Slipping off the string is a common problem when starting out, but this will fade with time so just keep working on it. Even now i still have times when i am not focusing i will have my finger slip off the string, especially when trying to do vibrato on a bend.

Daniel



Don't be discouraged, it is not an easy thing to accomplish, but if you set realistic short term goals and work on those rather than focusing on the end you can acheive alot. As i said in the post above, for myself i think at this stage trying to play 18nps like Shawn Lane is unrealistic pushing 40 years old here myself. I think though at least for myself, as i get older its less about speed and more about expression, a more mature thought process is involved. There are times i wish i could play faster, some guys here just do it with such little effort. But at the same time i feel like i can say alot more with a few well placed notes and silence than i can say with a million notes. When i was younger of course it was all about the "Flash" now its all about how can i say this phrase in the most meaningful way.

Daniel




I said in an earlier reply in this thread my thoughts on 3 string sweeps. I find for myself at least that 3 string sweeps take more precision on my left hand than say 5 or 6 string string sweeps. For myself at least i find i have to pay special attention to fretting the strings with the very tips of my fingers, rather than using more of the pads of my fingers.

With any sweep techniqe though its about syncing your left and right hands and having good muting skills to get it to sound clean and uniform. When i first started to learn sweep picking i started with 3 string sweeps. I broke it down to start with, i started with just sweeping the open muted strings, just to get the rhythm right in my picking hand, just up down, over and over again until it was smooth. I then would just sweep up, playing 3 strings with my right and left hand together in a simple pattern, i would keep practicing that until i could do it cleanly anywhere on the neck. Than i practiced sweeping down with the same patterns all over the neck until i could do it without thinking about it. It was only after i reached that point that i would do the up down sweep, ala putting it all together. Just break down the sweeping to its most basic components and just work on the tecnique to get it smooth. It takes a bit of effort, but not as much as one would think. Sweeping 15 notes at least imo is easier to learn than playing an 11 or 12 note descending legato pattern for example.

Daniel




I definately know where you are coming from, i would do the same kind of thing, for the longest time i couldnt figure out why i couldnt play simple 6 note patterns cleanly at speed with alternate picking, until i realized as you did that when i speed up i was using a lame economy picking kind of thing. At this point i started to really hone in on what the culprit was, i would speed up to the point of almost falling apart and anyalyze exactly what was falling apart. I also noticed i was doubling up a note somewhere when i sped up. I found that for some reason my picking hand wanted to add another note because i wanted to end on a down stroke. But if you do the math on the neck, if you play 6 ascending notes in a 3nps pattern for example that last note is an upstroke. When i would speed up i saw that i was actually playing 7 notes and was doubling up the last note in the sequence so i would end on a down stroke. Once i realize that this was happening the only thing i focused on was ending on an upstroke. I didnt think about any of the other notes at all. My whole attention was making sure that when i hit note number 6 that i am doing an upstroke. Now i still do that and it helps immensly, knowing what stroke i am going to end on and not worrying about inbetween. Focus on your end note pick stroke make sure its right, now for me its just a matter of adding it up. Like if i do 12 notes, i know that it ends on a downstroke...6 notes upstroke...3 notes downstroke....5 notes downstroke...etc. See if something like this can help you get it worked out.

Daniel




Sounds like you have some good specific goals in mind, learning your theory at this point can only help you along in your goals. So good for you. If you run into any specific problems please feel to ask me, or another instructor thats what we are here for


Daniel

I think my biggest weaknesses are: theory, staccato, and my sweeping is pretty weak also. I'm working on them though! Oh, and my alternate picking. There are tons of lessons here to help me on my weaker points, and I definitely plan on checking them all out...very soon.

This post has been edited by Pi38: Nov 7 2008, 03:45 PM

Yeah the pinkie thing is cause a) i'm double jointed there
and I had a sports injury

thanks I'll keep at the barreing.... found a lesson on it here https://www.guitarmasterclass.net/beginner-...arre-chords.htm that I can mess with...



On the positive side... for some reason, yesterday I was able to do barre chords nicely ??

hahah wicked I think I got the barre down

Sorry i missed this.

Good to hear dude, if there is anything else you need just ask...


Daniel

My weakness is my right hand (picking hand). My left hand i feel is more developed than my picking hand. I can do fast and clean legatos, my sweep picking is acurate, and anything that requires more left hand movement than right i am comfortable with.

It´s my picking hand that sometimes i think isn´t keeping up or has coordination problems.

Also fingerpicking, im not that good at it =|

I have good technique, but can´t seem to apply it in the musical way that i want, for example Ian Bushell has great a sense of melody and musicality when playing constant sweep picking or on etudes. That´s what im lacking unfortunately

This post has been edited by DaniHel: Dec 9 2008, 04:15 PM

My biggest weakness is one thing I've noticed when trying to write riffs. It's basically that I'm really bad at keeping stuff interesting rythm-wise, I tend to go all out on (for instance) 16'th notes and then end on some strong note, then repeat, it's really rare that I actually mix it up a lot with the rythms and make it interesting. When I do the melodies tend to not be that interesting, so my biggest weakness could be summarised as the lack of abillity to keep both melody and rythm interesting at the same time.

I hope it made sense, but this is something I've been trying to figure out what it was for quite a while and I think this is pretty close to the real problem.

HAHAHA I never used it until I played guitar hero a couple of times, which I sucked at first. Now I use it all the time.


My weakness is that I don't learn new things. I have my 10 favorite songs/riffs that I morph from my favorite songs. Every couple of weeks, a new one comes in, and my least favorite seems to get pushed out. LOL Realizing this, I changed my tune to a Drop C...now, I'm on all newer riffs.

My weaknesses mainly are tapping, full bends and vibrato. With tapping i tend to make a lot of noise on the other strings, but I havent properly practised tapping yet.. With full bends I sometimes play the string im bending towards when I pull back down to the original position. Vibrato I never properly learned in the first place and only noe realise that it is done with the wrist rather than rapidly slightly bending the string with my finger!

I would say my strength is timing and rythem

This post has been edited by Rob Wilson: Dec 10 2008, 12:18 PM

I am just the opposite, my legato playing is mediocre at best i fall back on AP often. But from a learning standpoint i would try to do things that will improve your picking accuracy. When i was starting out i would do tremelo picking excersises to get my left and right hand coordinated. The first thing i did was just two notes, pick any two notes on the fret board next to eachother and play on your left hand like a trill...but pick each note with Alternate picking. I would do this for like 5 minutes each day and go as fast as i could keeping the picking at a steady tempo. Once i got good at doing this and i had some stamina in my right hand to keep it up i would do 3nps using the same trem excersise i would play 1 3 4...1 3 4...etc..over and over..once i got it clean as fast as i could pick i would reverse it and play 4 3 1....4 3 1...etc. You can do this anywhere on the neck. Than i would alternate 1 3 4...1 2 4...1 3 4...1 2 4...etc. Than do that pattern backwards. After all of this i started doing larger stretches using the same technique of 3nps but using wider intervals and moving posistions inbetween each rep. Not exactly the most glamorous excersise but it gets the job done.

This same idea can be applied to sweeping, instead of notes on the same string apply the same down up picking to multiple strings in varied patterns. Start with simple patterns to begin with such as a simple three string sweep...down..up...down up...etc. Practice that pattern all over the neck and on different strings. After you get good at it add 1 note to the next string. Rinse and repeat. Getting fluid in your sweep picking without stopping requires you to make your lick bag nice and deep so experimenting with all the shapes you can think of is a must. After learning the easy ones you will start to see much more complex shapes. It just comes with learning the neck experimentation goes a long way.

As far as fingerpicking goes i am not great at it either. I suggest you check out some of Muris lessons on it.

I am trying to remedy my lack of finger picking skills i have been doing alot of research and study of Eric Johnson recently who imo is one of the best "Chording/ Fingerpicking" players in the world. His approach to chording and chord voices really appeals to me too so i don't get bored quickly.



Daniel




I had this same problem when i started getting into faster playing. I found what really broke me of this habit was conciously learning some different rhythmic groupings. What i mean by this is you can still play 16notes, but learn how to break them up into smaller groups. See what it feels like to play 5 16th notes and stop. play 4 16th notes and stop etc...when you can break them up into smaller groups than you start mixing and matching...i find actually writing down on a piece of paper a series of numbers and following it helped me like i would write.

4
7
12
5
6
4
4
3

I would than compose a series of licks based on those amount of note groupings all using 16th notes..than i would take it one step further...lets take that same list and add different rhythmic value

4 16th notes
7 8th notes
12 8th triplets
5 (2 16th notes and 3 8th notes)
6 one sextuplet (32nd notes)
4 quarter notes
4 16th triplet
3 8th notes

After awhile you start to see varied patterns that you can use. Timing is crucial when learning this so a metronome will be invaluble set a speed you are comfortable with and see what kind of different patterns you can use. You said that you use a strong note to end on. Also see what recessive notes you can land on to add tension. Recessive notes also make good transistion notes into the next lick. Just experiment and have fun with it.

Daniel

Wow Daniel, awesome reply, thank you! I will definetly work on that.

I bet you really know more than you give yourself credit for. I think the hardest thing for us guitarists is that we hear ourselves all the time so we hear the repetition when you play something for someone else it sounds completely new to them. If you learn a new lick and lose one i doubt you really lost it i bet you could still play it if you wanted to but its the problem of being the only one listening to us play alot of the time so we are always searching for something we havent done a million times. Its just the nature of the instrument and your connection with it. I am sure all instructors here will tell you that there are alot of things they hate about their playing. But when i hear someone like Muris...or Ivan or David Walliman play a new lesson i am thoroughly intrigued with something new and they are probably listening to their own lessons picking apart all the mistakes they made heh.

Daniel




Tapping is not my strong suit either, i can do it for some things but i don't use it often. I never felt like tapping was useful for me to express myself so i never developed it.

As far as the full bends go, if i understand what your saying correctly it sounds to me like your hand posistion is off when you bend up so your actually covering the next string with your finger everyone has their own way of looking at approaching this problem. Myself i angle my hand so that when i bend up my finger actually goes under the string i am bending toward i am just very careful not to move my finger when i release so i dont get string noise. On some guitars that have much lower action than mine this is not an option so you would actually have to press into the string your bending towards, when this is the case i make sure that i do the full bend with any finger but my index finger because i will use my index finger to muffle the string i am bending towards as i release so i dont get any string noise.

Vibrato is one of those skills that has no wrong answer and it comes down to personal preference if you have the finger strength to do how you were doing it and it sounds good to you i say go for it. If wrist action is more comfortable for you than use that too. I actually use two different things for vibrato, i use the finger wiggle without my wrist...and i also actually shake the guitar instead of moving the string with my finger i move the whole guitar and just slightly move my finger giving my vibrato an eliptic shape not quite round, more of an oblong oval.

Daniel

Yeah, I can still play the old riffs. But like you say, then end up getting sort of bland after a while. As a positive note, I can vouch that repetition of a song 1000x really lets you relax while playing it. That relaxation has transfered over to other songs, and now I just play more relaxed than I used to. That was my worst weakness a few years back; the faster I'd try to play, the more I would tense up.

Here's Proof:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pl98kxzHOw0

ps - apparently I can't make a link. wtf?

This post has been edited by Sircraigery: Dec 11 2008, 03:46 AM

I`ve got TONS of weaknesses. I could mention someone like sweeping(getting better), sweeptaps, legato, particulary AP(as I mentioned in another topic I`ll usually play economy picking which falls more naturally for me), phrasing, and sure a whole lot more.

But my most annoying weakness per today, is my lack of theory competance. Even though I find it interesting to study how the scales etc are built and how they color the sound of the music, I`m almost not spending one exercise on practising exclusesivly one scale or something like that. And I`m horrible at analysising the music I`m playing, even if it`s by tab or ear. Usually I just find a minor pentatonic which fits over the song and improvise from that.

Hey, I just registered and I am really satisfied. I've started the "Heavy Metal - Solo & Rhythm exercise" by Hisham Al-Sanea, and it's a really beautiful composition, and good exercise for my fingers. (Sorry, I guess this statement doesn't belong in this thread...)

Anyway, as an amateur guitar player I would say I have tonnes of weaknesses, most of them easily removable through practice.

1. As quite a lot of other people up the comments-list, I have a problem with legato, and tend to use fast picking as an alternative. In the end, however, I have to realise that fast picking can never get as fast and smooth as legato, and I will have to practice more, and maybe use some of the advice Daniel Robinson gave. My problem with legato is that I can't adapt to many different speeds, as I kind of get carried away with my maximum speed. This is most likely a finger-strength problem.

2. I need to build more strength in my ring-finger (3rd finger), for things like hammer-on / pull-of triplets, which I can only do very fast with my "doigt d'honneur" as the French would say (2nd finger). I can just forget writing about my wimpling of a pinky !

3. I need to get a bit better at bending, but this might of course be the fat strings on my guitar. My goal is to be able to bend 2 frets on the second fret, and hopefully with a wailing artificial harmonic. I am talking, of course, about the Don't Cry intro (Guns N' Roses)...

I will stop my verbal diarrhoea right now, as the instructors will need to drink coffee to stay awake during the lecture of my comment, and I could certainly write two Bible-length books about my weaknesses in guitar playing.

Alexander, 15

This post has been edited by Alexiaden93: Jul 13 2009, 04:06 AM