To any instructor who might be interested in helping me. I've written a 7/8 timing riff in E dominant phrygian mode and I'm trying to work out if there is a better way to approach the picking pattern that I have chosen for a particular run. I've included the picking pattern in the Guitar Pro file and I'm trying to get it up to 86 bpm. It feels cumbersome changing between the strings and I would love any suggestions you might have even if it includes scrapping the run all together.

Thanks in advance my friends.

Pat

I'm sure we can help Can you record a quick vid of you playing the lick so we can see what you are doing? That way we can make some suggestions and such. Without seeing how you are doing it now, it's tough to say how it might be done better. A cell phone vid uploaded to youtube would work

For now, I'd say, as always, play the lick as slowly as you can and still keep it even and steady. Use a metronome or something to keep time. Make sure you can play it in a precise manner. No matter how slow you need to go.

Todd

Thank you Todd,

here is a link.

If you would be able to analyse the picking strokes that i have added on the GP file that would be most appreciated. I'm guiessing I might need to improve my legato more and use it rather than picking some of the notes.

This post has been edited by Patrik Berg: Jul 29 2016, 01:17 AM

Here is another video link that I did today. It shows the run in context and you can hear and see the struggle of the picking hand which i guess just comes down to more practice. Any advice or links to lessons here would be much appreciated.

The picking notation makes sense. However, at that speed, especially in the second vid, I'd say some Legato is your friend. Try this. Play the lick slowly using only the left hand. Hammer on with the fingers of the left hand instead of picking the notes. Ideally, your left hand should be strong enough to play on it's own, making picking a tonal choice rather than a "must do" sort of thing. If you do want the tone of a muted picking run, your best bet there is probably wads and wads of repetition of this lick at a slower speed and then bump up by one or two beats per minute. It seems to be written on the very edge of your ability to play which can be a good thing as it forces you to get better

Until you get to that point, I'd say it's a great chance to work on your left hand strength and your legato You should be able to play left hand only and keep a good palm mute. We used to call this going "Pickless" in my Video Chat Lessons

Make sense?

Todd

Thank you for your time and advice Todd, I agree with everything that you have said and I will work on the legato. I find the hardest part is to try and bounce back from the B string to the E string and then back to the B string again (and the same movement on the other strings too).
I appreciate your time on this

I've been looking at it for the past few days, and I honestly think you've got the most efficient pattern down. It's the way I would pick it at least. Todd gave some good advice in regards to trying legato.

Thank you Cael

Practice, practice, practice, as a certain someone would say

Well...I've spend some time analysig this. I guess I would do it slightly different. I would think of few things:

Of course - everything is possible after a long term practise but...If we play at high speed, any of "non-regular" picking direction strokes can cause us to fall out of sync or timing. Personally I had a few solutions for this - one included hybrid picking, which is my regular habit at the moment. If we exclude it, then I would go for something like this





I almost always keep picking direction assignment based on note position in the bar. When I make legato, I think of it as a virtual pick stroke. According to it's virtual direction, I play next note with opposite picking direction. Exactly the way chord strumming works. As Ben once said - picking is just strumming made smaller.

To make the lick more pleasant to the speed you need to achieve, I have changed one legato run a bit and pull down one of the notes from B to G string. For me it looks most "speed friendly" at the moment

I hope this helps

Thank you Darius,

I have put your suggestions to practice and although I can only play it slowly (I have to unlearn what I was doing) I can feel that it is more natural in movement and I've transferred it to the A - D string skip as well. I will let you know how my progress goes.
Thank you for your time
Pat

Always happy to be helpful I know what you mean - it takes me some time as well to "reconfigure" the habit and make my head familiar with the lick before I\ll be able to use what my fingers can Awaiting your thoughts after some time of practise