Maharzan - Mentored By Muris, UNUSED |
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Maharzan - Mentored By Muris, UNUSED |
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Sep 4 2009, 03:45 PM |
Hey Muris,
So, after a long wait, finally I have been able to be guided by you although you have been so helpful all these days. Thank you. I will try to brief a few things about me and my playing here. BACKGROUND My name is Chandra Maharzan and am from Nepal as you may have already known by now. I am 31 years old (wow growing old now). I learnt the basic chords when I was 15 years through friends and since then just practicing on my own. I never owned a guitar until I was like 26. Gears are pretty expensive and I had to wait until I earned for myself. Yet I didn't have an amp so I had to wait for another 2 years. So, virtually, I was able to play on a gear for the last 3 years or so ON and OFF. Playing guitar has mostly become a hobby and I haven't been able to practice every day not until I joined GMC anyway. Work / Priorities always set playing guitars aside. I do have an ON/OFF band (NISSIM - http://nissim.com.np), mainly a vocalist and we have been together since school days. We also have an album on our heads (mostly my composition) which was released free online. I did all the arrangements as well and mixing/vocals/bass was done in the studio. I have another 8-9 songs ready to be recorded. These are songs not instrumentals though. I had bought a few videos by Kris at GMC few years back and I think GMC didn't exist. I never got time to go back to those videos though, only watched a few times and then that was it. I later somehow found about GMC (probably Google Search) and then I looked over few videos, especially yours and was determined to start doing 'something' with my guitar skills and thus instantly became a member. What was in my mind was to improve playing at speed so I can run some fast riffs on my compositions at times. I have given myself a year and then to at least come up with one good single instrumental track with some or all techniques like tapping, sweep, fast riffs, melody, etc. I know I am not being realistic though. INFLUENCES I like most compositions by Joe Satriani. Absolutely love this guy. I have tried to listed to Steve Vai, Paul Gilbert, Eric Johnson but I never listened to them twice mainly because either they are too fast or too technical. I do like For the Love of God by Vai though (to be frank I don't listen to music much, didn't have access to it as a child) But somehow have been managed to follow Joe Satriani a lot. Lately, I am trying to catch up with Andy Timmons after I found this name at a thread in GMC. Sounds pretty cool. I am not much into classic rock or blues. I do like ROCK mainly, some hard rock, alternative and grunge (not very heavy ones though). CURRENT STATUS Since I have joined GMC, I have noticed I have improved quite a bit. Mainly on vibrato and alternate picking. I have been practicing or done few RECs which mainly involves alternate picking. Interesting thing is when I was learning guitar (until 18 - for 3 damn years) I didn't know anything about alternate picking, isn't that funny? I always used to use down stroke and always found it hard to get some fast leads. I feel so stupid. You might have already seen my RECs, those mainly define where I am right now. Since past 2 months or so I have been practicing your Mixolydian Soloing (Intermediate level) and Pinky Excercise by Piotr Kaczor but still finding it hard to get to the tempo. Main problem: Sync. I have been getting there. With the pinky excercise, my pinky used to hurt a lot but now it has overcome that (only hurts a little) and I think I can do a REC on that pretty soon. While doing my REC, I have noticed myself that the fast riffs are out of timing. So since past few days I have also been practicing your Timing Excercise lesson. And as expected that last part is pretty fast. PROBLEMS Hand Sync at speed - AP Vibrato (I think I resolved that about 90%) Definitely Stamina, even though if I get it in sync for few bars, if the fast riff is pretty long, I am gone. My fingers just cannot hold the pick at the same position. WHAT I NEED TO IMPROVE ON All I know is AP. I have practised a lot when I was doing few Satch licks and they mainly involved legato, so I guess I am good at it (although you probably haven't seen anything on that). I definitely need to work on Timing. Never practised on a metronome so that probably reflects it. (Almost) Never done Tapping, Sweep picking. I think I will call my strength as composition, AP, Legato. WHAT I NEED TO ACHIEVE As I mentioned before too, I need to become a good player that can play great slow melodies and sometimes run some fast licks as well, overall a better composer. I do understand I need to practice all the techniques that is there on the guitar, not necessary style (should come by itself as we practice). I do not want to touch tapping or sweeping at the moment. I want to master one thing. Playing in sync at speed using alternate picking confidently and definitely improve the timing too. I want to be confident at listening to a backing track and fill it with faster (longer than just a bar) licks while improvising as well. Enough of just thinking and playing slow 2s and 4s. Time for triplets, 16s and 32s!!! Am I asking too much? VIDEOS Here are the collabs I have done: Latest (D Mixolydian) : https://www.guitarmasterclass.net/guitar_fo...st&id=17524 NeoClassical for beginners: https://www.guitarmasterclass.net/guitar_fo...st&id=17248 This post has been edited by Muris Varajic: Oct 23 2009, 04:32 PM |
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Oct 5 2009, 05:56 PM |
and by the way, I have now 'learnt' all the notes from fusion jam.. will be practicing from tomorrow at full swing.
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Oct 6 2009, 02:45 AM |
and by the way, I have now 'learnt' all the notes from fusion jam.. will be practicing from tomorrow at full swing. That sounds great, can't wait to see it!! Regarding so called "second dominants", it's pretty easy to understand tho so here's a quick and I hope useful lesson. The song is in a key of C#m or E major and regular triads are: E, F#m, G#m, A, B, C#m and D#dim. Dominant as it is should be major chord to have full domination over a chord, there are also minor dominants as we'll see in this exercise but what we need the most are major chords in function of dominant. Dominant is 5th degree in a scale, in E major scale we have B chord at 5th degree and it's all ready major so we're good with that one. Now let's have a look at parallel minor which is C#m, you might wanna look at it as a key of C#m for better navigation. It's dominant is G#m, this chord is minor and it's already included in a key. Now, G# chord has been appearing few times and it can be considered 2nd dominant for 6th degree chord (which is C#m) in a key of E. Now it's time to deal with F# chord, it works as 2nd dominant for our regular dominant in a key of E which is B chord. Pure "dominant" for B chord in a key of E would be F#m but it's minor chord and it doesn't really dominates that heavily over B chord. That's why we use F# instead. For better understanding of this I suggest you to play few chords, something like this: E (root), than F#m (2nd degree), A (4th degree), B (5ths degree), go back to E and then play F# (major) with following B, eventually you might wanna end whole thing on E. You'll hear how this F# major gravitates to B chord, it's 2nd dominant (for real dominant) in a key of E. -------------------- Youtube
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