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GMC Forum > Discussion Boards > VINTAGE GMC > Community Activities and Tutorials > Ask an Instructor > Alex Feather
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Nov 18 2012, 06:21 PM
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QUOTE (AdamB @ Nov 16 2012, 10:50 AM)  -What are your goals? I want to be able to play anything, and push the boundaries of what can be done with a guitar. I always feel like I'm playing continuous catch up with other people though, I think simply because I haven't put in enough hours of practice yet. I find it hard to find time to practice, as I work full time in a reasonably demanding job, so I get up at 5am to practice before work and then practice again in the evening after work. I've been doing this for a few years now. I get very depressed that I can't put more time in though and that affects my practice quality as I get distracted by the fact that I want to be practicing 10 hours a day but can't. My dream is to make enough money to quit my job and start practicing ridiculous ammounts to get to where I want to be, but I don't think it's ever going to happen because of financial issues. I would kill to get a chance at playing in a real band, touring around playing big venues and the like, but where I'm from this isn't really possible. -What is your weakness? Most everything. I have discipline ( i practice 4 hours each weekday - weekends vary but I usually get a few hours done. I structure my practice time with a log book ). However my technique is still flawed (and I'm just using the standard AP, sweep, legato, tapping that every other guitarist uses). I can play reasonably fast and complex stuff, however I can't make it through a simple pop song without messing it up several times (when I play live with the band I'm playing with at the moment I mess up at a couple of times in every song we play). I also get depressed after playing live, because the other musicians are not great (there isn't many musicians where I'm from) and the venues are terrible. I can't sheet read (I can read key signitures and their relative minor's instantly from training on my iphone, but reading individual notes is very slow for me). I can improvise but only over blues progressions where I can just stick inside of pentatonic boxes, and then I tend to recycle the same sounding licks over and over. My ear is not good. I can recognize intevals (I use tenuoto on my phone to train) both harmonic and melodic, however when listening to a real piece of music I cannot hear the intervals (I think because my brain has just memorized the sound of the intervals in the exercise and not the actual pitch distance, I can't apply it to real world situations). I can *sometimes* (but rarely) recognize chord types (major, minor, aug, dim etc.), but this again is much better when it's in an exercise. I can tell you what all the notes on the fretboard are, but I can't use it whilst playing, when I'm playing I am not in anyway aware of the key or scales I'm using for the most part, unless it's a practiced-in lick that I already know the scale/key of. I find it really hard to learn to play by ear, I try to transcribe things but I will spend hours looping the same 1 bar and not be able to figure it out. -What is your strongest point? Discipline, to an extent. I will sit and practice things to a click and plan practice sessions in a practice log and will do this for every hour I can get available, however I tend to only practice technique as I really want to be able to execute anything I want to be able to play (I'm really into shredding and that kind of stuff), so if I make time to improv and that kind of thing I worry that I'm not meeting my primary goal to shred like a monster and I get depressed quickly. -Your favorite guitar players? Steve vai, paul gilbert, muris varajic, dimitar nalbantov, van halen, petrucci, malmsteen, jason becker, hendrix. I really love the G3 CD's, and generally anything with over the top guitar playing. My favourite is seeing someone pull of some horiffically complex solo live, there's something really thrilling about that. Awesome!!! I am glad you have joined!!! I worked with Steve Vai and he is one of my favorite players! Actually my mentoring should work perfect for you because we will be jamming a lot! I will be recording my takes and we will be going back and forth! So for your first assignment I have a very nice exercise! It will help you with your timing and will develop your technique and get your hands synced! The trick is to practice it very very slow using a metronome, you playing one note per click! For example set it to 80 BPM I wouldn't suggest to go over 100 BPM! You will see a huge progress in a few weeks! Here is the tab E ||---------------------------|----------------------------------------| Here is a guitar pro 
Hands_workout.gp5 ( 4.5K )
Number of downloads: 112Start working on it and in a few days I will create a new assignment for you! Let me know if you have any questions or need help with anything! -------------------- |
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Dec 3 2012, 08:04 PM
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QUOTE (AdamB @ Nov 26 2012, 05:03 PM) Cool yea how'd you manage to get Vai to play on one of your tracks? That's amazing. Yea I've been doing the exercises each day. The first 4 I find pretty easy, I can do them all at over double the max suggested tempo. I started playing 3 and 4 in the next scale box position, so playing the same notes but up the fretboard in the next position, as I was finding it very easy in that first position. Moved up to the next position it's pretty easy at 80bpm, but I can't do it anywhere near as fast as the other position so I'm working on that. The 3nps scale one I find easy picking-hand wise but my left hand messes it up after a few repetitions so I'm repeating that one a few times. Also the bit where it reverses direction on the high E/B string is weird where you have to roll the little finger down. I can do it slow, but sped up it creates a kind of hiccup in the smoothness of it, so I'm working on that. Hi So I have created a backing track for you The chord progression is: Ami - F - Dmi - G Let's try to play over it we will be doing a jam back and forth you will do a take and I will do a take!  Here is what I would like you to use over it A minor pentatonic  D minor pentatonic  Here is the track 
A_minor_jam.mp3 ( 2.72MB )
Number of downloads: 118Let me know what do you think -------------------- |
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