Malmsteen Made Easy, Lesson By Ben Higgins Options

[Tadas]

Original lesson: Malmsteen Made Easy by Ben Higgins

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[Kristofer Dahl]

Hi Tadas and welcome to GMC!

Your video made my day - you have got such a lovely tone and we can see how serious you are about your playing 😁

I would like to encourage you to think about the efficiency of your right hand movement - especially when you are practicing at slower tempos, as this is your golden opportunity.

When watching you sweep pick here, I got the impression your were not doing one single stroke motion for for all the swept strings. This is a necessity in order for your technique to convert to the higher speeds. So to clarify, it kinda looked like you were doing some standard picking motions when sweeping.

You could also - again, for practicing purposes - try using a smaller picking movement in general when you are alternate picking. This will help you prepare for higher speeds. Please note that the larger motions you are doing in this video, are much more beneficial for great tone. So my advise here is intended to broaden your horizons, not for you to change course.

Again you are doing really good here, keep at it - can't wait to follow your progress! You get a 9 from me.

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[Gabriel Leopardi]

Hi Tadas!!

This is a great take friend! You have many strong points here. I personally like a lot how Malmsteen licks sound on Les Paul guitars so your video has been very enjoyable!

Regarding your playing, it's great to see you putting all that emphasis on your vibrato technique. It sounds very consistent! Keep going in this direction.

I agree with Kris about your Sweep Picking motion. This is clearer when you play the licks at 00:51. And I also think that your right hand movements can be smaller when you play Alternate Picking. This details are not dramatic at this tempo but it will affect your performance when trying to play faster stuff in this style.

Finally, It seems that your left hand is not relaxed when pressing the frets. This is normal when playing new stuff, but I recommend you to focus a bit on relaxing this hand and avoiding doing too much strength when pressing the frets.

So to summarize, the key is to economize movements and strength.

This is very promising, keep on rocking!

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[Todd Simpson]

First off WELCOME TO GMC!! You clearly have been putting some time in on the Guitar!! I run the SHRED BOOTCAMP here at GMC, so if you want to try it just send me a Personal Message. I think you are more than ready. It's 400 Missions about learning to play crazy things. Starts easy, gets crazy.

As for this REC, SUPER CONGRATS on learning the entire piece. SUPER CONGRATS on your performance! It was emotive and fun to watch. That's a bit key thing for me. Does the performance make people want to watch it? Yes!!

Technically your doing well on this. It's a very technical bit of music. Lots of pedal points and arpeggios. I did notice that your picking hand is wagging a bit farther than it needs to. When alternate picking, during medium/faster tempo bits, it's a good idea to use a minimum of "pick wag" e.g. how far the pick moves away from the string. Keeping the pick closer to the string after each strike makes it easier to recover for the next strike. It's a small thing, but can help a lot.

Also your sweeping is good here, but almost like a picked chord rather than a sweep. Try to use a "pick rake" motion during sweep bits. This is just dragging the pick along the string in a single motion. Rather than picking each string.

I did notice that your vibrato is quite good. Starts small, swells up, then returns to normal. Good vibrato is critical for musical expression. Yours is quite good.

Overall I'd say you KRUSHED it.
Nice!!

Todd

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[Darius Wave]

Hey there!

Really nice take with good tone match. For the future try to remember that slow tempo is for you to learn some healthy hand behavior/picking direction habits. You may not be able to spot any problem in such a slow tempo but in a faster one it would definitely appear. Your main issue in this take is a random picking direction. In original take Ben has very consistent and straight-forward picking direction assignment. For example all the beginning, diminished arpeggio has alwas an accent on a strong beat and this accent is always on the downtroke. You've messed the picking direction in this part, having reversed picking at some points.

Same thing with the neoclassical "one string fugue" lick - you pick in opposite direction. Down and up strokes have their specific feel to it and makes you relate differently to the main beat/groove.

In the part that starts at 0:22 what you do is not a sweep picking. You pick is jumping instead of "slipping" from one string to another. It does not work this way in faster tempo.

In playing developement there are no shortcuts. Learning just the draft doesn't teach you much. Try to rethink things - lessons liek this are made slow so you could copy the exact mechanics of hands and have enough time to focus on them while playing. You did pass on this part , performing the takes that is beginning to actual work and profit of this lesson. It is a common mistake and underratement of details in lessons. Every details has a reason...please always respect them and you go far with your playing

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[Fran]

Pass: 8.5

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