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Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Oct 2 2014, 09:46 PM

Hi Aris! Welcome to your thread for Gab's Army as we agreed via PM!

Here I will copy all the info that you've gave me about you because it will help me as a reference to start working.


"At first your style lessons came to my attention while I was looking to decode some of the techniques of my favorite bands so I can use it in my own compositions. At first I really liked the skate punk lesson although I don't listen to the style so often but it felt that the parts you composed are capturing the best of it. I was also very glad that you put up social distortion and the stooges (the latter was the least expected and I m glad you find it worthwhile even if it maybe too easy for your playing).

Lately I have watched a couple of your video lessons on soloing techniques and improvisation and tried practicing some of the materials on scales and patterns.

I would like you to be my mentor in my musical journey. My experience should be on a basic level. I am also familiar with minor/major scales but not fluent. I have also had four live performances with my band at small nights.
Since I am already 33 years old + full time job + kids, my time to practice is limited. However, I have decided to make a consistent effort to pursue this dream of mine and spend about an hour every day practicing. Due to this goal I mostly play guitar while practicing instead of learning covers. I understand I have to improve my technique, speed and accuracy before I can play the songs I like with confidence and come up with fresh ideas.

I believe you would make an ideal instructor for me since you definitely have the knowledge, technique and you are also very familiar with the styles that I am mostly interested in. I am only mentioning styles because I won't have enough time to start with classical music and end up where I would like to be smile.gif

To give you an idea, some of my key goals are:

- to be able to play guitar with confidence
- to be able to improvise
- to create tunes based on my personal ideas and musical styles of interest
* BUT you know better what it takes to do all this and more."


You goals are very clear and define our next steps. I would like to invite you to share here some audio and video of you playing to let me see your current level, your strong and weak points.

Posted by: Aris Oct 6 2014, 02:17 PM

Hi Gabriel,

I just realized you already opened the threat for me so I am resending here some of the recordings that I pm 'ed you earlier today. I 'm really sorry I can't share the band's part in this threat. I hope you don't mind. There are no copyright issues of course (not such a bright idea anyway)

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Oct 7 2014, 12:35 AM

Hi mate, thanks for the videos! Based on what I could see I will suggest a guitar routine to start polishing your technique but also to work on scales and improvisation. The idea is to have a complete workout that you practice every day.

You said that you have 1 hour each day for practice. I was thinking on something like this for the first week:

Warming up (5 minutes)
http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/ls/Picking-Arpeggios/

Alternate Picking (15 minutes)
http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/ls/Alternate-Picking-Workout-2/

Phrasing (15 minutes)
http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/ls/guitar_loves_piano/

Rhythm (15 minutes)

Improvisation (15 minutes)
Improvisation Course - http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/guitar_forum/index.php?showtopic=42832&view=findpost&p=694411


I let you choose the rhythm lesson since you have many in mind... what do you say?

Posted by: Aris Oct 7 2014, 12:19 PM

Hi Gabriel,

Thank you for your advice. I feel so much better to have a routine that fits to my needs This is very interesting stuff.
I 'll think of something interesting also for my rhythm practice and I will check with you first, to see if it fits the purpose.

I 'll also try to send you stuff from my practice so that you can also watch if I am in good pace and see where I'm struggling.

I have to say since I our first communication I 've been sleeping less but practicing more . I must be pretty excited!
I hope I can squeeze some more time in my daily schedule as I did this week.

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Oct 7 2014, 03:31 PM

Hi Aris!

Great to know this! There are two main goals behind my mentoring program, the first one is keeping you motivated, and the second one is keeping you making music, exercises are an excuse but our main goal is making music.

For these two reasons, I want to suggest this:

- Please let me know, every time you start to feel motivation or that you start to feel tired of an exercises. That's when it's time to change things and make the "new" again.

- Learn the lessons as they are, master them, but also, at the same time, use the backing track to improvise with the scales suggested, create variations of the licks from the lessons, play random notes, combine your phrasing with the lesson phrasing, in other words: make music.


Finally, it will be great if you can post here videos or audios frequently to let me monitor your practice. Share stuff playing the lessons, practicing them, improvising, and everything... I will be happy to give feedback.

Ok friend! I hope that you enjoy your first week of practice at Gab's Army!

Posted by: Aris Oct 8 2014, 12:40 PM

Yes!!! I so hope I can make music.

I already started with the routine you proposed last night. Felt good!

Since I want to learn a few of your lessons , I chose Social distortion style for my rhythm practice. http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/ls/Social-Distortion-Style/.
I know I should focus on the rhythm parts more than the melodies.
Please let me know if this will do the job or you had something different in mind.

Below, I'd like to share some difficulties I had during my practice:
- Phrasing: For now I seem to be straggling with the timing of each note when I need to count "Q." durations. I understand what I need to do but in practice I need to really focus and play very very slow to hit the key at the right time. (I also tap my foot ) I guess I need to get used to it.

-Improvisation: The G shaped chord in CAGED system seems impossible. I can't reach the barre with my 1st finger on 2nd,3rd,4th strings.
Is it normal at the beginning?

I had many questions about how to approach each set in the routine but you covered me already
I will surely send you stuff as frequently as possible. Your feedback is valuable.

I 'm really grateful for your help

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Oct 8 2014, 03:16 PM

Hi Aris!

Social Distortion lesson is a very good idea! Yes, you have to focus on the rhythm part but it is also a good one to start working on rocker soloing. It's also a good backing track to practice the scales that you are working on, since it's in G major.

Regarding the phrasing thing, the timing and the notes duration, I have to say that the best I can recommend to master the is practicing the lesson over the original lesson, in order to copy the instructors timing, the notes duration and everything related to phrasing and expression. Maybe you will have problems to play everything at tempo, but be patient and dedicate some time to play along with the lesson to incorporate these details.

And about that chord shape. Yes, it's the less comfortable to play and honestly the one that I use less, but it's good to know it just to visualize the arpeggio and the scale around it. In order to get used to this type of shapes, just dedicate some minutes every day to keep on fretting the shape with your left hand, to stretch your fingers and get used. You will feel more and more comfortable with the pass of days.

Please feel free to share stuff and questions here every time you need it, the more interaction we have, the more connected, and this will make big things happen.

Posted by: Aris Oct 9 2014, 09:25 AM

Hi Gabriel,

I have uploaded also the guitar that I wrote in a song that we play with the band <file #01> so that you can have more information on my competency if you need it. I 'm sending it altogether with the first stuff I sent originally so that you can find it all in one place here.

I also watched your improvisation lessons week #8 yesterday where you pointed out a lot of great ideas on how to practice and learn it (As you usually do in all of the lessons I have watched). Since according to my routine I 'm working with stuff from week 1 and my free time is limited, would you recommend to practice VChat lessons also?

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Oct 9 2014, 09:54 PM

Hi mate! Thanks for the update. Thanks for your words on that message video, it make me feel very proud.

It's good to have those videos as reference for the future and also to let me know where you are now regarding technique. There are things to polish and to work, off course, but you already have a good background.

I can see that you are working very well on tasks from the Improvisation Course Week#1. You are still getting used to the shapes and notes, but with some more days of practice, you will be able to create more musical phrases. That should be the next goal. So, please continue with Week#1 and also start working on Week#2. Replay those sessions.

I would like to see you playing the lessons from the first routine soon, is it possible?

Posted by: Aris Oct 10 2014, 10:46 AM

Hi Gabriel,

Thanks for staying close.

Yesterday was day 3 of my routine practice.
I feel I'm familiarizing with the material very slowly (given 15 minutes per section) so since I have not learned a full section yet, I guessed it would not be worthy to send you something with just a couple of parts from each section. I 'll try to record something during the weekend anyway...even parts.

My methodology for working at each routine section (15 minutes each) is the following:
Within 15 minutes, I try to memorize the next part and rehearse older parts. Sometimes 15' seem to be little time to do both.
In improvisation section, after studying the sequences and arpeggios, next time I will start to play over the backing track. I will try to play both arpeggios and scale.
If I feel confident enough I will try to play random notes and phrases also. I hope I 'm going the right way.

I am not sure if I 'm ready for week 2 but I will check.

I figured that I need to be more disciplined with the schedule since sometimes I play way over 15 minutes and I end up with no time left for other sections (even though I always play more than 1 hour per day).
The rhythm section has paid the price twice already. Just sharing some thoughts....

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Oct 10 2014, 02:59 PM

Hi Aris, this is a very valuable analysis of your diary work.

It made me think on something that I think it's an interesting thing. Every time I say to a person, you have to practice between 1 and 3 hours per day to become a better guitarist. They think, oh that's a lot! But the curious thing is that if you have a well organized routine, covering the important aspects, and divide your time to practice each one, you start to feel that 1 hour is the minimum that you need. You finally have to dedicate 15 minutes to each thing and while you practice you notice that you need more for it. This is something that happens to me even when I create 3 hours routines, so I think that the more focused we are, the more time we will want to practice each topic.

My recommendation to your time issue is to be a bit ore flexible with the routine. If one day, you are more inspired to practice AP, you can let one of the techniques for the following day, but at least dedicate 5 minutes to the other technique just to make you muscles keep on feeling familiar with the motions. The main goal is always keep on motivation at the top level so I think that the best is to be enough flexible to keep it flowing.

About your recordings, it's ok if you want to dedicate some more time before you share stuff just to play the whole thing, but remember that I'm here to help you so maybe just sharing a short fragment can make me discover something that can be fixed to make your practice more effective. As this is not a face to face course, we need to use technology to stay closer and connected.

The phrase "week" and the number are added just to identify each routine, but most of the times it can take more time to master the lessons of each one. Your comment made me think that maybe I should use another terminology to identify routines... I will think on it. Thanks for the inspiration.

Ok friend, keep on the hard work and please updating me here.

Posted by: Aris Oct 14 2014, 12:19 PM

Hi Gabriel,

Thank you for your advise.
I prepared some stuff to show you regarding my routine so I send them with this message.

I feel that out of all the routine, only alternate picking seems to be feasible for me right now (even with lower speed). However I surely make some progress in all of the stuff even if it is successfully switching from one chord to only one other chord.

Some small insight on the videos I sent today:

- warm up - picking arpeggios: I originally had much difficulty to switch from the first chord to the second one. Now at day 5, I seem to manage better. What still seems impossible is stretching my hands to reach chord 3 and even worse chord 4 as you could tell from the video.

- alternate picking: this seems possible (i m not sure about speed yet) if I manage to remember the queue of all the notes while playing. I will need to play on this a little more time to get familiar with it. I'm currently playing at 160bpm which for the moment gives me time to think what comes next.

- phrasing: I'm not sure about the timing here. I try to imitate the lesson but this is very subjective. I find my self waiting to hear the note play from the lesson so that I will follow. If I try to play on my own over metronome then I m not sure where to start each phrase. I will focus some more on the details and perhaps set a few checkpoints.

- rhythm: The only problem at slow speed (140bpm) is hitting the lower strings when I change from the first G chord to the D chord. I tend to miss the lower strings since my right hand naturally follows the pointing finger of the left hand (which is placed at string 3 for D chord) and the right hand strikes the higher strings mistakenly.

- improvization: This really hurts!... I hope you won't kill yourself from boredom. [Caution: You might have a nervous laugh ]. I hope tonight the patterns and arpeggios will be more connected in my mind eventually. So I will hopefully have something better to show very soon. At this point I feel that each chord in the backing track is played for very short time for me to have time to play the scale/arpeggio for each chord. Maybe I shouldn't try to play a lot of notes.
I also tend to play over each chord starting from the same couple of notes which does not give me room for interesting variations.

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Oct 14 2014, 01:37 PM

Hi Aris! Thanks for this great report! I think that you missed to share the videos to let me analyze your playing and comments... Sending a PM right now!

Posted by: Aris Oct 14 2014, 02:40 PM

Yes I'm sorry about that.
I was trying to send it but it was failing. After a lot of tries all files are now uploaded.
So as it seems the problem was caused by big file (119MB) which needed more time to be uploaded and eventually timeout occurred. I have now reduced the size and it worked.

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Oct 14 2014, 09:36 PM

Downloading everything now! Have you thought on uploading your videos to youtube to make it easier to upload and watch?

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Oct 14 2014, 10:51 PM

Hi again! I've been checking the progress of your videos. Here are some comments:

- Alternate Picking lesson: This one needs more practice every day. You are not comfortable yet with the different sections but it's evolving ok. It's just a matter of time. Please check out the section starting at 00:44 because you are playing different notes comparing it with the original lesson.

Phrasing / Guitar Loves Piano: Yeah, I can notice that you are not playing it with the correct timing. The best will be to practice this one over the original lesson for some days until you incorporate the melodies. Sing along with the tune, and also try to sing it when you are not playing the guitar. Get familiar with the different phrases and the timing, and notes length issue will be fixed.

Picking arpeggios: It's clear that you are still getting familiar with the chord shapes so just keep on practicing it. Divide it in smaller sections and practice them as a loop. Once you can change the chords smooth and can make the notes sound without being cut as if you would be playing with staccato, connect the different sections.

Week#1 Improvisation: Great to see you experimenting with this one. You are now experimenting with the different shapes, getting familiar with the notes and how they sound over the different chords. I can feel that you are also trying to make it sounds musical, and I have to say that's the road you have to take. Try to create nice melodies with this stuff, that's the main goal. Keep on exploring this major shapes!

Guitar loves piano take 2: The same than the previous one for this lesson.


The zip file 3 fails here, don't know why...

Posted by: Aris Oct 15 2014, 09:32 AM

Hi Gabriel,

Thank you for the valuable feedback and advice.

I also agree with your comments, I will follow your advice. I am pretty glad that I am on the right track with improvisation lesson.

Here, I was able to download and watch part 3 successfully.It may work if you try again. In any case I have re-uploaded it directly (non-zipped).
Please see if ti helps. I will also check youtube option later on.

Posted by: Aris Oct 15 2014, 01:33 PM

Hi Gabriel,

Please let me know if you have now managed to download the rhythm video.

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Oct 15 2014, 03:46 PM

Hi Aris! yes, the video is working now!

Social distortion: The first thing that I note when the video starts is that your guitar is not correctly tuned. Remember to always check the tuning before you start a new recording. Your timing is good on the first part but I heard some little timing issues in the palm muting section. If you check my palm muting part, you will note that I use only down strokes. You should play it in that way to get a good palm muting sound as soon as you start practicing this one with some drive. It would be good to hear you playing this one over a drum track and with a guitar tone closer to the original.

Posted by: Aris Oct 16 2014, 08:41 AM

Hi Gabriel,

Thanks again. BTW it is very embarrassing to be caught out of tune.
I will follow your recommendations and will try to send you new samples as fast as I can.

For improvization, I recorded a backing track with the same chords but playing each note for longer time (4 bars instead of 2 bars) so that it will give me more time to move around each scale/arpeggio shape. I hope it's a good idea. I think the first signs are positive but I'm not sure yet.

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Oct 16 2014, 02:07 PM

Hi mate, that sounds great and the new backing is an excellent idea! You will have more time to dedicate to each chord so you will be able to explore more the fret board. Well done!

Posted by: Aris Oct 20 2014, 01:09 PM

Hi Gabriel,

How was your weekend?

I followed your advise and singed along to the phrasing track as it was playing through my speakers. A few times I was trying to sing it while I was playing.
Here, after soooooo many takes, I have uploaded 2 more samples regarding my phrasing practice.
In one of the videos I play with headphones on for timing reference and the other video is played completely out of mind.
I think that my notion of time is completely subjective, especially with notes of longer durations, but this is as good as I can be up to now.
Let me know if I need to do something extra to better this.

I will try to send more samples on the other stuff very shortly.

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Oct 21 2014, 02:54 AM

Hi Aris, good job! Both timing and notes length are getting closer to the original lesson. There are off course some differences here and there but you are on the right track. The "metronome" version has pitch issues that seem to be related to the tuning of your guitar.

Another thing that I note is that you should improve your vibrato technique. It's not consistent, and regular. It's weak yet. I recommend you to check out this lesson:

http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/ls/Bens-Vibrato-Odyssey-5/


I would like to hear you playing guitar loves piano lesson over the backing track and with a tone closer to the lesson, is this possible?

Posted by: Aris Oct 21 2014, 09:20 AM

Hi Gabriel,

Thank you for the valuable advice.

Apparently, my guitar is going out of tune until I play one descent version...I have to tune more regularly!
I will follow your advice and send in a new version.

Here I have attached some more stuff from my practice:

- rhythm over drum loop and a closer tone to the lesson.(I 'm sorry, after the take I realized the baking drums change in different places than guitar riff/solo changes and it sounds bad at some point(especially in the end)....I will short it out next time since I will need to play a 100 more takes to get it right again )

- alternate picking up to part 5. (2 more parts to Go!) - 200 bpm

- picking arpeggios parts 2 to 3. (I am really straggling with the chords in parts 4,5 and 8 as I cannot stretch my pinky enough to the note in string D - especially in part 5 where frets are further apart).

Since it took me the whole evening for the above parts, I didn't have any time for the improvisation routine.I hope I can move faster in the future since I frequently have to ditch one of the practice sections just to see some notable progress in another.
I 'm planning to put some extra weight on the improvisation (week1) tonight.

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Oct 21 2014, 03:20 PM

Hi Aris! Thanks for the new videos. Here are some comments:

- Rhythm lesson:

You are following the groove right in the section from 00:00 to 00:34, however there is still room to go tighter with the backing track. Then, when the melody starts at 00:35, the timing issue becomes more important, the melody is not going with the groove of the track there. The problem is exactly what you said, the notes don't go exactly with the hits of the drum, you have to be able to singe the melody over the groove, to understand it and then transpose it to guitar. That's what I recommend you to do to master it.

The palm muting section sounds better but you have to improve the connection with the previous part to make it sound smoother. It takes you a measure to find the new groove after the melodies. Finally, the last strumming, at 01:05 is not going with the drum loop, work on it.

- Alternate Picking:

I can notice that this lesson is improving compared with the previous takes. Try to make that your right hand moves more relaxed, let the wrist move a bit floppier. The part starting at 00:33 has some different notes, please re-check the original lesson.

Another important thing is to economize movements when you practice. I notice that your left hand fingers get out of the fret board and separate too much and that's not necessary. It's good to get used to keep the fingers closer to the fret boar to economize movements. The smaller the moments are, the easier will be to play the things faster in the near future.

- Picking arpeggios:

Good job with this one! You are starting to feel more comfortable with the chords positions and your AP technique is being more precise for arpeggios. Your playing is tight now, and the next goal should be to make the overall thing sound smoother. The notes are cut too early, try to make them last a bit more.

Posted by: Aris Oct 22 2014, 07:17 AM

Thanks again Gabriel,

All points noted!!! I 'll get back to you with new recordings trying to incorporate your suggestions.

Have a great day!

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Oct 22 2014, 04:58 PM

Great!

Posted by: Aris Oct 27 2014, 10:13 AM

Hi Gabriel,

The last few days I tried to focus mainly on improvisation course as I feel it is progressing very slowly.

I send here my own backing track with very simple drums and major chords (G,D,C,D) playing 4 bars per chord to have more time playing with each arpeggio/scale while still playing over the same chord. Any suggestions on improving the backing track will be most welcome.
(I know I need to polish the rhythm quitar in the backing track but I was mainly focused on the lead guitar )

I have two main concerns about my improvisation skills at this stage:

- When changing the scale for playing over the next chord, it does not feel like the new melodic part is the continuation of the previous. It just sounds like I am restarting an exercise over a different scale. You can see what I mean in the attached recording.
(P.S. You will also hear timing issues as sometimes I'm not sure when exactly the chord changes)

- I also tried playing over the original backing track (from week 1 notes) and I cannot switch from one scale to another when chords change so rapidly (e.g. 1 bar per chord).

Please let me know what you think.

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Oct 27 2014, 12:49 PM

Hi mate! Good job!

It's a great desicion to also create your own backing track for this workout, it makes the practice even more effective. About the backing, I'm not convinced about the drum loop. It sounds weird, too many snares, and I can't hear any hi-hat or ride, is there? I feel that the drum groove could evolve similar to this song:



What do you think?

And regarding your playing. You said exactly what's happening! You are playing this as an exercise and every time the chord changes, it seems like a new exercise. It's time to try to create phrases that interact, that are connected with each other, to give your jamming a direction, and evolution.



Listen to that track by Joe Satriani and analyze how his uses has the concept of call and response. How?

- Create shorter phrases that are related rhythmically and melodically.
- Use silence between phrases.

Check this lesson: http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/ls/The_tasty_etude/

- Use your voice to create melodies and then transpose them to guitar. Analyze if this melodies are around the arpeggios of each chord and let me know.

Your soloing is sounding like and exercise because you keep the same rhythm all the time and it makes it sound more like a technical practice, use more rhythm variations, silence and other expression tools.

Posted by: Aris Oct 27 2014, 04:20 PM

Hi Gabriel,

You are right about the drum loop. There is no hi-hat or rides. I will try to make the groove closer to "Los redondos". It will sound much better then.

I think I know what you mean about my improvisation issues. Thank you for all the tips. It helps a lot more that you gave me examples as well.
I will try with your suggestions and include some of the below observations. I expect that my improvisation will sound better then.
Perhaps, I should start with your other suggestion, trying to transpose some melodies from voice to the guitar and imagine how I would like the melody to evolve before I start playing it.
Again, you gave me a lot of useful tips. Connecting 2-3 of these together should change the scene surely. I should have something to send you soon.

Below I have tried to make a first analysis of Satriani's - the extremist where I think it uses the following:

--Yes!!! I see a lot of different rhythm patterns played and he uses pauses (even very short ones) at the end of most phrases

I also tried to do some non-technical decoding in questions and answers:

- He usually repeats the questions giving different responses each time
- Adjacent Questions have small rhythm/melodic variations. Similarly for responses
- Responses may also be small variations of the questions
- Sometimes questions will ascend the scale and responses descend or the opposite
- Other times questions will be mainly based on longer duration notes (half and quarter notes) and responses on shorter duration notes like eighths or sixteenths or the opposite
-a question may also be a repeating phrase. After it is played repeatedly, a response will follow.
- responses can also be formed by repeating phrases
- questions and responses can be short phrases or longer phrases (longer phrases have a feeling like going downhill then climbing up and start to roll with speed again)
-often responses are played in higher octave or lower octave than questions

Let me know if I have misinterpreted some stuff

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Oct 28 2014, 03:12 PM

Hi Aris, you are great man.

You not only took my suggestions, you take them farther doing a very precise analysis of Satriani's approach to phrases. Your analysis is very rich and I have to say that I've also learnt from it. Now it's time to start applying this concepts. An idea that comes to mind is to apply this concepts consciously at first, using your voice and transposing the melodies to guitar, and record each of the possibilities as different examples. I feel that it would be so cool so have it as reference and I think that it could be cool to share it at the forum for other students that will surely appreciate. What do you think?

Posted by: Aris Oct 29 2014, 03:54 PM

Hi Gabriel,

At least I 'm doing something right

It's good that you gave me an even more precise starting point. When I try to put it all together I get easily overwhelmed.
I will follow your advice and send everything I will have.
Let me know where exactly I should post it in the forum so that other students could see it too.

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Oct 29 2014, 06:31 PM

You are doing many things right!

You could start a thread at Practice Room sub board: http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/guitar_forum/index.php?showforum=7

Posted by: Aris Nov 6 2014, 03:03 PM

Hi Gabriel,

I hope you are doing well! I 'm a bit bumped that I had to miss last night's lesson for once again. I know I can watch it later but it's always better to chat on the spot.

I haven't written to you for almost a week now, but this is because I wanted to complete my task first so I have something to show you.
During this time, I' m trying to record all the options according to my analysis and put them up in the practice room eventually.
I seem to have some melodies down for a few of the analyzed points. They are not so exciting but if I try to be more choosy it may take me a month for something good.

Now I' m trying to make up some melodies that will include the two remaining points in my analysis so that the post is as complete as possible.
However, I find it hard to make up really interesting melodies in the available time I have.

I also wanted to mention that I have been using the same backing track for all recorded possibilities and most of my recordings demonstrate more than one of the analyzed points. I hope I 'm doing the right thing.

I must admit that I 'm getting very concerned about my progress given the fact that making more time for playing is not easy. However, I ll try to stick with my plan playing one hour per day at a bare minimum and hope for the best.

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Nov 7 2014, 12:26 AM

Hi Aris, thanks for this update.

I can feel that you have a very good attitude and energy regarding your practice and guitar playing. Your analysis is deep, and we have a very well organized plan here. Now it's just time to find the moment of your day when you can complete the diary tasks that are necessary to keep on improving and progressing.

I know that life is full of obligations and work to do, it's also difficult for me to find time to just enjoy guitar, even being a full time musician! I dedicate my life to my band, giving music course (at GMC and at my studio) and producing music and bands. I'm all day with music but I even find tricky to just sit down and practice or play guitar. I have to organize myself really good to do all the things I want to do.

You are very motivated and that's a very important thing. Try to find the way to organize your life to be able to play guitar at least 1 hour every day, and if a day it's so busy, play at least 20/30 minutes. We always can sleep 20 minutes less...

But, even more important is to enjoy music and guitar. I must not be an obligation, something that you HAVE to do, it should be something that you want to do. If not, it doesn't make sense.

About the quality of the phrases, don't worry about it, we are at learning and analyzing stage.

Posted by: Aris Nov 11 2014, 12:17 PM

Hi Gabriel,

I am so glad to talk to you again.
I am sure you are spending your time creatively (as I can also see from your numerous posts) and I can tell you are having fun with it also.

I just uploaded some examples in the practice room on question/response analysis.
I think I have messed up with my routine though, since while I was trying to make time for the improvisation task I had very little practice with the rest stuff in my routine so I am afraid I have no notable progress in the rest since the last posts.

However, since I have managed to make the improvisation post that I was mostly worried about, I will be more careful with the normal routine from now on.

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Nov 11 2014, 03:23 PM

Hi mate! Nice to hear from you again! I just found the post so I will check it in a moment, but I can say that it's looking great! Congrats on that deep analysis. Be sure that this analysis and conclusions will have a big impact in your playing, improvisations and compositions. These are the type of works that are much more creative and inspiring than practicing lots of hours of technique. So don't worry about the lowering the routing practice this last week, you can get back now, but let me say that it's not a bad idea to give priority to more "creative" stuff every time it appears.

Also, working on the routine exercises in a creative way is something that I always recommend. Learning the lessons, but then also creating your own variations, and using the backings to improvise your own stuff using the scales and concepts suggested is definitely the way to go.

Posted by: Aris Nov 17 2014, 03:30 PM

Hi Gabriel,

It's been long enough since the last time I sent you samples of my routine practice on the rest of the stuff.

Here are my samples:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqDCgGj8Sks&feature=youtu.be
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CT2S7QnCsG4&feature=youtu.be
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbNWX3wLplA&feature=youtu.be

(I 'll try to see if I can get rid of this awful background noise from future recordings since I only realized it was there after I did them.)

* Alternate picking - I recorded over backing track #02 of the lesson. I see that I still need to improve on my timing for the melody in part 7 and general accuracy. I have also tried to keep my fingers closer to the fretboard but I'm not sure if I have improved on this since the last video.
I will double check the lesson for adding the missing vibratos too.

* Warm up Arpeggios - This still sucks. Especially the 4th & 5th chords have a lot of accidental mutterings due to fingers not being able to reach. However, I feel much better since now I can almost stretch my fingers enough for these chords. So I am now thinking it will be possible with time whereas before I had very little faith
I played this over backing track #04 of the lesson.

* Rhythm (SD Style lesson) - I played all of the lesson except for the last part (I did not realize at that time it would be easy to try until I saw the tab the next day:o ).
Sorry about the tone. I completely forgot to check for similar settings. This was played over backing track #03 of the lesson

* I will have to redo the phrasing lesson. It is not as good as I thought it was.

BTW I liked Andy Timmons from the guitarists you proposed. At "Cry for you" the solo evolution seems so natural and goes over so many different moods. I hope this does not mean I 'm growing old seeking softer sounds It may be also that I was never too much into metal stuff except for some hardcore/punk.

Please let me know on your comments.

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Nov 18 2014, 03:53 PM

Hi Aris!! Great stuff here!!

I could notice that the thread about phrasing has been evolving and growing a lot and that's thanks to your great first analysis. Congratulations!! I think that Andy Timmons is a great one to continue with this analysis. He is very melodic and tasy, his tone is majestic as well as his feeling and vibrato but he can also shred that guitar when he want. A real master. Let's go for him!

About your takes, I can see that your playing is evolving, not very fast but it's going forward and that's the most important thing. The alternate picking lesson is the best one of the three. You can play most of the lesson with a good tempo and I think that one of the things to have in mind is the your muting technique to be sure that there are not unwanted noises while you play the different parts. Remember that when you are playing a lick, the notes that need to sound are as important as the ones that don't have to sound. This balance must be perfect. This is applicable to muting and also to silences when you are phrasing.

The picking arpeggios lesson is the one that evolved most, it's true that it's not tight, it has important timing issues in the second half but I can see that your fingers are getting used to those shapes and that your alternate picking is ok for this lesson. Remember to put your thumb (from your left hand) more in the middle of the other four fingers to make the stretches easier.

Finally the rhythm lesson is evolving well. The first rhythm section is ok, but you should liberated a bit more your right hand, relax it and let it move freely with the groove. The melody for the second part has important timing issues so please re-check the rhythm and practice it over the original lesson.


Ok mate, it's really cool to see you working hard and covering different aspects of your playing and musicality, just keep on the great job!

Posted by: Aris Nov 19 2014, 10:31 AM

Hi Gabriel,

Thanks to your recommendation I think also that the thread is becoming very exciting. It is really inspiring to read/listen to a lot of ideas coming from many different guitarists about their own approaches.

It is also very encouraging to hear that you can see my playing has evolved even a tiny bit.
I also understand your point on the recommended corrections and I 'm on it!

I 'm also practicing the phrases I have combined so that I will be able to send a decent recording at the improvisation thread.
I have used some "pen & paper" using guitar pro to copy and transpose the phrases I like from "SD style lesson", "tasty etude" and "guitar loves piano" but I still need some getting used to it before I record it.

Would you like to see the tab I made or it will be a spoiler of the real thing? I should be able to send the recording tomorrow morning in the improvisation thread.

I won't forget to be at the VChat this time

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Nov 19 2014, 03:39 PM

Hi Aris, great to know that the comments are helping. I really like to see you motivated and making music. About the "spoiler", don't worry about it, feel free to share it if you'd like me to check it at this point.

Posted by: Aris Nov 21 2014, 03:25 PM

Hi Gabriel,

Here is the guitar pro tab. Apparently I have made it a little too difficult in terms of note durations and added some parts today. This is why I haven't record it yet. It has took me so long that my friends at the threat will be tired of waiting.

I have tried to follow Kristofer's guidelines to see what I can come up with using some of my favourite phrases (maybe too many of them). I have used phrases from the lessons: Tasty etude, guitar loves piano, Social distortion and a couple of licks used by the Clash in Brand new Cadillac at the last part of the solo.

Let me know what you think or if it seems too complicated at this stage.
I look forward to any of your suggestions.

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Nov 21 2014, 05:07 PM

Hi Aris, could you please save the file for guitar pro 5? I cannot open it because it's for guitar pro 6... isn't it?

Posted by: Aris Nov 21 2014, 05:35 PM

Here it is. It won't let me readjust the volume controls for each track and save it but you should be able to do it and bring them in the right levels.

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Nov 21 2014, 06:08 PM

The guitar pro file sound VERY promising. It has very nice melodies that work great over the different chords. It is true that is sometimes doesn't sound totally applicable to guitar, some rhythms are a bit "robotic", as well as some note duration, but I think that you should change this a bit when you transpose it to your guitar. Try to keep the soul of the licks but adapt them to what you feel more natural while you play it regarding rhythms and duration. Don't worry about the variations that will appear while you play this stuff. I'm really interested on listening how you can play it in order to compare and give my thoughts about the differences...

Posted by: Aris Nov 23 2014, 01:41 PM

Hi Gabriel,

Very nice lesson on the improvisation thread. I also felt good to have contributed.

It is very impressive how easy you could come up with a simple yet nice melody straight from your head about every approach discussed in the VChat.

You have also given many helpful tips (e.g. how to play a melody with close variations). I also kept lots of notes Too bad I missed the VChat but thank God for the video.

I have sent the actual recording following Kristopher's approach both here and in the thread. Here is also the modified guitar pro file ( I have converted it down from GP6 to GP5). I haven't made many adjustments to make it feel more natural since I wanted to send something without more delay. I will try to better it though.

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Nov 23 2014, 05:43 PM

Hi Aris. As we suspected previously the main problem of the recording is that it is lacking breathing. The phrases don't have silences and that's fundamental let the listener to follow the dialogue and keep his attention. This is achieved with silences, shorter notes, and some more rhythm variations. You could even re-work this adding those three things into your playing. So, practice this idea a bit adding:

- Silences
- Shorter notes
- Rhythm Variation

Practice with all these in mind and record yourself once you start to feel comfortable. OK?

Posted by: Aris Nov 24 2014, 12:22 PM

Thanks again Gabriel I' ll do that and keep you updated as frequently as possible.
One clarification: by short notes you mean to play eighth/sixteenth notes also instead of playing only half/quarter notes?

I also wanted to ask you.... In the special lesson on question-response approaches, the examples you played for each approach did not involve changing the scale to the key of the chord played each time (if I am not mistaken):

e.g. I noticed that you play the question always in the same key although the chord may be different each time but the overall progression is in the scale of this key so it's fine.

The way I practice it is different....As you can see in my samples, I try to change the scale based on the key of each chord which complicates things for me in the process of making phrases following each approach.

So you reminded me that I could play questions always in the same key of the chord progression and could play the responses on the same key/scale of the chord played at each time. So for example if the chords progression is G-D-C-D, the scales could be used as follows:

G major scale (Question) -> major scale in the <key> of the chord played at that moment (response)
G major scale (Question) -> major scale in the <key> of the chord played at that moment (response)
and so on....of course this is just an option


Let me know if something else would work better in this case.

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Nov 25 2014, 04:59 AM

By "shorter" notes you I don't mean to play fast, I mean that you can add silences between some notes in the phrases, you don't have to make each note last until the following is played, does it make sense?

About the scale, yeah, I use to work with a key center when songs don't modulate and I basically keep on the same scale but tend to follow the chords with triads and arpeggios. That's more effective when you are playing on songs that are simple and don't modulate. When playing jazz things are different since there are usually many chords borrowed and modulations.

Posted by: Aris Nov 25 2014, 10:39 AM

Thanks Gabriel,

Both points are very clear now

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Nov 25 2014, 06:07 PM

Perfect! I'll wait for the new take.

Posted by: Aris Dec 2 2014, 11:56 AM

Hi Gabriel,

How are you? I felt like giving you an update on my playing.

I haven't written for a while because I 've been trying to make some nice phrases for the improvisation thread (based on Kristofer's steps) so that we have something to talk about.

Unfortunately, I 'm still not happy with one small part of the melody that is missing. I don't know what's happening but I 'm getting stuck very often and it's moving very slow. I guess there is no methodical approach in this to maximize efficiency other than just taking the time to experiment.

I ll send what I have already very shortly. surely you could advise on it, although I 've had a lot of advice already and I feel it should be adequate. I don't know if I 'm over analyzing things.

Generally, I mostly have to deal with the below issues:

- I 'm struggling to change the rhythm while at the same time I need the new phrase to sound as a natural continuation of the previous phrase. The few phrases I have learned so far from the lessons etc do not seem to fit in so I am now trying to make up something.

- I have also realized that I try to squeeze my phrases to fit in the same bar before the chord changes, otherwise I will have to come up with a very different phrase since I should be playing around a different arpeggio. This probably causes my phrases to end up robotic.

- Also I find it hard to repeat the same question when the backing chord has changed since if the chord is changed I should then play the phrase in a different arpeggio so that it corresponds to the different chord. Thus, the new question will end up being a transposed version of the original question.

Although I am mostly consumed searching for meaningful phrases, I still play my routine almost every day. So I may not have the expected progress in the routine stuff but I feel there should be some.

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Dec 2 2014, 02:28 PM

Hi Aris, thanks for this post.

I can say that your attitude is great and that results will appear soon or later. You are practicing something that can be difficult to monitor: creativity and improvisation. Maybe you can't see notable progress every day but I can say that you are the same Aris who you were when we first started this thread. You have a technique routine that keeps on training your playing every day, and you are working on theory and concepts related to become a better improviser. So the main suggestion for you today is to be patient, enjoy the journey and to tell you that I can see that you are going forward.

"I 'm still not happy with one small part of the melody that is missing."

This is a good signal. Sometimes music appears and resolves naturally, some other times it takes a lot of time to finish an idea and feel happy about it. The best for this is to record the best you have today and let it rest. You can get back to ideas as many times as you want, but you don't have to stuck on an idea and stop creating. Creation needs practice, so as soon as you feel blocked, go for a walk, and if the block continues, let it for later and work on something more. If it's possible record anything that appears, even if you are not completely happy with it. Listen to it the following day or week and see if you can continue it.


- I 'm struggling to change the rhythm while at the same time I need the new phrase to sound as a natural continuation of the previous phrase. The few phrases I have learned so far from the lessons etc do not seem to fit in so I am now trying to make up something.

There is not one correct way to this. Experiment with rhythm changes, with similar rhythm, record everything, listen to it later. You are developing your own style so let your mind fly.

- I have also realized that I try to squeeze my phrases to fit in the same bar before the chord changes, otherwise I will have to come up with a very different phrase since I should be playing around a different arpeggio. This probably causes my phrases to end up robotic.

Trust more on your ears that in theories. If you feel that everything sounds robotic, and your song is not called "The Robot" , try creating phrases in other way.

- Also I find it hard to repeat the same question when the backing chord has changed since if the chord is changed I should then play the phrase in a different arpeggio so that it corresponds to the different chord. Thus, the new question will end up being a transposed version of the original question.

If the chord is so different than the one that was sounding with the first question, you will have to change the repetition a bit to make it fit. This usually happens when the chord progression is complex. You can keep a similar rhythm, but change some notes based on the arpeggio of the new chord sounding.

Posted by: Aris Dec 3 2014, 12:38 PM

Hi Gabriel,

I must say you have a gift in making all my frustration go away everytime
Perhaps you would make a great shrink too
Thanks for the suggested solution so that I won't have to throw away all my work so far. I will just call my song "the robot". hahahaha really funny!

I think my first proper morning wake up did the job well. As promised, I have prepared most of the solo based on Kristofer's steps and Cosmin's advice in the improvisation thread. I also tried to keep in mind your suggestions below:

I even found a nice melody for the missing part,unexpectedly. I have also made up my mind on the last phrase of the solo but didn't have the time to record the new ideas from 00:40 with the correct timing so that it makes sense[Especially the last phrase is really off time and messes up the whole thing....but I had to leave to work anyway]

Here is the URL for the track: https://soundcloud.com/aris-33/improv-on-kristofers-steps

My approach on this was the following(I have also quoted Cosmin's and Kristofer's comments so you can find it all here):

1. The first phrase starts at 00:08 with the question
2. At 00:11 ->00:18, I play a response to the first phrase
3. At 00:20->00:25, I repeat the question with a slight twist adding some notes (as it is quoted by Kristofer in step 4 below)
- Here I notice that there is some tension at the end of this question which remains unresolved
4: So At 00:28-> 00:35, I play the response to the previous question which is a slight variation of it but ending on the note of the next chord (which seems to resolve the question)
5. At 00:37 I guess this works as a small bridge towards the part that follows on the low strings at 00:40(this is quoted by Kristofer as step 6)
- I just figured it out today, so it is not played properly and it is also not timed properly so the melody is not so clear.
6. At 00:48 is the response to the above question in point 5
- I just figured it out today, so it is also not played properly timing wise but the idea is there
7. At 00:55 -> 1:00 is the last repeated question and the response could be the following notes although there is no pause. I played it as one phrase since it also popped up in mind one phrase. All questions and the response in this point are very similar to the original question in points 1 and 3. Again, I need to time this properly due to last minute changes.






Let me know on your thoughts.

Ideally I should wait until I correct the timing issue with the last phrase before I post it in the improvisation thread. What do you think?

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Dec 3 2014, 03:10 PM

Hi Aris! Great job with this improvisation!

I can notice that your soloing start to become more musical. The phrases breath now and that's a very good starting point. This is not maybe the most memorial group of phrases but it's a great new step in your improvisation skills. Once you can manage silences and structure more naturally, you will be able to put all your focus on notes choices and interpretation.

And talking about interpretation, I think that working on it could take this solo to a new level. The use of wider vibrato, slides, harmonics, bending, dynamics as well as a better use of groove and timing can improve this solo a lot.

This video can be very inspiring for this:

Posted by: Aris Dec 3 2014, 05:31 PM

Hi Gabriel,

Thank you for the fast feedback.

I checked the video and I can see the concept on how techniques like vibrato, etc make the phrases feel more natural and musical.
Of course in practice this is a different story for me but I think you sent me the video more as an illustration on the merits in using such techniques.

I 'll try to make a mental mapping of the characteristic feel of each technique - I thought a good way would be to find these techniques in familiar songs and remember the specific part of the song every time I 'm looking for a particular feel. Now I m only selecting one technique over another based on trial and error method.

I find it a bit difficult to use pauses but I think I got the point that most of the times I have to pause after each phrase. If there is any other point where pauses appear frequently it would help to know.
About structure, perhaps it would be more natural if I start my phrases closer to the start of each bar like at 00:40 to make the phrases more noticeable. At 00:20 and 00:28 I start at the middle of the bar and maybe the melodies loose some of their edge.

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Dec 4 2014, 02:09 PM

Hi Aris, you're right the video was just to show you how much a phrase can grow with the addition of expressive techniques. Steve Vai is the master of this, he is very obsessive on phrasing and expression and that makes his soloing sound so unique.

About phrases and structure, there is not an only way to use them, imagine that music wouldn't be as cool if everything would be always the same. You have to experiment, try different possibilities and notice when things work and when they don't but never choose the "safe" the road, always experiment, try new things, new possibilities and combinations.

What about working over a new backing?

Posted by: Aris Dec 4 2014, 05:05 PM

Thanks Gabriel,

I really get your point.
Yes, a new backing track sounds great!! Do you have anything in mind for my level?

Posted by: Aris Dec 5 2014, 03:01 PM

Hi Gabriel,

I found some time that I could play loud and recorded some of my practice routine. Please let me know on your thoughts.

Some quick comments on the takes:
- phrasing(Guitar loves piano):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHpZxKdGXws&feature=youtu.be
I have set some landmarks in the backing track as indicators to know how if I m on the right track and sometimes how long I should hold the silences or some notes with longer durations.Otherwise I can't trust my mind completely for this yet. Am I supposed to be able to play this with the right timing even without using the backing track?

- rhythm (SD style lesson) - I have uploaded too pretty similar takes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDFw3WFISNk&feature=youtu.be - should be best in overall
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RC-hNWeyClI&feature=youtu.be - I think this is a better take for the solo in the end
I 'll keep on playing this to improve timing and speed eventually. Since this may take a while though until I build up my overall speed ability so to be able to play over the 160bpm backing track, do you think now would be a good time to pick a different rhythm or you would suggest to stay in this lesson as long as it is needed for better and quicker results?

Also I wanted to ask you about the way I record my videos (so that you have a better sound quality and visual on my hands movements).
I use a laptop to record the video (pc_1) and a second pc to play the backing track from its speakers (pc_2).
Then I play the guitar using my amp's speaker. After tunning the volume of my guitar and the speakers playing the backing track, I hit record button on pc_1 which has the camera.

Another alternative would be to import the backing track in cubase and make both my guitar and the backing track sound via cubase, thus from the same speaker. Then record it using pc_1 with the camera. I 'm not sure if this will have better video and sound results.

What kind of setup and software are you using for this?

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Dec 5 2014, 03:04 PM

Well, we have lots of cool backings here.

This one is in Am and it's very simple: http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/solo-guitar/john-frusciante-lesson/

and this one is VERY interesting: http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/solo-guitar/beginner-solo-in-d/

Choose the one that inspires you more to create some cool phrases. You can also search for other ones in our archive.

Posted by: Aris Dec 5 2014, 05:49 PM

Thanks Gabriel,

I 'll do one of the two backing tracks that you proposed since you know better what should I be trying next.

I 'll check other lessons too. just to have an idea on what else is around.

Please also check the below post I sent earlier and let me know.

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Dec 5 2014, 07:48 PM

This one is evolving ok but it still has some things to improve. The most important is timing, sometimes you tend to go faster than you should and you lose the rhythm of some phrases (for example at 00:11 and 00:15, 00:58). About your question, yes, you should be able to play the lesson without the backing, just tapping the beat with your foot, but it can be trickier than doing it with the backing. However, as this one doesn't include a drum track, I think that it's essential to practicing the lesson tapping the beat.

Besides this timing issues, you should polish some ascending passages (00:15, 00:42), as well as your vibrato and bending techniquesw which are a bit weak on this one yet.




Great to see you working hard on rhythm! You have to be careful with the first part when you just have the hi hat because you are not totally tight when the drums start. Then things sound better, just be sure to now hurry up. You tend to strum a bit before the beat in some parts.

I think that it would be really good to start with another lesson but keep on playing this one 2 or 3 times every day.



I go for the second option. I use Cubase to play the backing and record the guitar, to then later mix it and replace audio on video using a video editor like Premiere or Vegas (there are lots of other ones, and some are free). This is the best way to get a high quality audio that will improve your videos and also let us listen to your playing in a more precise way. Please try it and let me know if you need some help.

Checking this video is a must!

Posted by: Aris Dec 8 2014, 01:42 PM

Hi Gabriel,

Thanks for your review. I need to work on foot tapping, since I often loose the beat over rhythms with lots note alternations within the same beat.
I will also follow the vibrato workout that you recommended and look for a bending exercise.

You are right about the first round of the chords in SD lesson. The high hat volume is too low at the start and I can barely hear it when I play.
Tapping my foot to stay on beat has already solved this issue though
However, I noticed that if I keep tapping my foot during the rest of the parts. I always loose it when it comes to the part with the mutings.

About the new lesson for rhythm practice, I did a search at GMC for rhythm workouts and found a lot of interesting lessons.
Most of these are based on my assumption that rhythm practice should be basically focused on riff patterns with variety in strumming patterns(down/up motion), muting etc.

Based on the above assumption, the below lesson would be great but maybe it's not recommended for my stage since it may take forever to learn.
http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/ls/offspring-style-riffs-medley

So, I think any of the below lessons maybe suitable too.
Amonst the two I would choose Rise Against. I think it has more variety in strumming patterns and mutings.
Let me know if any of these would be more suitable than the others.
http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/ls/Rise-Against-Hardcore-Punk/
http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/ls/Offspring-Style/

I am not sure if I should be looking for rhythm exercises (like the following) instead of style lessons. What do you say?
http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/rhythm-guitar/basic-metal-rhythm/
http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/rhythm-guitar/open-chords-rock-rhythm/
http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/rhythm-guitar/rhythm-exercise/

I will also try your suggestion for better recording quality. Thanks!!!

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Dec 8 2014, 04:33 PM

Hi Aris, thanks for the update! You technique is evolving well so we are on the right track with this practice. I think that all the lessons that you checked are very fast so maybe it will take some time to master them, but it's not a bad idea to start working on this kind of rhythms. You can use the slower backings to polish the sound and then slowly try to reach the normal tempo. For this purpose, one of my lessons (Offspring or Rise Against) can really work. I don't think that you need to work on a "technique lesson" if you feel comfortable with the "musical lessons". You can create shorter exercises based on loops of the trickier parts of your lesson if you notice that a part is giving problems.

It would be important to organize your routine, how is it looking now? Do you have it written on a paper with lessons and time for each one?

Posted by: Aris Dec 8 2014, 06:06 PM

Hey Gabriel,

It 's always nice to hear from you!

About my routine, I haven't managed to play the full routine in one day for a long time now. I usually split it between two days. I have to say it's getting pretty crowded but this is not bad since I need to work on all these things to improve. It's far better than having no direction and I have plenty of it. So I 'm happy about it !!!!

I do the split as follows:

- One day I only spend time on one of the improvisation tasks I have collected from you and the improvisation thread since I also have to take time and figure out things which does not happen easily yet. (However I try to play everything else for a couple of times before I focus on improvisation)
- the next day I do everything else properly (phrasing, rhythm, alternate picking).

I'd already started collecting everything together..so luckily it was easy to prepare the list.
About the improvisation tasks in the list...I cannot practice all at the same time but maybe I can work the first version for each task and then go to the next versions.

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Dec 9 2014, 02:46 PM

Awesome!! You're very clever mate. The routine that you have created based on our work here and the ideas suggested by Kris and Cosmin is so interesting and what's even better, it's exactly designed for you. I have nothing to add to this current plan, but I'm really curious to know how it feels each day, and to monitor the evolution.

Posted by: Aris Dec 9 2014, 04:45 PM

Thanks Gabriel! Great to know that I'm on course with the planning of the routine.

I 'll be in touch

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Dec 9 2014, 05:44 PM

Great!

Posted by: Aris Jan 12 2015, 05:39 PM

Hi Gabriel,

I hope you had a great time over your vacations and you enjoyed NYC to the max.
I wish you all the best for the new year and to bring only happy moments to you and your loved ones.

I haven't posted any samples for a long time.
Maybe now that things have progressed a little it seems harder for me to play well while increasing the speed so I don't have any decent takes yet.
I would also like to send better quality samples working with video software and cubase in parallel as we have discussed but the editing takes a little longer. So given the limited time I have I always tend to lean more in practicing more time rather than editing recordings.

Nevertheless, I know that sending quality samples is as much crucial as practicing so that I can receive accurate feedback and helpful tips which can save me from playing in the wrong way for longer. I 'll do my best to send some recordings. I guess the video doesn't have to be perfectly in sync with the imported audio as this does not seem humanly possible since the only way to sync the two is to eyeball the start of the waveform (from imported audio) to be as close as possible to the start of the waveform of the webcam audio.

I also wanted to ask you about another issue I have and I believe is also time to fix it. I 'm trying to learn some easy songs with chords so I can sing along to my little boy. He really seems to enjoy it and he literally forces me to play the guitar and sing. Playing the guitar only is not enough for him and I am always very glad to play for him.

So I picked up a song I liked which supposed to be easy but still I find it difficult to play and sing along keeping a steady beat and singing over the right strums. The specific tune I picked up is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WqJwpOpCU8

Do you have any suggestions or guidelines in this case? Perhaps I can make some room in the routine if you think is appropriate. BTW the social D lesson has helped a lot my rhythm playing and and I m glad to see this when I play chords.

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Jan 13 2015, 05:49 PM

Hi Aris, thanks for your message and your words! I wish you a year full of happiness, great things and goals achieved for you and your family.

It's good to know that you are starting the year with new ideas to make your practice and your videos better. Improving the quality of your work is not only a better way to let us monitor your progress, it's also a great practice of things that are also important for a musician which are recording, mixing, mastering techniques, video production and more precisely for guitarist, working on improving your tone. If you use a video editor to sync audio mix with video there won't be notorious sync issues so go for it. I recommend Vegas or Premiere among the professional and paid video editor, but you can also check some free editors.

About your question regarding singing and playing... yes, you're right, doing both things at the same time can be tricky when rhythm and vocal melody don't go with the same rhythm. As everything else, it requires practice. You have to isolate your right hand, and try to "automatize" it to be able to play it without thinking to much on it, while you sing. Work on small sections, as a loop, as we do with guitar exercises. You can definitely dedicate 20/30 minutes to it every day.

I think that it must be so awesome to be encouraged to sing and play guitar by your own son.

Posted by: Aris Jan 20 2015, 04:13 PM

Hi Gabriel,

Thank you also for your warm wishes.

Yes it is surely the best thing to see my kid pleased so much by something I also love so much. Often, he is staring at me like I am about to perform the biggest miracle in the world and hanging from my lips to sing even when I play terribly.
He seems to like music a lot. I have placed my portable sound system on the floor for him so he has it there on demand. He is only 17 months yet but I hope he is always close to music.

I have made my first two clips on one of the workout routines following the guide that you sent me. I used cubase and movie maker (free software) as shown in the guide. The recordings has a few bites but overall I feel better about it. I have tried to get rid of much of the unwanted sounds in my playing and increased the speed by 15 BPM this time (at 145BPM). Only +15 BPM left to go until I can play as fast as the original.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRB-JtujNFM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cIVUM3vMbQ

I'm planning to send more from the other routines also, but it takes me a lot of time until I am able to record a decent take. So I usually spend more time practicing all of the stuff instead of recording just one thing.

Please let me know on your comments and also if audio and video are in good sync.

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Jan 21 2015, 01:20 AM

hahaha that sounds epic! I love the way babies appreciate the world when they are discovering. We should never lose that sensation of "the biggest miracle in the world". If you ask me, I think that music, being able to hear is and to play it IS one of the biggest miracles of the world, and there are lots more but we get used to this and forget it with the pass of time... but music is so powerful.

The alternate picking lesson is evolving well, but there is still more work to do since your picking is sounding a but sloppy yet. This tempo is appropriated to keep on practicing the lesson, but in shorter blocks, trying to play tight, but also trying to pick strong to get a fuller sound of each note. Also, experiment with the position of the palm of your right hand since I think that it's muting too much the notes and the staccato becomes a bit excessive.

So please keep on working on this and off course post new videos as soon as you have them.

Posted by: Aris Jan 21 2015, 02:02 PM

Brilliantly stated, I totally agree. To play music also makes me feel a part of it and gives the opportunity to everyone who plays to be creative with it and make an impact (especially if one has great ideas and is able to play them). Even to be able to play a cover of a tune I like makes me enjoy the tune even more. So I guess "to play music" extends the lifecycle and depth of the impact of music in our lives.

Thank you for your comments on the alternate picking lesson. I hadn't noticed most of your observations this time so it is great that you pointed them out to me. I will follow your recommendations. I also play some small parts in a slower tempo to improve the way I land on specific notes which do not sound so clean yet.

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Jan 22 2015, 01:15 PM

Nice words Aris. I'm glad to know that the comments helped, please practice having those tips in mind and feel free to share a new version here.

Posted by: Aris Feb 11 2015, 12:57 PM

Hi Gabriel,

How are you doing? I look forward for the VChat today.

I have decided to send you at least one recording per week even if I have not entirely corrected all spotted issues from previous feedback.( I will target to record 3 different lessons from the routine each week but 1 recording per week sounds very doable as a bare minimum).

I see that when I try to record I play more with a purpose and will also give me the chance to have more of your valuable feedback. However on a recording day, I barely play the rest of the stuff in my routine.

I have also sinned with my improvisation practice , since I feel somehow weak about it and I end up not putting the hours to experiment. Instead I tend to play my technique routine where the results seem to be more measurable (more like I can play cleaner, faster instead of searching for a nice lick which may never come for hours)

Anyway, below I am sending you a take of my rhythm lesson (Social Distortion). This time I matched the speed with the lesson. Sorry for the sound , later I figured that tone should be lower for cleaner sound and guitar should be a bit louder compared to the backing track but I couldn't hear what was playing in the backing while I was playing my part. I tried many takes and got too late at night, so I let a few bad looking mistakes in this take (e.g. first round of chords is ugly, and solo moves faster slower to much the backing) . The good thing is that I can finally play the muted part at such high speed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFGax-3phmI&feature=youtu.be

If this is too bad for comments I will send an even better version soon.

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Feb 11 2015, 07:25 PM

Hi Aris, great stuff here. Weekly updates and videos sound good for me. It's a good way to keep you motivated and with clear short term goals. Let's go for it.

This take shows that you still need to work at a slower tempo, mostly during the guitar solo where the timing issues are important and I can relate them to the tempo that is not comfortable for you yet. The rhythm section seems to be ok during the intro, but the palm muting section is also having some timing issues. The melodies played during the second intro and chorus are not bad but I notice little timing issues too.

SO please work at a slower tempo (maybe 10 or 20 bpm less) and share a video here after at least 3 days of practice, or a week as you said.

Your guitar tone is also weird on this take, it seems that you are not using a cabinet simulator, it sounds like a pedal by line. What are you using?

Posted by: Aris Feb 11 2015, 09:42 PM

Thanks Gabriel I 'll follow your advice.

About my guitar tone you re right, I don't use a cabinet simulator, it is the sound of my Jekyl&Hyde pedal. I will check out some stuff of how to use cabinet simulators online. Unfortunatelly I don't have a POD.

I noticed that you also have a sound patch in the lesson. How can I make use of it? any particular software I should be using maybe?

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Feb 12 2015, 01:28 PM

Ah! That's the reason! You will be able to improve your tone a lot if you use amp simulators. Please go to the following thread, download the plug ins and follow the video tutorial with every details. Then let me know if everything works or if you need some more help.

The change will be really important!

Posted by: Aris Feb 14 2015, 10:51 PM

Great! I look forward to it.

Please also send me the link of the thread that you just pointed out. It seems that you missed it out from sending it to me.

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Feb 15 2015, 01:39 PM

This is the thread: http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/guitar_forum/index.php?showtopic=52512

Posted by: Aris Mar 10 2015, 04:22 PM

Hi Gabriel,

How are you?

Unfortunately a lot was going on here during the last week so I wasn't able to keep my promise to you and myself in sending recordings regularly.
One of the problems is that I have to play loud for a video recording which is only possible late at night but I feel so tired when it is getting that late in the day. So I usually do some practice and continue with the rest of the routine just before I leave to work.

I also missed some practices because I 'm checking on how to load these .vstpreset files that you have in the above link (using cubase 5) in order to improve my sound. I 'm stuck with it and I have taken it personally since I'm a tech guy.

however no luck until now. I can even load the factory .vstpreset files. I can only load .trackpreset files. I 've already looked in several different locations in my pc where Cubase might read the files from but with no luck. I thought maybe you have come across the same issue in case there is a cure. All i'm trying to do is to use the .vstpreset files (in your link above) with Cubase 5 (Windows7).

If this is not possible perhaps I should consider using Reaper instead.

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Mar 10 2015, 05:57 PM

Hi mate, this is the routine where I save the presets to be found by the plug ins in Cubase:



If you record your guitar by line you won't have the issues with volume. Let me know if it works!

Posted by: Aris Mar 11 2015, 04:30 PM

Thanks Gabriel,

Finally!!!! I 'm very happy now that it seems to work. From your screenshot I realized that I had to create the same structure for LePou plugins to be able to recognize the file. I was just throwing the VSTPRESET file somewhere in VST3 Presets folder. I was also missing the fact that the VSTplugins were also needed to access the preset files. Thanks I had already started to lose hope.

I figured this out at work so I didn't have a chance to listen to the sound result yet but it looks ok now.
I have also attached a screenshot from my setup in cubase just in case you see something wrong in the ordering of the effects ( IR, Tube screamer and Amp) or anything else.
I will also let you know and send you my new sound

About my recording problems, I need to have the sound coming out of the speakers so that it is picked up by the video tool and I can compare the two waveforms (from video and cubase) in order to synchronize the two as accurate as possible. Hmm maybe there is a way to send the sound from the speaker out to line in using a cable. This way it will also be present in the video tool. Perhaps this is what you mean but there is also another problem, since the PC and sound recording gear is in the bedroom which means no recording early in the day and the only other place to move my gear is the living room which is not a good place to be at all times.

I will figure it out eventually. It's not enough for stopping me

One more thing I wanted to ask you. Is it possible to use the patch for SD style sound in cubase? I see that the extension of the file ".h5e" corresponds to Line 6 POD HD500 Edit Preset File. Do you know of any software I can use to apply this sound using the file you provide in the lesson details?

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Mar 12 2015, 02:18 PM

Hi Aris, great decision to share that image here! The order of the plug ins is not correct so it won't sound good. The order should be:

Tube Screamer (pedal) - HyBrit (amp) - KeFlair (cabinet)

It's exactly what we do with real gear. We first connect the guitar to the pedal, then to the amp and the amp is connected to the cabinet. Does it make sense?

About the recording and time issue. You can continue with this way but you don't have to play the backing loud while you record videos. You can play it very low and the camera's mic will capture it. If then, the waveform is to small, you can use a process like maximizer to make it bigger and clearer.

Unfortunately pod's patches cannot be opened with other amp emulators. However, that tone was a Marshall amp with a bit of drive, so you could create it with Hybrit without problems.

Try one of these patches with Hybrit:

http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/guitar_forum/index.php?act=attach&type=post&id=40686
http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/guitar_forum/index.php?act=attach&type=post&id=41106

Posted by: Aris Mar 14 2015, 07:40 PM

Thanks a lot Gabriel, yes the setup order makes perfect sense. Somehow I mistook that the IR was some kind of effect pedal but as you said it's the cabinet. I can have different sounds now
Attached is how my sound setup looks now in cubase.Please let me know if this time the order is ok.

Below are also my first recordings using the effects. It's not my best performance but I am not consistent anyway so this is the best I could play at that given time.

Rise Against:
I recorded this in slow tempo (60 BPM) using Hybrit modern Hard Rock sound patch.
I had to use a standard size pick this time cause I couldn't find the smaller tear size picks I use and I felt some difficulties in hitting the correct strings. It felt like I had to change the amount of movement on my right hand. I believe it shows a bit in the recording.
Again this was recorded without any physical gear connected between my guitar and my sound card
http://youtu.be/CgjlUAN_4P0

Social distortion style Rhythm routine:
I speed it up a notch from 145BPM to 150BPM. For sure not perfect but let me know if you think I should keep this tempo or go back to 145BPM.
I used the Hybrit hard rock patch for the sound on this one. Again without any physical gear connected between my guitar and my sound card. Maybe I should also have used some pedal to light it up a bit in all the recordings
http://youtu.be/7_5mK2Lu4fo

Alternate picking 150BPM:
This recording has some problems in various parts.
http://youtu.be/vk7VJ41F0xk

The below take is better during the first part before the big pause. After that I totally lost my nerve (I was too tight to keep it consistent overall and should have been loose to do better) so I kinda quit in the end.
Here I also used hybrit hard rock sound patch with light tube screamer(again no pedal was connected).

http://youtu.be/T8Mbki4vvi8 - with emphasis on music
http://youtu.be/KmiJWHvsmDg - This is the same take as above with no emphasis to video or music.
Let me know if you prefer one effect over the other for evaluating recordings.

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Mar 15 2015, 06:54 PM

Hi Aris! Great stuff!

The new order of plug ins look good now. Please have in mind that the addition of tube screamer shouldn't be use for every tone since it adds more gain and sustain when it's required. I mostly use it for metal styles and some solos.

Let me share some thoughts about the videos that you recorded.

Rise Against:
This one needs to be polished since it has timing issues in many sections. There are some moments when this issues become more important as it happens on the section starting at 00:40, but this is something to improve in the whole lesson. I recommend you to keep on practicing at this tempo, but working on smaller sections. For example, take the intro, create a loop (you can use reaper for it), and play the part many times until you don't have to think on notes and positions and you can put your focus on timing. Tap with your foot while you play, or follow the groove with your head to also feel the tempo.

Social Distortion:
This one sounds more like "by line". Are you sure that you used the right patch and also the right order of plug ins? Also, what pick up are you using? neck or bridge? This one sounds good on bridge pick up. Your playing is better on this one. I notice that timing is more consistent comparing with the previous lesson in the intro and verse. The palm muting sections (00:28) has some little timing issues so please isolate this section as well as the "chorus" melody that is not totally tight. Starting at 01:27, the short bridge and solo, the timing issues become more important so please also work on this parts.

Alternate picking:
This one should be practiced at a slower tempo to be able to play everything tighter. You surely note the licks that are not sounding clear and tight so you could also isolate the trickier parts to work on them as exercises.

About the guitar tone for AP, I think that this one is the best of the 3 options: https://youtu.be/vk7VJ41F0xk, but you could add a bit of drive from the amp. The one with tube screamer sounds less clear.

Posted by: Aris Mar 16 2015, 10:04 PM

Hey Gabriel, thanks again for the tips.
I can notice the problems you mention. I will follow the suggested approach for each one.
This breakdown should help a lot in making the most out of my time for practicing. I also wanted to ask you about it but you covered me already

About the sound in SD lesson, the patch setup looks OK. The pick up at the guitar is at the down most position which should be the bridge pick up. I will send you a screen with the setup tomorrow. I will even try to send a new recording just to make sure of it.

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Mar 17 2015, 02:16 PM

Hi Aris, thanks for the update. I'm glad to know that the comments helped to see the direction of your next steps. Please keep me updated and feel free to share the settings print screen.

Posted by: Aris Mar 22 2015, 03:50 PM

Hi Gabriel,

This week I mostly practiced two parts from the social distortion lesson. The muted section and the consecutive bends from the solo part to improve my timing.

About this part in the solo, I am now able to play it properly at 190 BPM so it is not quite there yet since the below recording is played at 208BPM. For the muted part I have managed to play it decently at 208BPM most of the times. This does not really show in the below take since it followed after a lengthy practice of the solo part and somehow my right hand felt stiffer. Anyhow, I hope it has less problems than last time.

Regarding the sound, I realized that last time I had reduced the volume level since the waveform seemed to be clipping and this probably created this dry sound like it is by line. This time I left the waveform exactly as it appeared after applying the hard rock classic amp and cabinet. I have also attached an image with the shape of the waveform after applying the patch. Let me know if it should not be square at the top/bottom margin. In the screen the top is the imported backing and below is the guitar with the sound patch.

https://soundcloud.com/aris-33/sdstyle-208bpm-21mar/s-w4NDK

Today I also focused on Rise Against lesson and worked with separate loops all the parts except for the last riff before the outro. The timing should be improved. Let me know what you think.

https://soundcloud.com/aris-33/riseagainst22mar/s-5xUIB

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Mar 23 2015, 03:22 PM

Hi Aris, thanks for the update.

There is still something weird on your tone and it can be related to the fact that your waveform looks very limited. What tone are you using for this one? IS it one of my presets? And what file are you opening on Kefir? Could you share a print of Kefir opened?

Your playing is good on both lessons, and the main part to focus at this tempo is the solo section on Social Distortion lesson. You are not playing this part with the correct rhythm/timing so you should re-work it to be sure that you are playing the licks at the right moment.

Other than that, the lessons are evolving well, just work on tone and timing.

Posted by: Aris Mar 26 2015, 05:28 PM

Hi Gabriel,

I' m working on your pointers and improvisation. I'm trying to get a decent take on the latter at this time.

For the tone in the social distortion lesson I' m using your preset "Hybrit Classic Hard Rock" and you can also see the attached image with the exact settings. Let me know if you spot something awkward.

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Mar 27 2015, 12:39 AM

Hi Aris, everything looks good there. Let's try something more. Why don't you try using "LeCab" instead of Kefir for the same purpose and with the same impulse sample. I use LeCab, and for any reason I remember that I preferred the sound that I could get with it than with KeFir.

You can download it from this page: http://lepouplugins.blogspot.com.ar/

Could you please do the experiment and share the results here?

Posted by: Aris Mar 27 2015, 10:48 AM

Sure!

This is how I set it up in my cubase copy at work pc. I 'll do the real test when I get home and share the results.
Hopefully the sound will be much closer to the lesson this time.

Just let me know once more if this is the correct configuration to be tested.

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Mar 27 2015, 01:32 PM

Hi Aris, yes, this looks perfect. Let's see what happens.

Posted by: Aris Apr 14 2015, 12:49 PM

Hi Gabriel,

Thanks for your suggestion. The sound now with LeCab looks pretty similar to the lesson and I can enjoy playing the song even more.
I didn't send a sample cause I was hoping to find time for a better take.

The great news is that our daughter (second child) was born two weeks ago and we have a lot going on these first few days with the kids, house adjustments so there is no time to rest or play guitar yet.
The good news around playing the guitar is that finally I setup all my gear in the living room so I hope in a few days it will be much easier for me to practice and record properly without disturbing the family in their sleep:)

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Apr 16 2015, 03:09 PM

All great news! Congrats on your new daughter!

It's also great to know that you will be able to practice in a comfortable place where everything is ready to be used in less than 5 minutes. I consider this the secret number 1 to practice more.

Posted by: Aris Apr 21 2015, 12:38 PM

Thank you Gabriel, I wish you all the best too!

Everything is ready to go. I should be ready to practice within 2 minutes until the PC is booted.
Unfortunately, I haven't put in any serious time yet, since the new baby likes to stay awake at night so she keeps us busy and I am constantly sleepy.
She will settle soon I hope but until then I am going over my major scale and its arpeggios whenever I find a short window or just before I shut down at night. I can't have a proper session yet with metronome and backing involved since when I play I can barely keep my eyes open

I 'm not too worried about it since I will find something out if this state seems to take much longer.
I will be in touch.

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Apr 21 2015, 09:58 PM

Hi Aris! I'm sure that you are living an unique moment in your life so enjoy it.

Let's get back when you feel you're ready.

Posted by: Aris Apr 27 2015, 04:31 PM

Hi Gabriel,

I was able to play the routine properly during the weekend.
I will try again tonight or the next morning before work and see what happens.

Over the last period that I was not in shape to power everything up and play with backing track support, record etc, I have been practicing my scales and arpeggios.

Now I am up to the point that I can switch from major to major pentatonic and to the arrpeggio for each position (cannot swich between positions quickly without some short calculations in my mind but I guess this will not be much harder). What troubles me a lot is that after leaning these arpeggios, I still can't jam aloe with the backing track.I can go up and down the scale over the backing, but still I cannot see where is the arrpeggio that I should play over each next chord to make it sound musical. I understand which arpeggio should sound nice but its hard to spot everything on the go.I seriously feel like I 'll never get it and I don't know where to start with it.

So I was hopping if you can help me here as well with some guidance or lessons/exercises that will break it down for me starting from infant level. Every advice you have given me has worked pretty well so far and I m really happy about it. I have already started to enjoy my playing

I can send you also a video and see exactly what I'm trying to do.

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Apr 28 2015, 08:17 PM

Hi Aris, I understand what you feel and let me say that it's normal.

Working on phrasing, improvisation and creativity is more difficult than working on technique because the road to master it is less clear. However, if you try to see it as you see your work on alternate picking, maybe you'll be able to visualize the different steps that you should do to take your phrasing and improvisation to a new level.

Let me explain what I mean.

How do we work on alternate picking?

- We start with an easy exercise, with just a few notes, or maybe only one note, and practice it slowly. We usually stay on the same position and practice over slow backings and metronome.
- Once we master it, we work on the next exercise. A bit more demanding, maybe more notes, but still on one string.
- Once we master a few 1 string exercises, we usually learn some licks from our favorite guitarists played with alternate picking on one string. Iron Maiden and Gary Moore come to my mind.
- Then, we start with crossing strings and do the same. Start with easy repetitive ideas, and so...
- We also learn alternate picking licks that cross strings and practice them over backings.


How should we practice phrasing and improvisation? In the same way, starting with very simple stuff... this is an idea:

Working on Pentatonic scales:

- Start just using 3 notes from the pentatonic scale. Create melodies with it over the backing. Try to find all the variations possible. Create phrases that has a call and response sense just using 3 notes.

- Once you are comfortable, add more strings or notes from the scale.

- Then, move to the next scale position and do the same.

- Learn pentatonic licks from your favorite guitarists, and create your own variations.

Working on arpeggios:

- Choose a chord and an arpeggio shape to start. Search for a backing track that stays on that chord and create phrases with the notes.

- As soon as you feel comfortable, start working over a two chords slow backing track. Practice creating melodies using the arpeggios of each chords, always staying on the same part of the neck. Once you master if, move to the next position.

- Learn arpeggio licks and create your own variations.


Combining pentatonics with arpeggios:

- Use the same 2 chords backing than before and do a double work.

1- Play pentatonic scale over the first chord and the arpeggio of the second chord.
2- Now the opposite.



As you can see, this is a long term workout, that could take around 3 months if you work every day. But if you work in this way and slowly increase difficulty, positions, strings, tempo and chords, your improvisation skills will become better.

Listen to minimalist guitarists like BB King, Eric Clapton, and even Slash, see how they can create a fantastic solo with a few notes. Start with a few notes, maybe you won't need the other ones.

Posted by: Aris Apr 29 2015, 03:47 PM

Thank you Gabriel,

I am so grateful for this detailed workout and complete plan. You have put everything in place for me and I can visualize the stages I will have to go through through the process. I will be very happy to reach a good level.

This should surely maximize the efficiency of my practice from ZERO to 100%. This breakdown of exercise series is exactly what I need

I 'll try to send you samples of my progress if you don't mind. I will surely need your valuable feedback to evaluate my progress and I have the feeling that there will be lots of times that I will need additional direction or to be steered back in track as my practice becomes more specific to a certain backing, arpeggio shape etc.

You have also cut out a lot of work for me with these examples of guitarists that use only a few notes as I could get a quick idea of what I should be doing more or less without getting lost again.

I will start right away. BTW I' m thinking to start with major pentatonic just to start things on the right foot. If this is not a good idea, just let me know.

I ll try to find a single chord backing and let you know.

Thanks lots!!!!

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Apr 29 2015, 11:15 PM

Hi Aris, I'm glad to know that this description clarified your direction. Please use a notepad to write down this ideas and organize them with your own ideas, and everything else related to this workout. Use it to have the scale shapes, the different backings uses, licks that you are working, etc.

I think that it's ok to start with Pentatonic scales. Please note that minor pentatonic is even more used in rock and blues so maybe you'd want to start with it, but well, by the way you need to learn both so start with the one that you prefer.

And off course you can use this thread to share your progress, questions, solos, backings and everything you need to keep progressing.

Posted by: Aris Apr 30 2015, 02:00 PM

Hi Gabriel,

I started very simply so as to take things step by step and I have tried to follow your instructions closely.

I have started playing the G major pentatonic over an one chord backing (Gmajor) to have as little as possible to think about in the beginning.
From the scale I have selected the notes G, B, D which coincide with the arpeggio but I do not mean to mix it up with arpeggio practice just to keep things clear.

I also share with you my notes as you recommended.

Practice Session 1: Major pentatonic position 2, octave 2 (3 notes selected: G , B, D)

E ----------------
B ----------------
G -------4---7---
D ----5-----------
A ----------------
E ----------------

Backing track of one chord: Gmajor

No notable licks found yet using 3 chords...Perhaps I will have to find and borrow some licks for starters and change them around.

(I figured it would be best to start with major pentatonic since I have the impression that most punk/rocker and rock & roll solos like SD, Rancid etc are in major but I see that there are lots of such solos in minor too. So tonality may not be relevant either. It would be interesting to know how this works in composing. )

I have also attached two very draft samples of my practice just to show you how I have tried to work on your instructions.
Is it meant to sound so crappy at the beginning. I 'm afraid I may have not understood what I should be doing for this exercise.
(one sample is using only 3 notes of the scale position)
(the other sample is using a full octave in the same position from the major pentatonic scale) - towards the end of this sample I was trying to follow a fictional spoken conversation in my mind but it's hard even for me to picture it by listening to the track

https://soundcloud.com/aris-33/iprov-practice-session-1-majorpenta-octave2-i-iii-v/s-FT9ro
https://soundcloud.com/aris-33/majorpenta-octave2-position1/s-z9VS5

Just let me know if this is different than what you advised me to do start practicing.

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Apr 30 2015, 03:13 PM

Hi Aris, great job with this! It's exactly what I meant! If you keep patient and working like this, your improvisation skills will definitely progress. I'm not sure if you are doing this but I think that this workout can be combined with some ear training. While you play this melodies, you should sing the notes that you play, in order to incorporate the sound of each note. After a while of doing it, you could try this exercises:

- Sing and play the melodies at the same time (Benson Style)
- Sing a phrase, and then play it on guitar.
- Sing phrases and imagine the frets that you'd be playing. Then check if you were right.


This training will make the connection between your ideas and your guitar much smoother, and it's a great moment to work on it too.

Posted by: Aris Apr 30 2015, 04:07 PM

Great news!!! I'm really happy that I 'm on the right foot.

Thanks for your suggestion too. I will put this into play starting right away. It should help lots

We 'll talk again soon.

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi May 1 2015, 03:06 AM

Perfect! Let me know how it goes.

Posted by: Aris May 7 2015, 04:02 PM

Hi Gabriel,

I 'm trying to play every day even for 30' although the decision to stay up is hard.
Maybe I will have to drink one or two sips of coffee to avoid missing practice.
Playing before work does not seem doable.

About my practice, I try to follow your advice. My problem is that when we talk everything seems clear but when I go to practice I get confused and find it difficult to do it all at the same time (e.g. focus on playing call-response licks, experiment and sing every note that I have just played).
So when I go to practice it feels like I am missing something important for understanding theexercise and something doesn't feel right in the way I follow the instructions. Is this normal in the beginning?

I have also noticed the following difficulties:
--> I have to be really focused and make a conscious effort so as to play in call/response manner. To start with I am focusing on repeating the question with very small changes every time.
--> It's also hard to sing the notes I play in parallel with experimenting and reminding my self to stick with playing call/responses throughout the recording.

Below I am sending my last recording (1 session old). As you can listen it does not sound good.
https://soundcloud.com/aris-33/majorpenta-octave2-i-iii-vplus-sessio2-improv2/s-r3kzS
Attached are also the licks I have noted after experimentation up to now. The problem is that I could not stick to using only 3 notes in order to make them sound melodic. I 'll try to link a version of each one in the same recording and see what happens.

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi May 8 2015, 03:17 PM

Hi Aris, how are you?

Yes! All these things are normal. Please re-read again the plan that I suggested and remember the main message there: You need to go slow and be patient. It's more difficult to see progress when we work on creativity and phrasing, but trust me that the more you practice this tasks the better your playing will become. Just be sure to practice one or two of these ideas every day. You don't have to focus on many things at the same time, focus on one at a time. If you decide to work on call and response, focus on it, if you go for singing / ear training, focus only on it. In the end, everything will connect together naturally.

The improvisation that you shared is ok, I can notice that you are getting familiar with the notes from the scale and that's the main goal now. I recommend you to start practicing over other backing tracks, if possible that have different sections, to avoid monotony.


PS: Could you please save the guitar pro file in version 5?

Posted by: Aris May 8 2015, 03:42 PM

Thanks a lot Gabriel,

I 'm feeling so much better again.
Great news for me, this should be very simple now and doable
I just have to go slow, be patient & do one thing at a time.

I will also change the backing as you said... I was wondering if I should.

Attached is also the converted GP file to GP5

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi May 9 2015, 03:56 PM

Exactly! That's what I suggest doing. It's cool that you have a gp where you are creating your own licks, it's a very good way to develop your own vocabulary and style. Keep the good job!

Posted by: Aris May 12 2015, 10:33 AM

Hi Gabriel,

I feel it's going better.
I follow the plan and practice on improvisation daily (for at least 30 mins).
Then for the rest of the time I'm following my routine practice (alternate picking & rhythm mainly).

Before I start with it, I refresh my memory on the licks that I have already noted down from previous sessions.
Then, I just have the backing track running and play over it until something good pops up and when something seems good, I may repeat it several times while the backing is still going just to find different options or improvements.
Just to keep the flow and build some momentum for new and better ideas I also try to link the noted licks together or with new or random phrases.

In last night's session I was also targeting on the bends that fit better over G or C chords of the backing track (G , D chord progression).
Maybe it's time to blend in some slides or pull offs but I'm not sure if I should take it slower.

I haven't manage to record something new with a little flow since I was interrupting frequently for experimentation throughout the several takes. I should have something soon.

That's all so far. Let me know on your thoughts.
Thanks

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi May 12 2015, 06:45 PM

Hi Aris, this sounds very good. It's ok to balance your practice between these 3 directions: improvisation workout, technique and jamming. And it's also cool to know that you superpose them and incorporate some technique stuff while you are practicing improvisation and vice versa. In the end, everything should be connected to develop your own voice on guitar.

I'll wait for your recordings, keep on the hard work.

Posted by: Aris May 18 2015, 03:00 PM

Hi Gabriel,

How are you doing?
I would like to share my latest recording:
https://www.youtube.com/edit?o=U&video_id=KEmaYHBvQ8w

I tried to improvise using any of the licks I have found so far that would cross my mind at the time.
This recording occurred while I was experimenting for new licks.

I have to admit that I mostly experiment in finding better sounding licks while playing over the backing track.
On the other hand, I tend to skip singing the notes I play or focus on playing call-response patterns - I need to keep my focus and force myself doing these things.

I am also using more than 3 notes of the scale and I am occasionally moving around different positions of the scale.
Perhaps I should stick with using only less notes and stay in the same position for longer to progress smoothly.

Any thoughts are appreciated.

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi May 18 2015, 04:11 PM

Hi Aris, the link is wrong. It takes me to my youtube channel....

Posted by: Aris May 18 2015, 08:33 PM

Hi Gabriel,

This link should work. Let me know if it is still problematic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEmaYHBvQ8w&feature=youtu.be

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi May 19 2015, 04:13 PM

Nice! Great to see you getting familiar with the scale and chords. There are some moments in which you connected really well with the chords, for example at 2:58.

The next work that I'd like to give you over this backing is start following the chords. How? It's simple, you take a part of the neck and search where you have the chords of the progression. You can start with the verse that has only 2 chords. At first follow it with rhythm and visualize the notes from the chords and if possible try to see the pentatonic scale too.

Once you can see the notes from each chord, start playing single notes from the chords, starting with the thirds. Play B note every time G sounds and play E every time C sounds. Do this for a while in different octaves.

When the chorus section appears do the same with those chords.

As soon as you feel comfortable with following the chords with thirds, start adding notes from the pentatonic as passing notes but keep on focusing and staying on thirds.

Try to create musical phrases using this concept. Many guitarists from Pat Metheny to Steve Lukather and Andy Timmons usually follow chords with thirds in their phrasing.

Experiment and record what you get.

Posted by: Aris May 21 2015, 01:09 PM

Hi Gabriel,

I was very happy to see the new exercise. This should make some more melodies pop up easier. I'm working on it every day.
For the moment I have occasions that nice melodies pop up but it does not happen very often.
Perhaps it's because I m just playing all notes of the chord one after the other almost repeatedly (up to now I was hopping that the trick will work automatically on its own) and maybe I should stop more often to think about an idea for the next phrase to follow.

I will describe how I have interpreted the exercise you gave me just in case I might be missing anything:
Every time the chord changes I play the 3rd note of the chord and follow using other notes of the chord(arpeggio notes) and some passing notes from G pentatonic scale. This is what I do for all chords in the verse and chorus as well. I hope I have understood the exercise well.

I have not sent last night's recording since I think I could have a better one if I play also some less spontaneous licks during my take by modifying some from my GP File or searching for newer ones in advance. I guess this is not against the purpose of the exercise. Is it?

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi May 22 2015, 03:09 PM

Hi Aris, you're on the right track. Everything is exactly as I suggested and expected to please continue working on this for a few days (3 or 4) and share a recording when you feel it's time for it. Ok?

Posted by: Aris May 22 2015, 09:36 PM

Great,

Yes I will send something after a few more sessions.

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi May 23 2015, 03:36 PM

Great!

Posted by: Aris May 25 2015, 11:25 AM

Hi Gabriel,

How are you doing? Any good news for Cirse?

I felt like sharing some thought in the process....
It's definitely one step closer that I know what I should be doing.

I guess I have to be very patient for results though, especially in my case that I can't make time to play for 4 hours straight regularly.
To give you a clue of my progress so far... right now it looks like I'm banging my head in a concrete wall, hoping that with time it will worn out and someday will fall

I 'm still trying different buttons for the moment so I don't have something useful to send you.

I think you get the picture

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi May 26 2015, 03:09 PM

Hi aris, thanks for the update! Things with Cirse are going great! We are finishing our new EP that will be released in July 2nd. Then we will have many gigs.

I think that I can get what you mean about your practice, and the question is, are you enjoying the process?

Posted by: Aris May 26 2015, 04:22 PM

That's great news! I wish you all the best and I m waiting to listen the new album. Will you be touring too?

About the process, I think for now my progress is so slow that I don't have much to enjoy only a few moments that I feel like I have done something better but this still comes and goes. I m sure that it will be much clearer if i give it some more time.
I also start playing when I have already started to feel sleepy. A couple of times I almost fell asleep by the end of the backing track. My eyes were shut by the end Maybe this is another reason that I cannot enjoy it so much.

I don't care at all though cause I will do what it takes to play properly.
At this point, I would certainly feel awesome if I manage to play a few seconds of nice fitting melody on purpose.

Posted by: Aris May 27 2015, 10:49 AM

Hi again,

Last night, I played only for a while and noticed that this time I could find certain landing notes and melodies were created easier using the 3rds as landing notes, no matter how silly was the note sequence in between the landing notes. This got me very excited and felt promising. So I really enjoyed it.

My approach this time was based on following a certain order of the landing notes upon each chord change. I could see some feeling in the result.
I was only moving around in the same position so I always used the thirds in the two octaves of that position.
Unfortunately, my infant daughter needed my attention just when I was about to record a sample.

so I ll try again tonight.

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi May 27 2015, 02:47 PM

Hi Aris! It's interesting to read this two posts, but mostly the second one in which you sound motivated and happy because of the results achieved. The results are always more difficult to note when we are working on creativity tasks, but they magically appear when our mind does that required "click" that makes us connect with our creation side. Be patient, and try to find a moment when you can be relaxed and without distractions, the magic will appear.

Keep on the good job! I'll wait for your samples.

Posted by: Aris May 28 2015, 01:56 PM

Hi Gabriel,

I managed to play a lot more last night. I could feel some melodies in my playing although timing and wrong notes pressed are present at many occasions. Listening to my recording it is also noticeable that I m still searching my way around the scale although it feels a bit more familiar now and I have started to visualize the arpeggios too.

Last night, I looped only the verse and I was moving around the same scale position with emphasis on the 3rds used as landing notes. Occasionally I have used the 1st and 5th as landing notes just to spice it up a bit more. I tried also to use some slides and bends to reach the landing notes.

I didn't pay too much attention in the call/response method since I was too busy trying to target the landing notes and the arpeggios within the scale. I think this should be one of the next steps.For the same reason I guess I did not use any of the licks noted in my book of licks.

Here you can listen to a few samples:
https://soundcloud.com/aris-33/may27_1_improvisation-on-one-position-using-3rds-landing-notes/s-FyR9f
https://soundcloud.com/aris-33/may27_2-gmajor-one-position-3rds/s-0lISP
https://soundcloud.com/aris-33/may27_3-gmajor-one-position-3rds/s-Ivdzc

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi May 28 2015, 03:49 PM

Hi Aris! Great stuff!

I checked some moments of your improvisations and I can get what you explained. I can hear you exploring the scale and landing on chord notes most of the times. You are now at a visualization moment, but also training your ears and connection between mind and guitar. It will take some time to be able to apply everything you now and all the improvisation + technique concepts that we've been talking about but if you keep working every day, and focus on 1 topic each day, your playing will keep evolving.

Posted by: Aris Jun 2 2015, 11:34 AM

Hi Gabriel,

I am sending some new samples on my improvisation and rhythm workouts.

https://soundcloud.com/aris-33/improvgmaj2chords3rds-1/s-B0XY4
00:38 - 00:46. This part of the improvisation made me feel pretty awesome. The rest is more or less noodling around and nothing else seems to draw my attention.
At this part, I tried to incorporate a lick from the clash to transition to the next landing note on the adjacent scale position.
The result was nothing like the original lick but it fits unexpectedly nice. I hope there will be more to come but for this I may have to keep an eye for more existing nice licks to use them as an inspiration.

https://soundcloud.com/aris-33/rise-against-style-lesson-70bpm-rhythm-workout/s-c2izf
Sorry about the noise coming out of the amp simulator. After listening to the recording I realized I may have used a wrong kind of impulse response but was already to late for another take.
I have increased the speed from 60BPM to 70BPM but may be I need to slow it down again, since my left hand movement does not sound and feel that smooth yet during the octave chords (I can also hear unwanted strings often like the 6th and the 4th). I try to mute both though, the 6th with my middle finger and the 4th with my index. Will send a video next time too.

https://soundcloud.com/aris-33/sd-style-lesson-210bpm/s-Xv4O1
I have increased the speed to 210 BPM and it feels ok - WOW! surely I play much faster than 160BPM that I started with . Sorry about the opening though, it is very mistimed.
I don't play both lessons that often since I wanted to put some more time with the improvization workout, so there are some old issues appearing in both recordings but I guessed it may do some good to share them.

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Jun 2 2015, 02:34 PM

Hi Aris! Good stuff here!

I can see you working hard and progressing and that's a great thing. Congrats! Let me give some specific feedback and ideas.

- Improvisation: You are on the right track with this one however, I would like to hear you trying to create shorter and nicer melodies focusing on thirds and using notes from the scale as passing notes in different parts of the neck. Mostly to get more familiar with the sound of each note and how it related with the backing track.

- Rage against: Yes! You have to practice this one at a slower tempo to be able to focus on details to make it sound tight and defined. It has no sense to practice at a tempo in which you can't play. The speed must be worked gradually.

- Social Distortion: This one is going really well! I would keep it on the diary routine to adjust some details regarding timing. For example the intro, the first part of the palm muted section, and also adjust a bit timing in the chorus. The solo sounds a bit hurried, and you need to adjust that lick that is not clear. Isolate the lick and practice it as a picking exercise.

Posted by: Aris Jun 3 2015, 01:06 PM

Thanks Gabriel,

I had a go using your advice on improvisation and used the 3rds up to the 15th fret. I tried to use as little notes as possible in my phrasing. I am still familiarizing with the arpeggio shapes in the various positions.

I have to work also on creating nicer melodies using only a few notes. I wonder what is best? Should I start by experimenting or start by using and changing other licks from the music I listen to? Up to now I mostly follow the first approach.

I spent too much time on improvisation so I ended up leaving the rhythm practice aside again. I know I should practice everything in a proportional manner but for the moment I feel that I am seriously lacking in improvisation skills and I feel the need to emphasize on it a bit more.

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Jun 3 2015, 03:15 PM

Hi Aris, good stuff!

Your approach sounds good to me, everything that you are thinking and suggesting works so you are on the right track. About your question regarding creating your own melodies or variations, each of them has its advantages so go for the one that you prefer and it's even better if you can experiment with both.

Finally, it would be good if you can at least dedicate 10 minutes to rhythm, just to keep you in shape.

Posted by: Aris Jun 10 2015, 02:52 PM

Hi Gabriel,

How are you doing?

I think I m starting to feel more loose improvising on the major pentatonic scale and arpeggios and felt there were nice moments in my soloing. I think I was carried away a little and started to play faster than I probably should. It was good fun though!

I didn't have the time to export my takes in the morning but I will have something even better I hope over the next couple of days.

Bye for now

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Jun 10 2015, 03:18 PM

Great news Aris! I'm glad to read this and even more of knowing that you are enjoying your practice sessions!
Keep going!

Posted by: Aris Jun 11 2015, 04:01 PM

Hi Gabriel,


Here is a sample, it should be a little smoother compared to previous takes. It still gets boring though, maybe I need to make up some themes that could be repeated regularly during the take. I 'm also planning to get some lick ideas from music around or look specifically for licks online.
Listening to my take, perhaps I shouldn't always strum at the first beat of the bar.

https://soundcloud.com/aris-33/gmajor-pentatonic-improvisation-june10/s-Dy6Wh

Maybe it's not worth to check after 02:55 since a lot of experimentation is going on.

This is my work and thoughts so far.I should be able to send something new soon.

Thanks!

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Jun 12 2015, 03:38 PM

Hi Aris! Good job exploring the scale! It's true that your phrasing is lacking direction but it's ok by now over this backing. I can notice that you are trying to create shorter phrases now which was the last thing I suggested.

I'd like to hear you playing over this new backing:  Backing_Beginner_Soloing_loop_C_Major.mp3 ( 8.56MB ) : 107


I looped the mayor section of this lesson: http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/ls/Beginner-Soloing-1/

So you can also get ideas from Darius playing. The plan is the same one, start following the chords, and then use notes from the pentatonic scale so create phrases.

Posted by: Aris Jun 12 2015, 11:01 PM

Thanks a lot Gabriel,

I am starting with the new backing track and I will let you know.
I notice that the backing is not in major tonality so I am switching to minor.

Posted by: Aris Jun 12 2015, 11:35 PM

.

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Jun 13 2015, 06:45 PM

Hi mate, the backing is in C major.

Posted by: Aris Jun 15 2015, 11:55 AM

Oh yes,

I only had a quick look to it and I missed the most important bit.
Probably because when I was checking the scales used in the solo of the lesson and "A Harmonic minor scale" drew my attention.
But surely, I have the option to play only major scale over the backing.

Thanks for pointing out the obvious, in my case it was useful
Anyway, since I m already trying to learn some basic licks on major pentatonic scale it's good that only the key is changed so I could apply them.

Unfortunately, the weekend was even busier so I was not in shape to play since Friday.I hope I will be consistent throughout the week so it won't slow me down a lot.

Bye for now

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Jun 15 2015, 02:05 PM

Hi Aris, thanks for the update! I hope that this is a productive week. Have a nice day!

Posted by: Aris Jun 18 2015, 11:23 AM

Hi Gabriel,

I really enjoy the backing .... from the first moment i started playing over it. The style was something new to me but became friends right away.

Ok, I still have lots of timing issues but I guess its due to focusing on finding the right note to play and visualize arpeggio shapes for each chord. I think this backing will help a lot as I am now working out with 4 different keys and shapes already. only 4 keys remain untouched for now If If I think about it this way ... I am half way there already!

My melody lines and phrases are not that interesting though. Should I take some specific measure to fix this or this is part of the standard procedure until I get there?

Below is a sample of my workout experimenting over the backing track. The starting is more interesting IMO, the ending is lesser and in between sounds pretty indifferent.

https://soundcloud.com/aris-33/cmajor-loop-c-am-f-gsus4-g/s-cXlgN

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Jun 19 2015, 03:34 PM

Hi Aris! Good job!

All the things that you feel and noted of your take are part of the learning and practice process so you are on the right track with this. As soon as you feel more comfortable with the shapes you'll be able to make this more musical and start to think on other expressing elements.

By now you are on the right track, keep going!

Posted by: Aris Jun 19 2015, 09:25 PM

Hi Gabriel,

This is very good news for me.

Thanks for your feedback. I ll keep you updated on my work.

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Jun 20 2015, 08:46 PM

Great!

Posted by: Aris Jul 22 2015, 01:36 PM

Hi Gabriel,

We haven't spoken for a while. This is because I have not been following a strict everyday schedule with my practice and I felt that unless I do this properly I won't be able to give you a good idea of my progress.

Anyway, I 'm still a little loose with the schedule. I guess due to dealing with two kids now which makes my day much busier and probably routine repetition may have something to do with it. I m waiting to practice every day but after all day's tasks when I have time for myself it feels more natural to do nothing or better fall asleep on the couch . So I end up practicing every other day or so.

Just to sync you up with what i ve been doing all this time, I have focused on improvisation mostly and every so often I 'm doing the Rise Against, Social D lessons in a slower tempo.

About social D lesson: I have counted the solo and it comes out much better now in 145BPM. I m not planning to speed it up though unless I can play it without errors for most of the times.

About Rise against: I can play at 60bpm but since this is the first time i m playing octaves, it feels very hard to go up to 70BPM.

Finally about improvisation: I m practicing the beginner's track you suggested switching between 2 adjacent scale positions (The 3rd and 4th of C major pentatonic scale). I can spot the 3rds easier now for every chord change but still working on this though. Also I have been looking some basic major pentatonic licks online so as to apply them in my soloing but I quickly forget the licks when I play over the backing track. Applying them over the backing track seems like a completely different thing than learning to play the licks at first place.

I will try to send you anything I can tomorrow.

Thanks for reading

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Jul 22 2015, 03:23 PM

Hi Aris, great to hear from you!

Well, this is something normal. We have moments when our life is very busy and practicing becomes more difficult. Even with all those occupations and two children you are keeping your practice and that's not a small thing. Based on what you said here, you are progressing and enjoying the process. This are the two most important things.

Remember the importance of diary practice. So if you only have 10 or 15 minutes and you think, oh that's not enough, do it! Pick up your guitar and practice for a few minutes. The diary practice has a very important impact in your playing.

Posted by: Aris Aug 13 2015, 10:13 AM

Hi Gabriel,

I hope all is good and you are having fun.

My schedule:I have tried to play at least 10' per day if there is no time, but really somedays I just fall asleep even before I put the backing on.
As it is now, on average, I 'm improvising every other day or once in 3 days at worse but all sessions are at least an hour long.

Below, I am sending you 2 takes on improvisation over the backing track that I'm working on so far. Please also see some of my thoughts in the process.

1st take:
https://soundcloud.com/aris-33/improvization-take-1/s-OTgpg
Pls ignore experimentation from 03:00 onwards. Should have cut this part (working on a possible phrase using a double stop)

2nd take:
https://soundcloud.com/aris-33/improvisation-take-2/s-ukdsr

Bonus
https://soundcloud.com/aris-33/social-distortion-style-rhythm-routine-185bpm/s-573jf

I have paid some attention to the corresponding lesson as well to see how Darius makes his soloing sound melodic.
One thing I noticed, is that he builds up almost every phrase by using more than one scale position for each phrase (for the duration of one backing chord). I somehow thought that this is the most important thing I have to do so my playing won't sound static and will create a sense of direction. As you can see in my takes I have tried to always move from one position to another but I 'm still very clumsy in linking the positions in a nice way.

Listening to my takes, I also notice that there is a lot of jumping from one note to another and my phrases end up being very long or even a page long which of course sounds really bad or at least indifferent. From what we have talked so far, I should be using pauses and different note durations but when I do pause, my phrases sound funky or robotic.
I have also returned to learning well some phrases from the lessons and other interesting solo parts from other artists but even when I learn to play these, it's still hard to play them in my own compositions.
Perhaps I should first take the time and imagine where I would like to put each phrase I have learned over the backing track. Maybe at this stage I should not try to improvise over the whole backing track, but use a couple of standard licks in certain places to set the theme and keep the rest of my improvisation on track.
Is there something different I should also try to be able to put some of the phrases I learn in my own playing?

Looking forward to any comments and suggestions.

BTW, about this subsidual noise in my takes...I don't know where it comes from exactly but I notice that when I bring my picking hand closer to the strings it somehow drops a bit. It may also appears in combination with the impulse response I am using.

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Aug 13 2015, 03:50 PM

Hi Aris! Interesting stuff!

When hearing your take I also feel that your phrases are lacking something. You are trying to find where to use silences, trying shorter, longer notes, silences in between notes, phrases, staccato, etc. All are good tools to be used but the problem is that there are no phrases there, there are notes. You need to articulate better the phrases, and give a direction to each phrase. If you hear the original lesson, you'll notice that the solo is telling a story, is like a dialogue, you hear phrases that work like words over the backing.

I feel that you need to think more in sounds than in scales, frets and techniques. Try singing phrases over the backing and see if you get more musical ideas, record yourself singing and then emulate the notes with your guitar. Then analyze how you used notes length, silences, and the structure of phrases. Is it more natural?

About playing horizontally. It's a very good tool to get out of the same passages and licks, and it also helps to create melodies that sound more like vocal lines. Practice the pentatonic scale horizontally on each string for a while. Then try to create phrases horizontally, connecting only 2 strings. Record yourself, listen to it and analyze what you get.

Posted by: Aris Aug 14 2015, 03:33 PM

Hi Gabriel,

Yes, this is exactly the problem I m trying to solve.
So I won't have to improvise in real time (at least at this stage) but instead I will have to pause and sing a nice melody over each chord or even a couple of chords. After I play it on the guitar, I can do the same with the next chords to fill the track.

I ll also try to analyze the resulting phrases and see how to mix all ingredients together

Thanks mate

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Aug 14 2015, 09:47 PM

Great! Looking forward your results!

Posted by: Aris Aug 24 2015, 01:58 PM

Hi Gabriel,
I have good news today.

Based on our previous chat, I must say that it was hard for me to think of nice phrases for the backing. My ideas were poor and I had a lot of sessions with no single phrase added in my solo. One night I tried once, had a short nap literally with the guitar in my arms, I woke up and decided to stay up longer. This was the one time I figured out the whole take below. Now i need to work also some note durations to fit it better and to build it up with new phrases.

https://soundcloud.com/aris-33/besttakeab/s-8lDk0 (both loops but with some timing issues)
https://soundcloud.com/aris-33/sepab/s-mpQTf (recorded with small break between loops, but with better timing)

Here is how it worked this time, as you said I hummed the first phrase of the solo, recorded my voice and played it on guitar.
The following phrases were almost instant resulting from how I felt it could follow or other phrases came up after hitting a couple of first notes on the guitar. So the first loop of the backing went like that. The second loop felt even more effortless although I had to stop for a minute and think about the first phrase of the loop again.

My favourite part is between 00:37 - 00:44. This part also just happened with some shuffling of the notes and I'm glad for it since I am always looking to make it intense and soulful. I feel this time it clicked melodically.

Upon analyzing the phrasing, I see that I start my phrases at a convenient time (not always playing at the first beat of each chord). This allows for some breathing in between phrases or stringing with the phrase to follow tighter.
Also, I am trying to play with different note durations by playing some longer notes and it sounds some more natural this way.
I have added a couple of pauses too and I also tried to play some notes concurrently with louder drum hits.
Looking back in my phrases I notice that roughly 50% of the notes played over a chord are arpeggio notes.
This is it. I don't know if my analysis is good however.

I still believe that it is essential to somehow enrich my phrasing vocabulary since this time I feel pretty lucky. Please let me know if there is a certain most efficient way to do this, since time is not my forte.

I just found this lesson from Ben with some tips on creating less robotic phrases.
http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/ls/Scales-and-Basic-Lead-Guitar/#

Looking forward for your comments

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Aug 24 2015, 03:10 PM

Nice playing Aris. I think that the composition of this solo sounds really cool and now it's time to improve two details:

- Tone: Your tone is poor and week on this recording. I think that it's lacking some bass/mid frequencies to make it sound warmer, bigger, as well as some ambiance fx (reverb or delay). Some more sustain could be also good. Experiment!

- Performance / Feeling: You could embelish even more this solo with some more vibrato, and ornamentation (slides, bend, harmonics, etc). Add more feeling to this.

About expanding your vocabulary. It's easy. Learn 1 new lick everyday from any GMC lesson that you like. Learn to play it but also the theory behind it to know where to use it. Practice it over different backings, keys and create your own variations. Share your diary or weekly results here.

Posted by: Aris Aug 26 2015, 12:44 PM

Hi Gabriel,

I 'm glad you liked it. I ll see where I can fit some expression techniques like slides etc.

I'd love to fix my tone. Could you give me some guidance of how to find and add ambiance fx (e.g. delay) in Cubase 5?
What can I do about sustain too?

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Aug 26 2015, 06:51 PM

Hi Aris,

I'll share with you two print screens with ideas on how to start adjusting your tone to get ambience and sustain. Check this, try it, experiment with your own variations and let me know what happens:

Delay:


Sustain:



Looking forward your results.

Posted by: Aris Aug 27 2015, 10:49 AM

Thanks very much Gabriel,

I used both TS808 and mono delay using the exact settings in the screens to start with. I also have all mid,bass,treble to 6 now.
I am very happy with the result. The tone is fatter and warmer now with much more sustain-almost sounding professional.

I 'm working on the collab, so you can check my new tone when I post my soloing there.

I will also try to experiment gradually just to familiarize with the controls in the effects. Hopefully I will have the melody today and record it properly tomorrow night. fingers crossed.

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Aug 27 2015, 02:40 PM

Awesome! Great to know that the images helped to improve your tone! Looking forward your new videos.

Posted by: Aris Nov 5 2015, 12:37 AM

Hi Gabriel,

Hopefully i m now starting to get a grip with more hours at work.

Due to lack of time, I have been trying to keep up (in stealth mode ) with the improvisation course at the practice room which by the way I believe it is an essential course to take and it's also brilliant that you give more time and depth to each week's lesson.

Since I am way behind the class, I am posting here instead of the practice room until I manage to synchronize and jump in there. So I am sending two recordings for now:

- one for the first week's task. I have focused more on the major scale notes and arpeggios against the backing track played in two positions of the scale. No phrases were calculated in advance and all came up at real time. It felt good though!
https://soundcloud.com/aris-33/c-major-begginer-improvisation/s-E1fDQ

- second one is on the complementary lessons of week 2. I have started with the first on the list which is:
http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/ls/Beginners-Corner-13-C-Major-Scale/

I have mostly focused on the strategy used in this lesson (repeating phrases, change from ascending to descending, change octave, etc) using also the linear pattern and playing almost the same phrases. So Here it is:
https://soundcloud.com/aris-33/improvisation-week1-major-scale/s-181BV

Not much time for perfection, so i focused on the lesson elements and less on hitting the right notes at the right time.


Thanks Gab!

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Nov 5 2015, 01:48 PM

Hi Aris! Great job!

I can say that these takes show that your work on the improvisation course is exactly as suggested. I like the fact that you are exploring the scale and arpeggios but always trying to create phrases and focusing on a melodic playing. By now you'll feel that sometimes your phrasing becomes predictable but don't worry about it, we are now at a learning stage and the idea is that you get used to the sound of the scale and how following the chords with arpeggios sound. We are setting the basement for improvisation so please keep on experimenting in this way.

About sharing takes here or at the impro course thread, it's the same for me. It doesn't matter if you share takes based on previous assignments there, on the other hand I think that it can be helpful to encourage and motivate other students to work on the course. So please share some stuff there from time to time to keep it growing!

Posted by: Aris Nov 5 2015, 10:03 PM

Hi Gabriel,

Although I am moving slowly, I am glad to know that I 'm not wasting time by practicing in the wrong direction.
I also wanted to share that my playing feels a bit more like music lately since my ear seems to be looking for some phrasing more instinctively.
It used to sound totally flat in the past.

Although I haven't been able to practice every day, still with your direction and past work with Kris and Todd, I realize I have gained a lot so far and I have also started to have fun with it. I am very thankful for this.

Since you think it's a good idea, I will be glad to share all future stuff about the improvisation lesson in the practice room.

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Nov 6 2015, 01:53 PM

Hi Aris! I'm so happy to read what you have to say about your work at GMC! I also notice that your playing is evolving really well and it's really inspiring to see how your guitar phrasing is becoming more and more musical. You're on the right track, keep going!!

Posted by: Aris Oct 13 2016, 10:48 PM

Hey Gabriel,

How are you doing? I ' m glad to speak to you again.

I 've had a lot of changes over the last year (mostly good) and had to readjust to the new conditions. I also broke my hand so eventually I couldn't even play for two months

It feels great to get back and start learning guitar again. I was learning a few songs on my own over the last period - chords based on my acoustic to keep me relaxed but now I might as well get to work with it.

So I 'd like to progress with my improvisation, scales, technique and phrasing and I would be glad if you can be my instructor again and provide me with a new suitable routine and advice.
I estimate that I can play/study guitar for 3 hours per week. Of course it will be more if circumstances allow for it but I don't want to exaggerate and miss on being given with the most appropriate routine for me.

I hope 3 hours can be enough to even make slow progress. Perhaps if an exercise combines more than one techniques it may help me make the most of this little time available, but this is something that you know better than me of course.

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Oct 14 2016, 12:03 AM

Hey Aris! Welcome back mate! Sure, I'd like to help you on this new step of your music journey!

The first things that I suggest doing is choose a lesson that you like and record it. It will let me check your current level in order to know how to continue.

Posted by: Aris Oct 14 2016, 11:03 AM

Ok great. Many thanks Gabriel. I Will let you know soon

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Oct 14 2016, 01:51 PM

Great. Let me know which lesson you choose.

Posted by: Aris Oct 26 2016, 10:18 PM

Hey Gabriel,

I started from scratch with the skatepunk lesson which is the one that grabbed my attention even before we start working together last year but I never thought I was ready for it. I also like the fact that you share your composing method on the first killer riff!!! I decided now to go for it even with baby steps.

So this is it after 1+ weeks of practicing it.
https://youtu.be/Sc6rrPp2EOY

I have also included one of my last takes just before I took a break, since more than a year ago (summer 2015 ). I wont be able to play that well now but I will give it a try again.
https://soundcloud.com/aris-33/social-distortion-style-rhythm-routine-185bpm/s-573jf

speed and technique are common issues in both.

As I mentioned last time I 'd like to progress with my improvisation, scales, technique, phrasing and some composing instructions so please take these into account for providing me with a new suitable routine and advice. My estimation is that I can work with it for 3 hours per week on average.

Thanks a lot and let me know on your suggestions

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Oct 27 2016, 01:01 AM

Hi mate, great to find your videos! I think that the social distortion one is a good choice, while the other is a bit fast at this stage. It would be better to go for slower skate / pop punk lessons that make a road to this one.

Regarding improvisation, ok! We can divide your work in two:

Rhythm

Lead


And the lead section can be related to learn solos but also improvise using the concepts learnt. For the rhythm moments I would like to suggest one of these lessons:

https://www.guitarmasterclass.net/ls/Classic-Punk-The-Clash/
https://www.guitarmasterclass.net/ls/Classic-Punk-Sex-Pistols/
https://www.guitarmasterclass.net/ls/Classic-Punk-The-Stooges/


For the lead, this one:

https://www.guitarmasterclass.net/ls/Simple-Aminor-Soloing/


What do you think?

Posted by: Aris Oct 27 2016, 10:17 PM

Thanks, seems great! You 're spot on my kind of taste too. I' m on It!

I Will keep you posted.

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Oct 28 2016, 06:35 PM

Great! Work on 1 or 2 of them at first.

Posted by: Aris Nov 23 2016, 10:54 PM

Hi Gabriel, how are you?


It took me longer than I expected but I was working late and after that playing with the children for a couple of hours until we all pass out.

I focused more on the stooges lesson. I found very interesting the soloing parts and the opening riff.
I started at 100bpm to avoid playing clumsy but now it's looking better.

Here is not my best take but recording always makes me nervous.
https://youtu.be/UFuuHAXu7zk

I have been playing the Clash lesson as well but I found it less challenging since I could play it at the original speed from the start, though I 'm not really accurate on my staccato chord grab which I need to work on a bit. I 'll send a video for it as well.

Now that I'm feeling back in shape somehow, I will try the simple minor soloing lesson too.

Please let me know what you think and how we could progress.

Thanks!

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Nov 24 2016, 02:01 PM

Hi Aris, great to see you on track!

I've checked the Stooges lesson and it's a good start. The part that needs more attention is the solo section. There I note that you have pitch issues as well as some timing issues. You definitely need to work on your bending technique as a first goal, but you also need to make your vibrato more consistent, and your overall soloing more precise. This lesson is a good start, but I think that it's ok if you complement it with more specific lessons.

For example these two ones are great for working on bending and vibrato.

https://www.guitarmasterclass.net/ls/Beginner-Bending-Workout/
https://www.guitarmasterclass.net/ls/Beginner-Vibrato-Workout/


When playing the rhythm parts, I notice that you are more comfortable but there is room to polish timing, make the single note lines in between the riffs tighter (and cleaner, for example at 00:44) and also adjust some parts in which the chords have pitch issues (for ex: 00:46).

I suspect that the Clash lesson could have similar issues, so I'd really like to check your take as well.

Posted by: Aris Nov 24 2016, 09:18 PM

Hi Gabriel,

Thanks for your comments and suggestions.

I 'll check the new technique lessons and hopefully I will send you some new stuff soon

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Nov 25 2016, 02:00 PM

Excellent!

Posted by: Aris Feb 17 2017, 10:28 PM

Hello Gabriel,

Hope you are doing fine.

Working hours have been exhausting and I even have very little time free time awake which I spent being with the kids.
Anyway, I have not decided to give up yet and it seems the idea of not giving up is stronger this past week.

I 'm sharing a new take from the stooges below.
The hardest thing for me in this lesson, you will notice, is to start playing the second solo and hit the first bend aiming to land my pinky on the string.

https://soundcloud.com/aris-33/stooges-2

About pitching issues, I have been working on the bending exercise for beginners which you suggested me and hopefully I will post you my progress on it.
I will also renew my subscription too.

Your comments are very appreciated. Thanks.

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Feb 18 2017, 06:55 PM

Hi Aris! Great to see that you didn't give up! Remember that just a few minutes every day can make the difference.

This obviously needs more practice to adjust the things that we've talked about, but I can note progress. It's important to continue practicing the bending exercises and to isolate that connection that is giving problems to get used to go from the chords to the lead guitar.

Also, when playing the chords strumming, try to go tighter with the drums.