I am an avid transcriber of solos and songs, however, there are countless passages or phrases from particular solos and songs that I just can't get at the correct tempo, it's too quick. Some are 85%, some 75% etc.
Now, I know the answer and what I need to do, I need to build up to that speed from a slower speed and practice it, repetition is the key, muscle memory and all that. Thing is with me, I get very bored doing strict practice, I like to just play the Guitar.
The only strict practice I have ever done is the Ross Bolton Funk Video Tutorial on youtube, somehow I really got into that and did well out of it.
But as a kind of new year's resolution, I have decided to put a percentage of my time to nailing these licks at 100% speed. I've picked several that I am only willing to give 5-10 minutes each per day. I slow them down in Audacity to a speed I can play them at without making any mistakes.
What I am asking is how long do you think it will take with this little "5-10 minute each" regime to nail them at 100% speed? I'm guessing 9 months, but I may be way out.
I'm guessing I'm practicing this in the correct way? When do you know to move up from 85% to 90%, I might have nailed it at 85, but be instantly shit at 90%, going up in steps of 2% would feel like torture.
Who knows, if I get there quicker than I expected, it may inspire me to go further.
Thanks for any help.
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I'd spend 9 minutes playing at 50-60% speed, to a metronome, and then test your clean top speed at the end. Give it a try for a week and see how you get on. I have found practicing much slower to be more beneficial than practicing almost at full speed most of the time. It really forces you to play perfectly in time and with clean technique.
I'll slow them down a bit more, I did notice a mistake I was making on one lick, if it is a mistake.
It regards Alternate picking, that's what I should be doing on these(I think) every note is picked I know that much, but I did notice that on one lick I played 2 downstrokes consecutively, when should have been alternate, but I could play it faster with the 2 downstrokes, would you try to correct it or go with what comes natural? Are there hard and fast rules that every note should be alternate picked or best to go with how I do it, what feels best?
Cheers.
I think I'm truly a Rhythm player at heart, I am quite disciplined in that. I like to at least try to improve my lead playing though or expand it, so here we go again
Cheers.
Iff it all of it you will just need to slowly increase speed looking at minimum movement with the picking hand ...
Focus on the areas that you find hardest. Playing what you're capable of won't see you making much progress. Use the type of picking you feel most comfortable with too.
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A speciality subject of mine, and I'm now doing Skype lessons if anyone fancies some different approaches to this issue (see my signature).
It depends on how deep you want to get with the transcribing.
Do you want to know just the notes, and the 'shape' of the line?
Do you want to know the reason behind the lick, for example it implies an E7 arpeggio over a Cmaj?
Do you want to play it as an exact copy as the original in regards to articulation, dynamics, and time feel?
I would suggest trying different fingerings on the fretboard, there's loads of different ways to explore how someone played three notes, let alone a whole section.
I've spent a long time transcribing, and you get to know how the person plays after a while and it gets easier, but I've spent hours and hours over two seconds of music, and still not quite got it right. It's bloody good fun though!
It's quite a while since I posted this and I am seeing some improvement.
Progress at 5 bpm per week, no faster.
You don't want to play fast, your want to play fast and clean- the only way you do that is it learn to play it clean in the first place at slower speeds.
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Most of my playing doesn't rely on very fast stuff, but there are occasions when I get frustrated, a good example is the solo(First solo) in Rosanna by Toto, that last run up at the end, that's a classic example of something that was 15% too fast for me.
But progress is slowly being made with that, I'm up to about 92% with that now Yay...... Aside from Rosanna, I've noticed one thing in that sometimes when I think something is too fast for me, it actually isn't, it was because I wasn't playing it in time, I was rushing it or something. I try to analyse everything I do now and it's good to be able to self diagnose errors.
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Have those extra wide stretches!
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10 11 12 (A String)
I've slowed it down in Audacity and it's right (although the passing G# note played an octave above would also work). I alternate pick each note(one finger per fret), I've tried it sometimes with a slide in there(forget where) and tried it in different positions or shapes but settled on this one.
Like I said in the OP, I only give this one 5 minutes per night(as well as 5 ins each for a few other passages I'm learning) as I am not very disciplined and find myself wanting to just play along to stuff or learn songs.
I guess my original question in the OP will only be answered if I keep plugging away at it, it'll be a while though
I'll try to give it a bit more time, but like I say, I'm trying a couple of other phrases/licks as well at 5 mins(sometimes it may be 7 or 8 mins) each and when you add up the inbetween bits it adds up to more like 25 - 30 mins(out of 1 hour or so). I have to commit some time to other things as well or it's all work and no play as they say, but I always make good use of my time time in whatever context.
I'm not really finding that above section challenging (only at full speed), I can play it cleanly at 90% or a tad over. So I suppose there has been some progress. The 85% when I first wrote the thread was a bit over optimistic, it was more like 80%