so do you know how to throw down some sexy vibrato? if not say so and i'll explain it as bestest as i can. and i'll ****ing explain it, don't go to youtube, i don't want you to learn the ****ty vibrato everyone but eric clapton uses. that **** is worthless.
I don't know what vibrato is. An explanation would be great.
Quote:
Originally Posted by General Tsao
2 - yes, your bends weren't in pitch. what i'd like to know is if you thought they were? you should be able to hear when a note is out of key - can you hear it on the bends?
a good way to practice bends is with an accurate guitar tuner, then you can see if you are hitting the note you wanted to hit, and what kind of finger strength it takes to get there. practice it slowly and correctly.
My ear is decent in the sense that I can tell when notes are out of key--though I can't identify the specific note itself.
Quote:
Originally Posted by General Tsao
3 - dynamic playing. the long video where the guy was playing the xylaphone or whatever that thing was, he talks about dynamic playing - it's really important to vary your pace, vary your volume, vary your tone even. going back to your bends, though they were out of pitch, i was really happy to see them as you went a long time without bending a note or doing anything different.
dynamics will come in time, I hope. To be honest this was the first solo I've tried in a long while.
Quote:
Originally Posted by General Tsao
when can we expect to hear your next improvisation where you'll be using some of the tips people have given itt?
I'm going to commit to another one by next week--probably wed. or thursday. I picked DBTR because it's simple (Em7 to A, rinse and repeat). I'll pick something slightly more complicated and will work on incorporating some of the comments, especially playing in tune, playing in key, bending in tune, and mixing up the pacing of the song.
Quote:
Originally Posted by prana
Man I wish I had really really learned this stuff in college so it would have stayed with me. I've been doing some work with that ear training program and I've definitely lost what I had gained. I'm horrible at chord recognition, especially jazz chords. All that time in college playing songs over and over that I was analyzing and playing notes on the piano to figure out the chord and **** being pretty much a waste of time at this point kind of pisses me off. I'm going to start practicing piano more I think just to be able to better grasp all this stuff and have a better ear.
prana, thanks for chiming in about the ear training. would you recommend getting that program you linked to earlier in the thread?
IMO the best way to kill someone's excitement for improvisation is going to them and saying "hey, press rewind and play a thousand times so you can learn this 4 second phrase". having a decent ear will come with time if you play a lot and then you'll only need to press rewind and play 10 times to get that 4 second phrase at that point, and then working on your ear won't be quite as discouraging.
I know I stressed learning things by ear earlier, but I agree with this.
Took me a while to get back on here b/c of email verification issues, but I'm back and plan to continue responding to all this great info. Still a bit overwhelming at the moment, but I'm going to carve out some daily time to work on the material. I'll try to upload another solo by the end of the week. Hope you guys are doing well!
wow where the hell did the musician forum come from??!?! this is awesome!
Bob - great thread! I completely feel you, man. I'm self taught at guitar and pretty lousy in general, but I love to play. Mostly I just sing and play the chords to easy songs. I've always wished I could shred some sweet licks tho, but it has not come easy at all for me. I know the pentatonic scale well, but have trouble making transitions and moving up/down the neck. I would also say I have a poor ear. Everybody keeps saying having a good ear is super key, but how do I develop this??????
I would also say I have a poor ear. Everybody keeps saying having a good ear is super key, but how do I develop this??????
I think that a big part of developing a good ear is listening to music in the right way. You should listen to a lot of music. This doesn't mean play music in the background while you are doing something else (although it is fine to do that too). It means actively listening, focusing intently on the music. You can focus on the melody, or the bass line, or the chord progression, etc. (I don't recommend focusing on song lyrics for the purpose of developing a good ear.) Or you can focus on the music as a whole.
Since you know the pentatonic scale well, you should have a good idea about how the intervals in the scale sound. For example, the interval between the first two notes in the scale is a minor third. Think about the sound of that interval. Now listen to some music and focus on the melody. Do you hear any minor thirds? You should. Now, since you know how to play a minor third, you should be able to play that part of the melody on your guitar. The goal is to make an unconscious connection between the sound (e.g. the minor third) and the visual/spatial pattern (or patterns) on the fretboard (for a minor third, the easiest pattern is to go up three frets from the first note). This can be generalized to all of the intervals, chords, and techniques (hammer-ons, bends, etc).
Two Plus Two
Linear Mode
