Just trying to inject some life into this community beyond NGD post.
What techniques are you struggling with right now? What does your practice routine look like for improving that skill? Any advice you want to give to the other players on here?
I’m a super beginner so I’ve been working on basic chords and playing along with a click track. My God is tempo difficult for me especially as I haven’t fully mastered fingering positions.
But hey, I’m a little bit better than I was yesterday and that’s all I’m aiming for.
When I first started one thing that helped me get chord transitions was doing 3 minutes of alternating between two chords super slowly and making sure they were perfect, then doing three minutes moving literally as fast as I could with no regard to how sloppy it was.
Doing both seemed to help my brain meet in the middle much faster.
It is so hard to build that muscle memory up, but you will get there! Remember, “slow is smooth, and smooth is fast.”
Not a technique per se but I’m trying to memorize the notes on the fretboard
Ohh yeah I’m following the exact same video haha but didn’t know about the game, looks really cool! Thanks for sharing
It really works. I have it nearly memorized and I haven’t even finished all the steps.
Alternating Picking. Specifically string skipping stuff. Personally never had too much trouble on a single string, and naturally don’t mind going down a string, so long as the last pick was downward. But I’m trying to get a more universal and smooth technique.
At the moment I’m practicing a typical pentatonic box (2 notes per string) and trying to get it smooth and clean. I think I’m at the point where I know what movements will work for my hand, going both up and down the strings, but I’ve realised that there’s a lack of proper coordination between my hand and my arm for moving between strings while my hand maintains a consistent picking action. So I’m just practicing doing that at a slow speed, making sure my arm moves to the next string and my hand maintains a clean picking action. The hard part is focusing on making sure both are done well enough at the slow speeds that I kinda get some muscle memory for the technique … because at these slow speeds I’ve just got habits I don’t even thing about.
Generally it’s been a rewarding process because I don’t think I’ve focused on how my hand actually feels while doing something. Previously I’ve thought about that kind of movement works well or what I struggle with … but for this I’ve had to kinda concentrate on the precise feeling a particular movement has and which precise muscles/tendons are involved. I’ve generally been pretty bad at doing the whole slow down thing, so it just be me finally taking that seriously.
The other hard part is that I’ve got a line6 helix and it’s always so tempting to just muck about with making a new preset (“what would two stereo memory mans sound like?”).
Alternate chord forms for harmonies and jazz playing. It’s a beast for me.
I have been trying to figure out pinch harmonics, and they are kicking my ass if I’m honest.
Watched dozens of videos, tried probably a hundred different ways to do it, and for something that seems so simple, I am really struggling to figure them out.
Yeah these took me a long time to figure out too. There was a really really old Jared Dines video that helped me figure it out. My go-to practice song for pinch harmonics is Welcome Home
What helps me is knowing what they are. The strings don’t vibrate in a perfect single wave, the harmonics are already there. If you pluck an open string and briefly touch the string at the 12th fret (half a wavelength), you’re dampening all the harmonics that DON’T have a node at that position, so the full wavelength and thirds are dampened but the 1/2, 1/4, 1/6, etc are left to ring out.
You just hold the pick in a way that your thumb follows and briefly touches against the string at the 1/2, 1/3, 1/6, etc. nodes. You pluck based on the length of the string from the bridge to the fret you’re holding. So if you want to do the 1/3 wavelength, you “cut” the string into thirds and pluck at one of the two nodes such that your thumb “nicks” the string at that node.
A way I used to figure out where those nodes are based on the fret I’m fingering is to lightly rest my thumb on the string, and pluck with another finger (usually ring finger), moving up and down the string until I find one. The node is where your thumb was.
What helped me figure them out was picturing your pick pushing the string down, it bouncing back up to hit your thumb. Ever since them they feel a lot easier.
I’m working on intabulation for early music.
I have the sheet music, so I’m putting the tabs underneath to be able to play the bass and tenor lines together; it’s like a puzzle where I figure out the best way to play what’s on the page. The idea is that I’ll play the low harmonies while another instrumentalist does the melody.
Here’s a pic of a Renaissance dance piece that I’ve done most of:
The technique I’m working on is how to practice/learn. “Learning” how to “play” has always been a challenge for me. I’m curious to get other people’s opinions, and I don’t expect a universal consensus, but what have been your experiences with playing music while on THC? Recently I’ve started playing fighting games after taking 20 mg and it has enabled me to be way more conscious of my learning process. I’m curious if anyone has had similar experiences with music. I plan on trying it this weekend.
I am easily 10x worse at playing complex stuff when I’m stoned (though that doesn’t keep me from doing it often since it’s a great time). I don’t think I internalize the lessons as well, my micro level coordination is much worse. It’s even more noticeable drumming, but drumming is even more fun high lol. So I’d say go for it if you enjoy it, but over time I am sure that just improving your focus and learning method sober would be more effective.
I have had similar experiences with the games I play when I’m stoned. I have years of experience with the games I play and feel pretty comfortable with where my realm of expertise is. But when I get high it “enables” (don’t really like using this word here, but can’t think of a better one) to start making more connections which deepens my understanding.
Playinf music is a much more complicated/difficult task for me than playing a game, but I feel like I have enough technical proficiency with scales and enough theoretical knowledge to start exploring. What I’m lacking is the “glue” to put those things together in practice.
After writing this out I think I’ll follow along closely with some tutorials, then revisit them during the weekend to see what kind of differences I experience.
Thanks for sharing your experiences!
Interesting, I can get that. In the end, as long as you like how you’re learning, I’m all for just doing what’s most fun and will keep you playing the most often. So enjoy!
I realized what I needed to do was record what I’m practicing and listen to it in order to identify where I think I can improve. Incredibly mundane realization, but it was fun getting there.
Oh yeah, that’s huge. Watching video of your picking and fingering can help a lot too.
For me, I am way more comfortable improvising, noodling, or jamming while high, but my focus becomes way too shit tier for me to put in a mindful practice.
At this moment, not geting mad as I cant play due to a inguinal hernia. Most (or at least a lot) can play guitar/bass while seated. I discovered I can’t as my upper arms are almost as long as my upper body, which results in the bass or guitar being to high to play without straining wrists.
Before the inguinal hernia develpped, I was finally working on fretting and plucking on my bass, while standing with the bass on a strap. Finally I wasn’t fighting my instument, but my own lack of skills. I’ll continue that after the operation and recovery. I found some vids with nice scales, but maybe something easier would be better to get me started again after 6 months without practise. (Yep, totally new, dusted off the bass in august)
Congrats on sticking with through tough conditions. Best of luck with your recovery!
Thanks, tomorrow is the surgery, I hope I can play pretty soon after recovery.
Still working on my picking consistency. I play mostly metal, and I still struggle on consistently (throughout a whole song) picking fast riffs. Getting the pick stuck sucks. But I’m slowly getting better at it.
Just started playing an acoustic (Yamaha fg800) again last week after a ~25 year gap not playing anything so I don’t remember any songs and just remember a couple chords and exercises. Went hard into it this weekend rebuilding fine motor control again with picking exercises and spider crawls and the intro to Radiohead jigsaw falling into place played VERY slowly.
Looking to learn more chords and a couple basic strumming songs this week aside from more crawl and finger picking pattern exercises. I think after I have more confidence in my accuracy I’ll start looking at scales but any suggestions are welcome.
I’m learning Cosmic Square Dance to work on accompanying myself.
I wish my fingertips weren’t so pudgy. Also the coordination. Much easier on a piano where syncopation is often split between two hands. On guitar I have to think of it as the low E and A strings are the bass and played by the thumb pick, and the rest of the strings are the melody and each one gets a picking finger. High E is played by my pinky, B ring finger, etc.
Of course, being a guitar you have to break this rule and occasionally share the D string with the E and A on the bass (and thumbpick)
It’s a lot to get my head around but I’ll get there.
Improvisation inside a chord progression.
Trying to improv across a few different modes while following a chord progression from a backing track.
Getting phrasing and “feel” right for what I want to play.
