Mordrida
12-04-2005, 02:40 PM
This isnt really a lesson per se. But it is important. Well at least i think it is.
Something i am still having a hard time undoing. When practicing licks or scale runs don't get in the habit of stopping when switching strings. Even a brief pause can hurt you if you continue doing it over and over again.
How many times have you heard yourself play a scale and gone
Da...da...da......da...da...da...... Etc.
Keep your playing even and smooth and don't pause when skipping strings. If you can get a metronome do it!!.
If you don't have a metronome but have a drum machine..use it!!
Undoing this kind of bad habit can cripple your playing. Also although i am not sure how to describe this. Don't get in the habit of playing scales in a certain way. You get muscle memory when you do it too often. It will cause hiccups when you try to change something.
What i mean by this last part i will give an example.
I have this way of starting and ending a riff i play. Where it starts and where it stops. I try not to do it often. But i find if i try to add to a run starting in the same way when i go past the point i normally would stop. I get this hiccup in my playing because my fingers are used to stopping then. Its like driving really fast thru a mall parking lot. Nice and smooth until you hit the speedbumps.
Learning a lick/riff/scale is great! But don't develop bad habits in your practicing. Practice is what your attempting to do. If you practice something the wrong way your body and mind get trapped into learning it the wrong way. And undoing the damage can take FOREVER.
I really think that in alot of ways thats is the reason people get stuck in a rut...like the pentatonic rut. Its not that they don't know other scales..or parts of scales its because they have trained their hands so thoroughly to complete Pentatonic runs that they didnt work on anything else so it became automatic. When you pick up the guitar and start to improve look at the first thing you almost always do. Ok...now that you know what it is....Throw it the heck away for a few months. Don't let yourself do it. Deny your fingers what they crave to do. heh
Whew..sorry had to get that off my chest mainly because i have been working all afternoon at trying to fix somethings i picked up a long long time ago and its frustrating me to no end!
Something i am still having a hard time undoing. When practicing licks or scale runs don't get in the habit of stopping when switching strings. Even a brief pause can hurt you if you continue doing it over and over again.
How many times have you heard yourself play a scale and gone
Da...da...da......da...da...da...... Etc.
Keep your playing even and smooth and don't pause when skipping strings. If you can get a metronome do it!!.
If you don't have a metronome but have a drum machine..use it!!
Undoing this kind of bad habit can cripple your playing. Also although i am not sure how to describe this. Don't get in the habit of playing scales in a certain way. You get muscle memory when you do it too often. It will cause hiccups when you try to change something.
What i mean by this last part i will give an example.
I have this way of starting and ending a riff i play. Where it starts and where it stops. I try not to do it often. But i find if i try to add to a run starting in the same way when i go past the point i normally would stop. I get this hiccup in my playing because my fingers are used to stopping then. Its like driving really fast thru a mall parking lot. Nice and smooth until you hit the speedbumps.
Learning a lick/riff/scale is great! But don't develop bad habits in your practicing. Practice is what your attempting to do. If you practice something the wrong way your body and mind get trapped into learning it the wrong way. And undoing the damage can take FOREVER.
I really think that in alot of ways thats is the reason people get stuck in a rut...like the pentatonic rut. Its not that they don't know other scales..or parts of scales its because they have trained their hands so thoroughly to complete Pentatonic runs that they didnt work on anything else so it became automatic. When you pick up the guitar and start to improve look at the first thing you almost always do. Ok...now that you know what it is....Throw it the heck away for a few months. Don't let yourself do it. Deny your fingers what they crave to do. heh
Whew..sorry had to get that off my chest mainly because i have been working all afternoon at trying to fix somethings i picked up a long long time ago and its frustrating me to no end!