Saturday, May 23, 2009

Three Fingers for Your Scales...

Hi there!

Today, the subject is:
How to play fast with no hassle. I do not believe in a 3 hours warm-up to be able to play. Neither in a 10 hours daily practice. You have many things to do to enjoy your life, why staying in your bedroom practicing the guitar for hours and hours when, what you want, is to play music.
Technique is just a tool and here is another one to help you playing fast (do not listen the ones who tell "everybody has limits". We do not have any and the World is in a constant expansion.
This subject will be developed in the next DVD (release in October) "Tricks and Tips on the Acoustic Guitar". The examples are 2 runs I play at dazzling speed in my arrangement of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana. You easily can do the same and will probably do even better.
Ready? OK, let's go.

This technique is inspired by the banjo roll, PMI (in other words: Thumb, Middle and Index)
Practice on open string first and make sure your triplets are even.
Notice you have the same left hand fingering except for the ending. A long slide in the Django's fashion:


To make it even and have entire control, you’ll be working on different rhythmic figures. First you aim the first not of each triplet:


Then the second note of each triplet:


And finally the third. The advantage of such exercise is that you a total control on each note.
It is adapted from snare drum exercise book...


Play several times each formula until you are comfortable.
You can increase the speed using your metronome. Then we will use some speed bursts to progressively play the whole deal fast. Start with one string at a time…


And the complete run.
To play it fast, just focu on the first note of each MEASURE. Use it as a spring board to launch the whole lick. And let go...


Next time I'll teach you the second run, longer but you get the idea:
Just let it go after the first note...

Cheerios!
Philippe
PhilippeBertaud.com