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How To Nail
A Solo Moving Fingers
Or Making Music? The situation was this: student wants to learn a real live rock solo, the student gets the tab off the internet, then the student looks at the series of "numbers" on the tab sheet and dutifully attempts to turn each number into a "note". Unfortunate, the student is not really listening to the sounds which are the result of these efforts, and is certainly not comparing them to the original solo. The result will be that said student will move their fingers around, chasing the numbers on the tab sheet until they get bored, at which point they will dive back into one of the infinite tab collections on the net, pick another solo, and be off and running full speed ahead in order to stay in exactly the same place as a player! This is a summary description of what I have termed "horizontal growth", learning more stuff and playing it as badly as all the old stuff! I would like
to go through the various necessary procedures that enable one to escape
this cycle of mediocrity. Once we do
have the necessary foundation, we are in a position to learn whatever
we want, if we can fulfill the two conditions of practice "know the
right thing to do, and make sure you do it.". It is important to understand
that the first requirement "knowing the right thing to do" is very complex,
and different for each style of guitar. While knowing how to practice
is something that all players, regardless of style, must know, when
it comes to specific techniques, a classical player does not have to
know many of the things that a blues or rock player must know, and vice
versa. So, whatever style we play, we must first of all identify the
specific techniques needed for the style, and then strive to gain an
understanding of how those techniques are done. What We Need
To Know For Electric Leads The next
obstacle to deal with was the lack of understanding of the specific
practice approach necessary to use for learning electric guitar solos.
This student was completely violating the principle of "knowledge of
results" (fully explained in "The
Deeper I Go The Deeper It Gets"). The essence of this principle
is that we cannot acquire and improve a motor skill if we do not receive
some kind of feedback that gives us an awareness of how close our efforts
are to the model we are attempting to copy. If we are shooting a basketball
we cannot improve if we can't see the hoop, evaluate our effort, and
make corrections for the next attempt. We must respect
this fundamental law when we practice, especially electric leads. The
right sound is much more elusive in this here than in other styles,
because of the highly individual nature of a player's style and sound,
and the actual manner of producing sound in this style, which leaves
more room for error. By this I mean string bending. The infinite variety
of sounds made possible by the technique of bending strings makes it
imperative for students to be constantly comparing their efforts during
practice to the solo they are learning. It may sound obvious, but I
am constantly meeting students who don't do this! However you
do it, arrange to be able to listen to any part of the solo you are
working on while you practice. After that, you need something to record
your playing. Again, a simple cassette recorder will do. I keep two
recorders near me, one to play the solo, and one to record myself. I
play the original, and then I compare mine; back and forth, I "a-b"
it, listen to one, immediately followed by the other. And I don't mean
the whole solo, I mean lick by lick. Take a little piece of the solo,
study it, make sure you are sure of all the notes, fingering, picking,
techniques involved, and have gone over the basic movements (using the
Basic Practice Approach if you are using The Principles). Then, listen
to the original solo, and record yourself playing the same fragment
of the solo. Now, listen back and forth from the original, to yours,
noticing every detail. Ask yourself
"does my playing sound like the original"? If not (and the answer usually
starts out as "NO WAY!"), your job is to close the gap between the two.
You must discover exactly how yours is falling short, and then figure
out how to fix it. Are the bends in tune? Is the vibrato even? Is the
rhythm correct, and how about articulation? Your goal is to sound as
good, as polished and professional as the original. Putting It
Together
I am not
saying that everything you practice must be swallowed whole, and mastered
in its entirety. Sometimes you just might like a small part of a solo,
or one lick perhaps. There is nothing wrong with just sitting down and
copying a fragment of something you like, but you should still use the
same approach of coma paring it, in recorded form, to the original.
But along the way, you should master some whole songs, or whole solos,
and prove yourself on tape. The next step, of course, is to prove yourself
in a live situation by finding people to play with (of course, that
means dealing with other real live human beings, and brings about challenges
far beyond the scope of what I wish to talk about here!). Copyright
2005 Jamie Andreas. All rights reserved. |