I think what's interesting about this subject about getting to the good stuff is the applications are boundless and experience only helps you utilize the philosophy. The challenge though, never goes away.
Practice
Song writing
Live performance
Recording
Sometimes we have to get through a lot of manure to get to the good stuff. What is manure anyhow? Simply something that started as a good intention that has gone as far as it's gonna go after it's processed. (Sorry for the gross out) What it yields before it gets to the end stage is a different story. Weather you get daisies in the end is only up to how you feel about it.
Here's some examples.
Practice: I'm sick of having to read this song so slowly just to get through it. I'm frustrated with having to play this exercise at a snails pace. Why am I studying this theory if I can play the notes but don't understand where it's all going half the time? I find that some folks will not attempt challenging things unless there's some pre-guarantee that they either won't fail, become embarrassed, or frustrated. Is this realistic if something is new or your headed towards a higher level on some subject than where your currently at? I don't think there's any need to answer this question because the question it's self seems a bit silly. More importantly, what's your chances of accomplishing your goal? You can practice, learn, flesh out the frustrating parts, or not get to your goal. Sadly, it can always end in the poor attitude of "naw I don't wanna learn that stuff that badly."
Songwriting: My band Artisan has this one particular song where it took us weeks to come up with an ending. We finally came up with the ending and played it for about a month. It was a pretty cool ending but it wasn't as strong as it could have been. So I suggested we try something else. One more ending for the tune was developed and it was by far the best for this song. We went through a lot of ideas, even pretty damn good ones to get to the ending that said what we wanted it to say. Sometimes, it's good to not let every angle gnaw at you when your being creative. We all want to make sure we don't slow our creative flow down or lose sight of an original thought. In the end though, sometimes you have to take a detour if you know deep down there's more or better out there. That means sifting through mediocre or only decent stuff to get to the gold.
Live Performance: Ever have a note or section you have to sing live that's always cool at practice but then always gets funky (in a bad way) at shows? Maybe it's a groove that usually doesn't feel right unless your stage volume is optimal and the monitors are right. That's not how it works in music though is it? You have your show and however that section goes down is how it's been counted for. Never mind the reasons. Nobody wants you to walk away from a gig pining over one section, but there's lessons to be learned. Your chances of coming out on top are much better if your continuing to polish these sections at rehearsal and continuing to try things out at gigs. Heed the symptoms and miscalculations and re-think your approach before you just give up and start thinking about a workaround. There's no need to ignore or be in denial of an obstacle. Have some humbleness, take a step back, see if you can't come out on top that way. Most importantly, don't beat yourself up over a show incident. Unless your completely in the wrong band, you should be enjoying and learning from every show you play.
Recording: Upon take #57 in the studio you start to ask yourself "Is this part really going to happen or do I need to come up with something else?" Good question!
With experience we can mentally endure these shenanigans a bit better. These situations only get better with a better attitude. We can learn to tell ourselves when it's time to move on to a different part of the song, or when to re-write. Maybe we're half way through that walking basslines book but it's time to go back to the first page. Your gonna hit that pitch in the vocal booth, but you may have to change your approach. Doing that may involve having to get good and used to a new approach, that could take time. Might not happen today. That's alright. As long as there's another session to be had things can still be cool. If there are no more sessions, then you gotta keep plugging away or re-evaluate your approach.
With these examples, I'm not here to tell you that unless you have experience you are up the river without a paddle. I'm actually hoping to share with folks that this is all normal stuff for players and writers of all levels. Very few things besides yourself will tell you how many takes you'll need to hit that note.
Without sounding like I'm reprimanding the entire music community, I will be very honest in saying: 50% of the performance issues are due to lack of practicing, preparedness, and confidence. Maybe that practice is gonna happen right where you stand on the stage as your band plays it's 100th gig, or in the vocal booth, or in the chair you practice in as you pull your hair out over some dotted laden rhythm with rests your trying to read. It's unnecessary to put yourself in those positions much of the time. The culprit is often again lack of preparedness and some sort of personal denial that it's going to work out or it'll just have to suck or abandon an idea.
Regarding education and practice. We all know that it's more a matter of wood shedding and making sure we aren't skipping steps. Sometimes we have to hear the same instructions 3 different ways to comprehend. That's not a horrible prospect. Eventually, we will learn how to gravitate to the best route sooner.
Much of this blog has been examples more than helpful hints. Just like our bodies, our musical ventures can get colds. We can be miserable and down for the count. Or we can slam 1000mg of practice, or good attitude, humbleness, and eventually lick the issue. The biggest thing I'd like to convey is that's all the things that come with the challenge of getting to the good stuff is OK. Everyone goes through it and very few situations are similar. In the end you have to decide if your frustration is more important or if the intended goal is. Sometimes, the stronger answer is to change the goal some. I've had that approach quite a few times and ended up very happy with the results. It's not a matter of compromise. It's a matter of asking yourself "What else is just as good?".
Hopefully you have a great support system of bandmates, musician friends, teachers, or maybe a producer or engineer around that can either be patient or hopefully guide you. In return, you must work hard to minimize these issues be it revising an approach or going home and making sure you nail it next time. On a creative level, how long or how short productivity should take is very subjective. Some of my own tunes I'm most fond of have been cultivated over the course of a few hours to many months. Some of my proudest creative outbursts have been impulsive. My best advice is experiment, experiment, experiment, and make a record of all of your ideas. If your not a recording buff or you don't own a hand held recorder, paper will do just fine.
I'd like to thank all of my readers thus far. For those of you who have worked with me in the past, if you have any suggestions as far as subjects you'd like to see me cover, feel free to contact me.
Showing posts with label practice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label practice. Show all posts
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Monday, December 12, 2011
Float Like A Butterfly
I'm asked quite often how to play fast. I'm sure most people who ask that question know that it won't be a simple answer. They are just hoping that maybe I can put them on the path. We are going to talk about playing fast but only focusing somewhat on physical technique.
The first instinct when trying to play fast is to hit the strings hard. What happens here though? It takes more back swing on our plucking fingers. We are also challenged with strings that are hit harder therefore vibrate in a larger way. The downfall is getting more of a percussive tone from the largely vibrating string ricocheting off the fingerboard. Another angle I find is greatly missed is, playing an instrument much of the time is about efficiency. If you get a big 'ol back swing going on with your plucking finger so you can play harder to play faster, how much longer will it take to get back to the string compared to if you were just using your moderate plucking strength. So in the end are we gaining anything by striking the strings harder? I think we're just giving ourselves a sense of dominance so we can will the bass into sounding fast. If you want it to be in time and articulate, it ain't that easy.
Allow me to retract my last sentence in the last paragraph. It is easy, as long as you don't make it difficult on yourself.
Don't get me wrong, there's moments when the bass sounds great when were beating the hell out of it. Yes, sometimes I hear a track I need to play on and I tell myself, "I think if I could pick out a bass that sounds great when I beat the hell out of it, I'll be happy with the sound." I'm not implying that you just need to feather or just scratch over the top of the strings to play fast. Pluck! Pluck but look for any points where the string resists you too much. Ask yourself if the movements on your right hand could be smaller or less exaggerated. Does your tone not sound as good as when you were playing a big open groove? Can you only get a good rolling sound when your right hand is based off the bridge pick-up because it has more tension? It shouldn't have to be that way. For some passages, I find the tone can get thin with that approach.
I'm sure a few of you have noticed that I haven't mentioned the left hand technique yet. I could write many blogs on left hand technique. To be simple, I'll leave it at a few points. Keep your thumb behind the neck and don't let it creep up over the top of it unless it's for a special technique.
The left hand does need to develop speed as well. There's two very simple ways. Firstly, focus on making the most efficient movements you can. Secondly, the strength you need to hold down your strings is dictated by how hard you are plucking with your right hand. Experiment with holding down a fret on the low "E" string. Use your everyday strength. Now pluck with your right hand lightly, then pluck progressively harder. Meanwhile, keep that left hand strength the same. You'll notice how for a lot of the right hand plucking, the note fired off just fine. As you started to pluck the string with more force, the note you were trying to hold down started to buzz. Hey! Some folks make a living with that sound.
If your right hand plucks lighter in an effort to play fast, your left hand doesn't have to hold the strings down as tight. In turn, they can move around faster as they don't have to exert as much energy.
We should touch on practicing speed or fast passages in general. Probably the most common way to develop speed is to plow through the part at full speed and let the clean and rhythmic accuracy appear over time. This is the worst, long standing, widely used practicing habit I see. Don't let your patience beat you! It IS the long way.
Let's say you have a passage in a tune that's at 160bpm. Chalk full of 8th notes and faster. Play it at the absolutely slowest you need to to play to be intelligible and clean. Make sure at that speed you can still think strait and your not just using "The Force". Find that speed your comfy with and practice with a metronome. Let's say your speed is 80bpm. Two days later, crank the metronome up only 5bpm more. At first, you'll find 5bpm fairly seamless. After a while at higher speeds you may find you need to spend a few extra days on one tempo. Even if your tempo is easy, stay there for a few days. If your already good at it, get better. In a week your speed can be up to 94bpm. You can get there with ease and you can get there playing just as clean as when you were playing slow. In a month, you can reach your goal. Two months, maybe even faster. If you are honest with your progress, these are much better results than the standard approach to gaining speed. I see a lot of people waste years just moving their hands fast thinking that over time their notes will make sense.
Speed can get frustrating and comes in different forms in music. You may work up a rhythm at one tempo, but it may not work out at the same tempo with a different rhythm. It's good to get into practicing various rhythm groupings with the metronome. It doesn't have to be a part of a song, it can just be an open string or one fretted note. If your at a lack for rhythmic exercises, ask a drummer friend, or pick up a drum rudiment book.
In this blog, I'm not diving too much into the subject matter of which direction your fingers should pluck at faster speeds. There's a lot of ways that work for many great players. I'd like to eventually spend time talking about various right hand techniques.
For myself, I use three fingers on my right hand for the really fast stuff. 1,3,2,1,3,2,1,3 etc. I always attack with my index finger as long as it's logical for the phrase I'm playing and my plucking pattern always stays in the same direction despite any variations in the rhythm. My fingers are always crawling in the same direction while using three finger technique. As of the last years, I've used two finger technique for as much as I can until I've reached my limit in speed. Tonally, I prefer it. It's also fair to mention I don't exclusively use but favor the "floating thumb" technique on my plucking hand. For those of you that don't know about "floating thumb", look into it! I will for sure do a little blog on it in the near future.
I'd love to hear from some of you who might try out some of my techniques from this blog. Feel free to contact me with any questions.
Thanks for reading and don't forget to warm up!
The first instinct when trying to play fast is to hit the strings hard. What happens here though? It takes more back swing on our plucking fingers. We are also challenged with strings that are hit harder therefore vibrate in a larger way. The downfall is getting more of a percussive tone from the largely vibrating string ricocheting off the fingerboard. Another angle I find is greatly missed is, playing an instrument much of the time is about efficiency. If you get a big 'ol back swing going on with your plucking finger so you can play harder to play faster, how much longer will it take to get back to the string compared to if you were just using your moderate plucking strength. So in the end are we gaining anything by striking the strings harder? I think we're just giving ourselves a sense of dominance so we can will the bass into sounding fast. If you want it to be in time and articulate, it ain't that easy.
Allow me to retract my last sentence in the last paragraph. It is easy, as long as you don't make it difficult on yourself.
Don't get me wrong, there's moments when the bass sounds great when were beating the hell out of it. Yes, sometimes I hear a track I need to play on and I tell myself, "I think if I could pick out a bass that sounds great when I beat the hell out of it, I'll be happy with the sound." I'm not implying that you just need to feather or just scratch over the top of the strings to play fast. Pluck! Pluck but look for any points where the string resists you too much. Ask yourself if the movements on your right hand could be smaller or less exaggerated. Does your tone not sound as good as when you were playing a big open groove? Can you only get a good rolling sound when your right hand is based off the bridge pick-up because it has more tension? It shouldn't have to be that way. For some passages, I find the tone can get thin with that approach.
I'm sure a few of you have noticed that I haven't mentioned the left hand technique yet. I could write many blogs on left hand technique. To be simple, I'll leave it at a few points. Keep your thumb behind the neck and don't let it creep up over the top of it unless it's for a special technique.
The left hand does need to develop speed as well. There's two very simple ways. Firstly, focus on making the most efficient movements you can. Secondly, the strength you need to hold down your strings is dictated by how hard you are plucking with your right hand. Experiment with holding down a fret on the low "E" string. Use your everyday strength. Now pluck with your right hand lightly, then pluck progressively harder. Meanwhile, keep that left hand strength the same. You'll notice how for a lot of the right hand plucking, the note fired off just fine. As you started to pluck the string with more force, the note you were trying to hold down started to buzz. Hey! Some folks make a living with that sound.
If your right hand plucks lighter in an effort to play fast, your left hand doesn't have to hold the strings down as tight. In turn, they can move around faster as they don't have to exert as much energy.
We should touch on practicing speed or fast passages in general. Probably the most common way to develop speed is to plow through the part at full speed and let the clean and rhythmic accuracy appear over time. This is the worst, long standing, widely used practicing habit I see. Don't let your patience beat you! It IS the long way.
Let's say you have a passage in a tune that's at 160bpm. Chalk full of 8th notes and faster. Play it at the absolutely slowest you need to to play to be intelligible and clean. Make sure at that speed you can still think strait and your not just using "The Force". Find that speed your comfy with and practice with a metronome. Let's say your speed is 80bpm. Two days later, crank the metronome up only 5bpm more. At first, you'll find 5bpm fairly seamless. After a while at higher speeds you may find you need to spend a few extra days on one tempo. Even if your tempo is easy, stay there for a few days. If your already good at it, get better. In a week your speed can be up to 94bpm. You can get there with ease and you can get there playing just as clean as when you were playing slow. In a month, you can reach your goal. Two months, maybe even faster. If you are honest with your progress, these are much better results than the standard approach to gaining speed. I see a lot of people waste years just moving their hands fast thinking that over time their notes will make sense.
Speed can get frustrating and comes in different forms in music. You may work up a rhythm at one tempo, but it may not work out at the same tempo with a different rhythm. It's good to get into practicing various rhythm groupings with the metronome. It doesn't have to be a part of a song, it can just be an open string or one fretted note. If your at a lack for rhythmic exercises, ask a drummer friend, or pick up a drum rudiment book.
In this blog, I'm not diving too much into the subject matter of which direction your fingers should pluck at faster speeds. There's a lot of ways that work for many great players. I'd like to eventually spend time talking about various right hand techniques.
For myself, I use three fingers on my right hand for the really fast stuff. 1,3,2,1,3,2,1,3 etc. I always attack with my index finger as long as it's logical for the phrase I'm playing and my plucking pattern always stays in the same direction despite any variations in the rhythm. My fingers are always crawling in the same direction while using three finger technique. As of the last years, I've used two finger technique for as much as I can until I've reached my limit in speed. Tonally, I prefer it. It's also fair to mention I don't exclusively use but favor the "floating thumb" technique on my plucking hand. For those of you that don't know about "floating thumb", look into it! I will for sure do a little blog on it in the near future.
I'd love to hear from some of you who might try out some of my techniques from this blog. Feel free to contact me with any questions.
Thanks for reading and don't forget to warm up!
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