licks for your liking

Mojority of the licks explore only the usual runs. This time...

diminished runs

some more licks

Here's some licks that you might also like.

pentatonic

Pentatonic licks

Em Arpeggio

One of my favorite key... Em. And I will be extracting Em arpeggio and use it as a lick. There are many ways to create a lick out of the arpeggio using the fretboard plot below.

Metronome

What is a metronome? I have for a long time underestimated the power of a metronome. Though i knew that it is a very important tool in the development of speed playing i somehow just put that idea aside. I just seem to place it a locker room and is bound for oblivion. But just recently i was dumbfounded when i saw a very small kid play with fingers in lightning speed with all the melody and technicality imbued in it. Then he mentioned about what he did to attain his playing ablity, constant practice with metronome. He just simply said it! I was ashamed of myself, partly because i was ignorant and also because of the fact that this boy is just a fraction of my age but play so well i would think i cant outdo him if we have a playing match.
But i have the fact that i have misguided myself. I will now try to use my metronome as i play or practice. Im sure it will have a good impact on my playing.

Pick attack angle

I want to talk about the angle of guitar pick during playing. You can actually vary it depending on the speed of your playing. Slow, you can literally use horizontal attack but at fast speeds you naturally give your pick a slight tilt. The tilt approaches vertical position the more fast you go. Though we have different types, we must remember to use what is appopriate for our own type of playing. One might be easy for others but difficult for you to use.

Mia, a good friend of mine wants to know more about pick attack, so here it is Mia :-)... Your pick or plectrum is actually your finger's extension. So i would like to remind you to always consider your pick as your fingers, finger nails or somewhat an extension of it. Why i said this? It's because you need to still feel the guitar strings as much as you would with your fingers and not so much as just a vibrating string ringing at your plectrum's end. You need to have an intimate connection.... binayot ba... hehehe... Kidding aside, this would create some sort of feedback effect so you would know if you're hitting the strings hard enough or too weak. Well, of course, you can just hear it or you can let your fretting fingers do the feel but if you can do it with your picking fingers then it would add up to your guitar mastery. This is hard to comprehend at first and probably feels so frustrating. Much the same feeling as to why you cant tune your guitar at first few months of your playing. But just try to. The earlier you are aware of it, even if you still wont have a feel for it, the much better. The more you practice the more it becomes clearer to you of what im talking about. Just have a constant and conscious practice, hehehe. So again have some personal connection to your guitar through your pick, its not just a small instrument its a valuable link, hhhmmm char.... Back to pick attack, generally there's four that i know of;

Horizontal (p.s. those are not dead finger nails just indelible ink spot, I voted last sunday :-)...

Vertical

Forward tilt

Backward tilt











Naturally all players tend to use the forward tilt attack most of the time. And for me it is the most effective to use. Not that the others cant be used, its just that this form can be used on whatever type of playing you use, be it slow, moderate of even fast. Vertical for the most part are used for very fast shredding licks. A good bit of players though consider vertical as not something you choose to do but as a result of your playing in fast tempo. Its an effect rather than a cause. Horizontal on the other hand is for very slow melodies. The picking strength is increased as you can pluck the strings more powerfully. The drawback though is you cant play in faster phrases as your pick gets tangled in this kind of position. Try this horizontal picking slow, then gradually play fast tempo. You'll notice that the faster you get the harder it is for you to pick. Then try to tilt the pick, forward or backward, it doesn't matter. The two are so much the same in all aspect and only depends on the player, whatever suits him. You can try it yourself and determine what works best for you. The tilting action noticeably offers a fluid picking motion making you pick faster. In conclusion, use tilting pick attack mainly for your normal and usual playing and employ vertical for very fast tempo and horizontal for slow and melodic ones e.g. ballads. It worked for me hopefully for you too. But then again, you control your own taste so try everything and choose what feels comfortable to you. So what are you waiting for, grab your axe, rip it off and rock on!!! Mama Mia!!!

Relaxed playing

Majority of the time we are engulfed with the music we play that we tend to forget the way we carry our body while playing. Most guitarist just dont realize that when they play they sometimes unknowingly alter the way they breathe or how each muscle are stressed out.

Good habits - Constant release not constant pressure

Constant release is when you practice to release your fingers more often when you dont need to press on any other strings. Although constant release of your fingers develop naturally through time and practice, it is still a good thing to have a conscious effort to put that into every playing session you have wether just practice or on live play.

Some of the positive things it offers is that you wont have those thick finger callouses that most unmindfull players grumble about. Your fingers are mobile giving you more fluidity in motion. Your fingers dont easily get tired. And it gives you superior finger precision practice.

You have to be careful though, as it doesnt apply to rythm playing. Most of the time it is employed in scales and fast licks only as there is a high speed succession of notes and you dont want the notes to overlap and make the scale blurry. On the other hand, in rhythm playing you want the chords to ring out and make sure you dont cut short the notes ringing, otherwise it defeats the purpose of rythm playing.

Plectrum or pick

After a year of absence i felt i needed to realign myself with my passion again, GUITAR. For some reason I totally halted from blogging maybe due to the fact that not anyone has ever read this blog and i have gone helter skelter with the aspect of my guitar playing. But i thought again, so what if nobody reads this blog? Does this blog ever serve to be read? Well partly yes but i kind of deeply realize that this need to be a personal thing and putting it as a journal for ownself makes more of a sense than the expectation of having it to a great multitude of readers out there. So here I am back again.



I was having a great day playing with my guitar when i had a passage lick that seems so hard to get.