@roby2 Why do you have to worry about tempo? If you know the notes play them to what sounds good. I do.
1 Like
Itās quite hard to count while doing this kind of playing, so you need to bake the arrangement into your mind, and then play it.
What works great for this is Guitar Pro. Justin has a guitar pro file for this lesson IIRC. Listen to it in the lesson, listen to it in guitar pro, then slow it right down in guitar pro and play along with it. Once you get it under your fingers, speed it up incrementally.
3 Likes
I thought it was important to count because justin does it all the time.
I think Justin counts to teach the timing of the arrangement. I think most people would not count while playing once familiar with an arrangement, except for specific situations (e.g. count-in, stops/breaks)
1 Like
So what is the best thing i could do to overcome this?
Also one more question. With the blues solo justin provided, as there is no backing track provided are we meant to learn the tabs but play with our own timing? Like the backing tracks i saw on youtube dont match the same tempo as justins tab.
Hello, if you scroll up to the very first comment of this thread, youāll find a
matching backing track created by @Richard_close2u .
I use it for practicing the blues solo, and in my opinion, it fits perfectly 
. Thanks a lot to Richard at this point 
.
Iāve never counted along the solo. Iāve listened to it quite often, so meanwhile I feel how to play it (at least I think so 
). And thatās also what Justin says, blues is no pure technical thing. Itās a feeling. And to get it right, he suggests that we listen to blues songs a lot.
I hope this helps 
.
4 Likes
Hey @roby2 ,
For me counting is a tool to help learn the rhythm of the thing Iām trying to play. Sometimes counting is not necessary, e.g. when I learned the riff to Sunshine of Your Love, the riff was so familiar to me (and itās pretty slow), so I could just get the rhythm right by āfeelā.
However, sometimes when learning a more complex lead line or lick, that might have triplets or in any case, a more complex or faster rhythm, just listening to it is not enough (for me, at least) to just play it by feel. In that case, counting it out while playing (super-slow!) helps me get it under my fingers (or ābaked inā as @jkahn says). Once it is baked in, I can speed it up (gradually) and play it without counting.
3 Likes
Hello Robbie @roby2
While I agree with Nicole @NicoleKKB that playing the blues is about feel, the overall timing of it needs to be right.
Each phrase in this solo starts on beat 1, (apart from the intro) so itās important to know when the first beat of each bar is and keep in time with it.
You can do that by counting, tapping your foot, swaying, nodding your head, metronome, drum beatā¦.whatever your preferred method is.
The ending of each phrase is the next important and that varies through the solo.
The timing of the notes within a phrase is less important and flexing the timing of them can give the solo your own individual feel.
Nail beat 1 and enjoy playing the solo! 
4 Likes
Hello everyone. Thank you so much for the answers. I will definitely apply all this in my next practice session. Also, this has to be the best online guitar community 
Again, tysm.
1 Like
Test of leaving a comment.
Hi there the course content refers to a free download for guitar pro file. I canāt seem to find that anywhereā¦
Hi I really enjoyed this lesson and love that it included a guitar pro file for the lesson. However the file seems to be locked. Since itās locked I canāt change the tempo to practice. 94bpm is a little fast for me. It would really be cool if it were unlocked so I could work me way up to playing that fast. It would be so much easier and less frustrating. I have had guitar pro for years and have never ran into this problem before.
Thanks
Hi Tim, this post maybe relevant to you
1 Like
Hey Thanks that worked! Yeah it would be cool to have these for song lessons. Then we could pay along with the song until we learn it. Itās such a better option than tabs.
If you have Guitar Pro and you have the tabs, you could make the Guitar Pro file yourself and then practice with it. Iāve thought of doing that for a couple pieces.
Yeah thatās a good idea. I might try that.
1 Like
You canāt change the āprojectā tempo in GP as its write protected. But you can select a percentage of the tempo to slow the track down. As shown below.
3 Likes
And you can do this while playing using the + / - keys and find a speed your comfortable with.
My first reduction is normally to 80% and if that is too fast drop by 5% until it suits.
Another good tip. Once you have it under your fingers boost it to 105 or 110% of the original tempo. When you then go back down it will feel much more relaxed and easier to play.
8 Likes