Can't break through a tough part in a solo

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Hi all.

Apologies; this might be a bit rambly, because I’m not sure what the question is here, but I’ll try to explain myself and hopefully someone has some insight. :slight_smile:

I like to learn different solos as a means of practicing specific skills. I’ve learned dozens of them, in different genres, of various difficulty, and each one had something to teach me.

I find that the solos usually fall into one of two categories:

There are those that I feel right away are outside of my reach. This is where the entire solo feels like it is just too much in general my current skillset. I recognize those. I’m fine with it. I put those aside to come back to in 6 months or a year.

The others fall into the category where they my have one or two parts that are difficult, but, in general, they feel within reach. I recognize when something feels impossible on the guitar at first glance, but after a couple of sessions of hitting my head against the wall, there is some progress, and I know that with enough practice, I can get there.

But the second solo in “Pink Pony Club” is kicking my butt. :slight_smile:

I picked this one to improve my speed. And that’s exactly where it’s hitting me.

I’ve done solos that are much harder, overall, and I can play pretty much all of this one, at full speed, except for the scale run.

It’s in F# major, and it has a sequence of 3 similar scale runs - 7 notes each.

The notes in the scale run are clearly “supposed to be” picked individually. Playing them with hammer-ons doesn’t make the right sound. I can do it at about 80% legato, but only at about 75% picked individually. I’m trying to do it the “right way”, and pick all the notes.

But, I’ve been grinding this scale run for weeks, and I’m just not making any progress beyond 75% of full speed. It gets cleaner, tighter rhythmically, but I can’t get it faster. I tried narrowing down the scope from 7 notes down to 2 or 3 note sections, to polish smaller areas, or transition areas, but it still doesn’t help to improve the overall speed of the 7 note run. I tried different fingerings to reduce the amount of string changes, or change the positions to where my fingers fall “naturally” to make it easier, but nothing seems to help.

It’s frustrating, but not in the usual way where everything is frustrating on guitar because you need to practice and get better. It’s frustrating because none of my practice approaches have made a dent in this speed plateau. It’s also frustrating because this thing doesn’t seem like it requires EVH levels of speed and virtuosity – it’s just a scale run! :slight_smile:

Am I doing something clearly wrong? Is there a different approach to practicing for speed improvement as opposed to other challenges?

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That is what I like to do and it feels much better learning skills through songs than excercises. However, fast playing is really difficult to play properly and it does feel the progress is slow to none for ages. The main problem is that it is not simply the case of “perfect everything at slow speed and then just speed up”. Objectively, there are tempos that require both picking and fretting technique to change significantly, so you can play faster. Excercises help with this - alternate, economy picking, picking inward/outward, picking depth, pick angle, 3 notes per string, four notes, slides to different position, string changes up/down, light touch… There are many. For speed, I think you need to dedicate time to these excercises. Start identifying in your solo where the things break (i.e. string change directionally up) and find excercises that work on that skill. Usually it is not only one thing, it is a combination.

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Hi Andrey, you mean the section beginning at 4:00 in the video on youtube? Where they ascend the major scale three times, starting on a higher note each time?

The obvious first place to start would be major scale pattern 5
https://www.justinguitar.com/guitar-lessons/the-major-scale-pattern-5-sc-255

but then for the third run up the scale you end up with a couple of position shifts with ring finger on the high e string for the last two notes.
Alternative might be to use major scale pattern 1
https://www.justinguitar.com/guitar-lessons/major-scale-pattern-1-im-113

It’s definitely worth spending more time experimenting with different positions and fingerings. Which one has worked best for you so far?

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Yep, it’s the sequence of three scale runs. They’re all the same F# major scale. The first run starts on the second note of the scale, the second one starts on the third note, and the third run also starts on the third note, but does a little pentatonic thing by skipping the 7th (but still including the 4th).

I explored every fingering available. My preferred, for this song, is:

  1. G13, G15, B12, B14, B16, E13, E14
  2. G15, G16, B14, B16, B18, E14, E16
  3. G15, G16, B14, B16, E14, E16, E18
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I had a little play. What felt best for me was

  1. G13 G15 G16 B14 B16 E13 E14
  2. G15 G16 B14 B16 E13 E14 E16
  3. G15 B14 B16 E14 E16 E18

Strict alternate picking seemed to work best.

For speed improvement I usually use a combination of “slow but accurate” and “speed bursts with a little slop”. The combination is weighted towards the former with maybe 5-10% time on the latter.

If you can play at 100% speed for the bursts where you have three notes on one string, then your alternate picking is fine and it might indicate that the string switching is where you need to focus?

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That dude Rick Beato did a Video on the return of the guitar solo in pop music last year. In that video, he uses this song as an example and breaks it down. The solo is pretty cool, it is a lot like the melodic sequences that justin teaches in the scale sections. My daughter just loves Chappell Rowen so I may just have to learn this song my self. Please keep us updated on your progress.

Did you watch the Chappell Rowen video? Maybe you just need a large red wig to nail the solo? :grin: just kidding.

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