I’ve been learning some new songs but one song is driving me insane…the Rhythm sections are slowing down my progress of learning the complete song. I know I can slow it down via Guitar Pro etc but my question is this.
Should I carry on learning the remainder of the song while working on the rhythm sections at a slower pace. I feel, lately because I’m just constantly concentrating on just the rhythm sections, I’m getting annoyed/frustrated and then just ignore practising the song. I do love the song, hence my question.
So carry on practising the remainder of the song or battle through the rhythm section until right and then move on.
How does everyone tackle this?
Some things become longer term projects and that’s perfectly okay. If something takes longer to learn, then pace yourself on it. Do other things that keep your interest up. Revisit your long-term project periodically. You may find at some point that learning other things has helped you with something that was previously difficult.
I had a song in my long-term projects that I had a difficult time with. I actually set it aside completely for awhile. I recently revisited it and one of the parts that was troublesome in the past is dead easy now. Right now, there’s one more section in it that I find really difficult that will take some time to get down, but I feel pretty good about it. I’d say I’m up to about 90% of the song now.
I have a few other “aspirational” songs that I periodically work on, too. Just have to be careful not to pick up too many of those.
It’s not my technique, just it’s a fast change of chords due to individual string picking, at slower speeds it’s fine, just when I bump it up to the right tempo, my fingers lose control hence me asking if best to keep on practising it but moving on with the rest of the song.
Hi @Mustela
I think, I’ll put it down as a long term project and just slowly keep working on the song especially the rhythm sections and slowly pick up the speed of the rhythm section until it’s right. I’ll keep working on the remainder of the song at the same time.
Are they Chord changes or arpeggios. If you play the chord as an arpeggio(like a scale) you’ll be faster at both the individual string picking and the change it’s self
If you really want to play the song, then you might ‘layer’ it … simply the bits you’re having trouble with and get the rest of the song down. You can then revisit and add in the difficult bits as you get them under your fingers. In this case, perhaps it’s possible to simply strum the rhythm part or simplify the picking?
I’ll often do this as for me the most enjoyable part is being able to play a song, and normally it’s only me that cares if it’s exact.
Rachel @rachelcoles
Does look complicated, can’t say I can work out the song title.
But looking at the tab I presume it is 4:4 time but triplets for each beat. When I look at the sequence of notes for half bar it is a basic finger style 6:8 pattern but I presume you are playing it with a pick.
Again not clear what the tempo is, are you trying to play it too fast rather than starting slowly and working up to speed.
Michael
Sometimes some simple One Minute Changes can help? Have you considered these for the very specific chord changes you posted?
For your initial question: No, you don’t need to nail the rhythm section full speed before working on other parts of the song. My take on this would be to skip days: One day rhythm section, other day, remaining parts. That helps to prevent the practice of this song becoming a chore and sometimes, little breaks of a certain practice item really help to improve. It gives our brains the possibility to properly “digest”.
Which song is this, by the way? The chord progression looks interesting.
How much does the actual tempo matter @rachelcoles ?
I once learned “Message in a bottle” by The Police on bass. I couldn’t quite get one of the sections upto the recorded song tempo of 152bpm. At (as I recall) 145 bpm I could play it fine. So I recorded at 145bpm, it sounded fine, and I moved on. A few bpm slower than 145bpm and it sounded wrong. So for me it was a case of: get it to where you can play it, it’s close enough, no one will notice the difference.
Likewise as a band, we’ll do songs at a tempo we feel comfortable. The singer can’t get the lyrics to a wordy song out; the guitarist can’t quite do the solo at tempo; the og is tuned down so open strings help you get round the fingerboard but we don’t want to tune down for one song etc.
@rachelcoles
The Dm7 is the 6th of the Fmaj7 the only differance is the open D string. To simplify the first line fret the Dm7 like a mini bar F chord with a open D as the root. This way you can play the first barre without changing chords just add the ring finger or thump over to play the G note for the Dm7/G. Then all you need to do for the C chord is leave you Ring Finger or thumb down and lift the other fingers. This will give to time to fret the Fmaj7.
Context:
The song is ‘Still Got the Blues’ - Gary Moore in 12/8 at 80bpm
Have been doing one minute changes and just practising changing between chords. It’s fine at a slower tempo, just when I move to a higher speed (close to 80bmp) it goes all wrong…Been working on it for about two months on and off…Most chord changes are fine, just some (Fmaj7 to Bm7b5 is the nightmare, works and then doesn’t see_no_evil_monkey:). Using a pick.
Think I’ll move onto other sections of the song but keep practising the rhythm section every other day or so until I get it right.
Are you stuck for speed of for stamina? Can you play it once or twice at speed but then things unravel (that would be stamina) or can’t you play it at speed at all? There are different approaches to take depending which one is the main problem. And do you think the speed is reachable - have you played something else at similar speed before and this is just the next step or would you think this is a big step?
If this is a big step you’d best start thinking about it as a long-term goal, so find a simplified solution for now so you can play the song beginning to end and then park it a while (a few months at least) and then revisit and see if you get closer, practise a bit more and if still too far out of reach then park again and repeat. It’s what I have done with songs that were really a push at the time and eventually they come together, but it does sometimes take a lot of time. And quoting Justin “songs help each other” so you’re better off working on other things than working on this one song for too long if it is out of reach right now.
If the challenge is not that big a step over what you have played before then it might be worthwhile trying to get the improvement down now. I would probably still go for (and have done in the past) finding a simplified version of the hard pattern so that you can play the song through beginning to end. And in parallel work on the tricky part. Work on speed first, then stamina.
For speed I use speed bursts: Practise a small section a few times in a loop at a speed you can play and then for one loop repetition try and double the speed, then back to the slower tempo. If the loop is short enough (start with just one chord change) one fast run almost always works (the adrenalin gets you through) and then you rest and recover on the slow tempo for a few repetitions. Then try another speed burst. Works better for me than using a metronom and ticking up the bpm 2 or 5 at a time - drives me crazy and does not feel like progress at all.
And once you can play the entire progression through at a speed you are happy with then work on stamina: how many repetitions can you get through without making too many mistakes? For that I usually work at a speed that is slower than my target tempo as I will get more repetitions in before it all unravels - give the brain just a bit more space and time.
Great song to be learning. When I’ve taken on what Justin calls a dream song, they can take a fair while. One of my dream songs was / is Older Chests by Damien Rice. I spent 4 months playing the fingerstyle to a metronome every day until it really settled for me. At the time I started on that song I’d been playing guitar (every day) for 10 years.
Try playing it at 100 BPM. It sounds counter intuitive but give it a solid try. It will be madness but practice that for a few sessions then, go back to 80BPMs and suddenly the studio tempo won’t seem so bad. You may even suprise youself and nail it, or be closer than you were prior and maybe close enough that you overcome that hesitation and become convinced you can nail it very soon.
hence me asking if best to keep on practising it but moving on with the rest of the song.
