It looked good & smooth to me, and way quicker than I will be able to achieve with my old arthritic fingers.
1 Like
Sounded good to my ears JK. Nice and smooth!
1 Like
Hello, you might consider exercising this on an acoustic guitar, then back to electric for hearing and feeling the differences. The higher vs lower action would force a difference in approach feel and response.
Also, when I listen back if recording, I do not engage my eyes on a screen. I find it heightens my aural awareness no matter how much I may think myself immune to the visual input distraction. The visual is valuable in assessing technique of course, but your ears will tell you more about your feel, tone and vibe.
I also try to make an exercise like this more musical if I can. Even little things like slides, gliss into horizontal playing with directional changes can really help.
Even alternate runs of scale, phrase, scale etc to not train to a dominantly scalar style.
Try holding the notes longer if you can, difficult!
2 Likes
@Richard_close2u I mucked around for a bit and came up with this lick based on your example rhythm. I find some combinations of notes sound better than others… so not everything that pops out is good. My bends suck so I avoided that 
It was a good consultant’s answer - and I think I’m more interested in expressive playing than speed metal.
Ah, yeah, I know that’s a generally good rule, I’ve found with legato so far I play better if my fingers are relaxed and not stretched.
I’m not sure you’re not where I’m at, I saw your latest video! I reckon we’re a pretty similar level, probably just spending time on different stuff. I’ve been practising this one daily for months, it might look effortless but it kind of has to. If I push the speed beyond what I can do I make a lot of mistakes, so it’s daily practice with a metronome and making it go 5 bpm faster when I’m comfortable with a speed (warm ups required).
That Blues Lead guitar area and this tip is gold, thanks Dave! I’ve finished grade 3 (at least what’s published) so recently started grade 4 lessons but hadn’t seen that bit yet. My improv feels pretty messy, I think that’s because I don’t know any licks yet beyond what I’ve made up myself. I’ll get into that one… Eruption I’ll leave for February (lol - maybe Feb 2033).
Thanks Adrian, I’ll check that one out. Finding achievable solos is a trial and error challenge for me.
Definitely differences on the acoustic, I play my acoustic quite a bit and playing this is a lot slower and more error prone. The slides and horizontal playing I’ll be adding as I learn more riffs and scales - so far I only know 2 scales, single positions only (minor pentatonic and major scale first position).
4 Likes
Thanks everyone for all the feedback. My takeaway is - technique good enough for now, time to learn new techniques, licks and solos, and take it beyond a technique exercise.
Thanks @sclay @Socio @sairfingers @Stuartw @Eddie_09 who I didn’t quote above
(had to split it over 2 posts and I was repeating myself a lot replying to everyone)
2 Likes
That’s a pleasing to the hear lick, phrase, JK.
Noticed you targetting the root note of the I chord.
Now what about a few cycles of that over a 12BB loop.
Do you have a looper? Recording loops on a looper is another skill that I found to be harder than people make it look. But once you have that in the skill set, loodles are great fun and good for bettering one’s play.
You could just vamp on an A7 chord and play that lick, squeezing to get all it’s juicy goodness.
Oh and try the bending, over time you’ll get better, both through deliberate practice and just be throwing them into your play. And perhaps try adding vibrato to that last note. You’ll find the lessons on both technqiues in that module Dave pointed you too. I began 2022 watching the lessons and enjoyed that being a learning focus through the year.
You may also want to check this Guitar Challenge, which I found to be anexcellent exercise Guitar Challenge (Improv) - 3, 2, 1 improvisations
Keep on rocking in the free world 
1 Like
Nicely done JK.
This puts me in mind of something I devised as a learning and practice tool for DavidP a little while ago … of course it is freely available for all.
It is based around I, IV, V 12-bar framework, with a chord then some space to explore.
Legato runs of eighths, quarters, triplets etc are great fillers.
I have created and tabbed some examples (including user-friendly bends worth trying).
Would you like cheese with that sir?
2 Likes
Sounding good JK, you don’t have to be shredding to make sweet music. As much as improvising is more about expressing what you have learnt, ie licks, you can find some nice little runs just noodling, often by accident. Bank those whenever you find them and save them for a rainy day.
Look forward to hearing more.
1 Like
Glad you liked it David. Targetting the root wasn’t intentional - I just played around and it seemed to sound good based around that note - now I understand why 
.
I have a looper on my amp, so I’m quite familiar with the challenges of having it loop perfectly in time! I’m not at the point yet where I get it to loop right first time. Still working on that. I noodle over a loop occasionally, but I often feel like I’m going nowhere with it as I haven’t learnt any set piece licks yet or how to bend properly. Although solving that shortly, I think. Once I’ve figured bends out I think I’ll give that 321 a go - might be a while though!
Extra cheese! That exercise is way too good to be buried deep in one of David’s AVOYPs, it deserves its own post. I’ve got to try that sometime, looks achievable. Thanks Richard.
And sometimes shredding is beautiful, other times just noise. Although no shredding happening here yet!
I improv a lot, but I find it more fulfilling to build around chords, riffs and construct a song melody, rather than improvising solos. Why… don’t currently find lead improv that great at my skill level. All the runs I have are from noodles 
. Which is to say, not many of them and they’re luck based…
Just watched the video on how to bend properly (5 minutes ago), and with some practice, some licks, and learning some other people’s solos (beyond the few I can do now) I reckon I’ll get there in time.
3 Likes
Hi Jk,
This is what I have to think about now, and I’m “disappointed” that Justin doesn’t have a lesson from this, 
… I just had a quick look on you-tube 
,…I’ll be busy next week,…
Thanks for the idee,…greetings
1 Like
Hi Jk ,
You’ll never guess,… I already started this afternoon with the intro of that song … Bird of paradise… you not only learn flickoff and hammers, … but you also need what you have learned from the mini baree. …(really 
),
coincidence does not exist
I don’t know if you’re even want it, but be careful looking for a tutorial, the first one I found already made a mistake in the first 2 notes, … but after that it’s okay, … .the 2nd one I found is sweet but better not because it goes verry “apart”,…it’s sparse,…call if you want it.
Greetings,
Greetings,…
1 Like
You set that one up, right? How good you put in the time to learn the mini barre 
I hadn’t heard the song before you posted it, so seeing as it’s not one I know I don’t think I’ll be learning it. But keen to hear your version of it when you’re done!
1 Like
Never heard of that song. 
…I really thought it was as well known as Stairway to Heaven… etc…
And I can’t imagine that I’m going to play the whole song within a year ,…I will play the short intro if it doesn’t “irritate” me too quickly within a month (or two),… … if all goes well I thrive under this self-imposed pressure,…supplied by you now 
,…
Good evening/night ( here) , and have a nice day man
Greetings,…
Are we talking about the Snowy White version Rogier?
Yes for sure Gordon
Perhaps I missed it but didn’t see any hammer-ons and flick-offs in the video. The associated lessons for this talks about hammering down the fingers.
In my vid? The hammer-ons are on the way down, flick offs on the way up. Just hitting each string once with the pick. You can hear it but I didn’t video my picking hand.
The whole series of notes were played as:
picked then hammer-on for ascending the scale pattern …
picked then flick-off for descending the scale pattern.
Warning: topic hijack/digression ahead
@roger_holland As well know as Stairway to Heaven … surely not, Roger, you said that somewhat tongue-in-cheek.
Given when JK was a youth listening to music and into the grunge, alternative rock (what does ‘alternative’ really mean … maybe a ‘Just Chatting’ topic one day), bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam, which you should know are prominent in his musical taste development, and this song being a hit in the early 80s, I’d have been surprised if he did know it. In fact could this song be cause to consider Snowy White and his solo band to be a One Hit Wonder?
I don’t know much about him, other than that he was one of the guitar players in Thin Lizzy (JK may well know a few of their songs, like Chinatown or Killer on the Loose from one of the albums he played on … Google is my friend).
I did not know that he contributed a solo on Pink Floyd’s Animals, later played live with Roger Waters and also was in the band with Peter Green on his In The Skies album.
All that musicology aside, a lovely song, a song from the 80s that appeals to me, probably because it is not what one would consider to be 80s music I suspect 
Here’s a live recording made more recently. Even if you don’t watch the entire performance, us learning guitar with an interest in lead technique may find the solos good to watch. The camera ought to have just focused (for us) close up on his guitar, they didn’t, but did for the solos. You can skip to around 2’00 and again to 3’30"
End of digression
Thanks for indulgence, JK
2 Likes
Hi David,
Okay okay , … I exaggerated a little bit 
… , but in my youth this was really big here, and heard a lot and of course more often than Stairway because that song is much too long for an average radio station , … and sometimes a bit too wild, … but I was genuinely surprised because it is always in the middle of the annual top 2000 here, and a lot in the resent past on music radio`s (till a least 4years back… don’t listen to it anymore)…
But nice all that information you looked up , I knew most of it not,…beautiful version of the song…
Below another super hit from them,… 
,…but i think you like it too,…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSnLjVd0KdY
Learn JK Learn JK learn JK Learn JK 
Greetings,
1 Like