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Lately I also realize for myself that speed playing could be used for different purposes. Most obvious is melodic lines, to bring a virtuoso element to the table. That's what most guitarist are going for. But it seems to me someone like Dick Dale uses speed for different purpose. I'd call it speed as a purely sound effect.
Furthemore, one of my favorite guitarist Vernon Reid can play machine gun like runs without seemingly conveying any kind of melodic ideas. It's just an effect of a chainsaw, really rough and crude barrage of notes. Maybe he does have melodies in his head when he plays like that, but it come across as something else to my ears.
To me, that approach is refreshing in many ways. Is anyone else seeing what I'm talking about?
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03-07-2017 09:36 PM
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03-07-2017, 09:44 PM #52joaopaz GuestOriginally Posted by AlsoRan
Today, on the classroom I had this young girl, 10, who loves to show off on everything, she's a cute but totally full of herself We were playing one of the early Paganini pieces (Suzuki Book 2) and by the end she was literally daring me... "faster, faster!" and trying to match the speed. She was having loads of fun with that and I couldn't help but think about this post of yours (I'd read it earlier today - and how her profile makes it so much easy for her to attemp speed with the proper spirit....
She wasn't playing slowly, and then faster, and growing the piece carefully - she wanted it all at the first go, doing mistakes, laughing at it and just trying again and again.
I'm sure that mindset can only be helpful! It was pretty much like your speed limits' story
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03-07-2017, 09:54 PM #53joaopaz GuestOriginally Posted by Runepune
duly noted!
As for the short sections, concentrating on small bits of info, that's what I use the Batio exercises for; and can see the importance of it, of course... but as I mentioned I feel I experimented too much lately all along the way with different guitars, necks, picks, strings, picking methods. That took a toll in my progress, I'm sure.
Thanks for the great post!
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03-07-2017, 09:57 PM #54joaopaz GuestOriginally Posted by pkirk
It's the one I had in mind (as I read it earlier too ) when I was writing my loooong one above! Lots to think about, in a great way!
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03-07-2017, 09:59 PM #55joaopaz GuestOriginally Posted by MarkRhodes
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03-07-2017, 10:04 PM #56joaopaz GuestOriginally Posted by Hep To The Jive
Roger that, I see what you mean, and its great you brought it up the concept of speed as "an effect". Great catch, Sir!
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Originally Posted by pkirk
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Originally Posted by Doublea A
I see music as a conversation. When I'm conversing with someone, it's a huge turnoff if they keep talking in run-on sentences, breathless, and no opportunity to respond. At that point it becomes a harangue, with the listener given no opportunity to absorb what has been heard.
Quoth Paul Simon:
Slow down, you move too fast --
you got to make the morning last, just
kicking down the cobblestone,
looking for fun and feeling groovy.
Blather, however, should be abjured at all costs. Fast or slow, each note should mean something, should move the piece forward.
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Originally Posted by grahambop
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Originally Posted by Hep To The Jive
He combines it with various chordal riffs and melodic riffs and it is one of my favorite solos in Rock. I have tried to learn it a couple of times, note for note but I don't have the technique (yet?)
Yes sir, that is one whirling dervish application of speed that many found to be very exciting. 19 millions views on Youtube must tell you something. For the curious, he starts his main solo at the 3:00 mark.
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Originally Posted by AlsoRan
He knew how to let loose, and a little slop didn't scare him.
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Another thing about speed, and I am guilty of this. I don't like it when the notes don't ring out.
I heard a Jazz guitarist the other day at a Jazz gig, and he had some nice fast runs but he missed a lot of notes in the run Combine that with his lack of volume ( I am going to start a thread on volume in gigs) and the excitement left the room when it was his turn to solo.
His runs had lots of dead notes. I felt badly or him, but who knows what goes on in a particular artist's mind. Maybe that was what he wanted to play and how he expressed himself. If so, then he succeeded.
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Originally Posted by Thumpalumpacus
My problem with most speed demons is no matter how virtuosic they are, it still sounds laborous to my ears. It's like they are ambitious, and it wears me out. Vernon never had that problem. Sometimes I feel like he almost trolls shredding style, and and brings smile!
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Playing fast does seem to be parallel to talking fast. There is a fine line between excited communication and nonsense, and where you are compared to the line depends on the listener.
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Originally Posted by Hep To The Jive
I get the feeling most of the poodleheads sat practicing scales for eight hours a day, but Vernon was out gigging.
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Originally Posted by Thumpalumpacus
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Speed is a great jazz skill to have, and you can listen to old recordings of guys hitting some standards with the sole intent of playing it as fast as humanly possible, and those cats could hang at those crazy tempos.
I think in the past there were a generation or two where virtuosic skills were considered a requirement for jazz musicians.
But..after spending 18 months focusing on attaining some great speed about a dozen years back, once attained....it must be MAINTAINED.
In a bygone era, you could have gone out and gigged and jammed with OTHERS nightly to keep those chops up, 'cuz if you don't use it, you lose it.
Anyway, without the opportunities to gig and jam often, I found the speed slipping because I wasn't putting all that focus on speed in the woodshed anymore.
So be it.
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Coordination is usually a big problem with speed... left hand does it fast, right hand does it fast --- but together they don't.
One of the thing was taught...
Usually when we think about playing phrase or notes we consider it's teh right hand that controls it, right hand is the beginning of the sound at least/
But musically it is as much the left hand (or even more),
thinking you play notes and sounds with your left hand rather than with your right.
It's like your left hand is pressing the keys and they sound (or should sound)... so you right hand is a bit like organ pipes.
Of course it's not really like this because right hand is resposible for atack etc.
But it's a good way to work with coordination: you left hand should stop a string in musical timing as you hear it, and right hand just do soundjob - 'blow the air in the pipes'...
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Originally Posted by Jonah
Left hand must be subdividing as accurately as the right.
Paradoxically, working on the accuracy of left hand fretting for legato can help with picking. And I mean both physical and timing accuracy.
Personally I have switched to using a hybrid pick/legato approach, so the two things go hand in hand.
But - I have to be careful (as I play with medium strings) not to over do it on the pull offs - accuracy and speed of the movement more important than pressure. And of course, the accuracy of the timing.
Can you play a scale legato at 60bpm and slower with transitions between notes absolutely instant?
Lennie Tristano had an exercise like this IIRC. Tristano taught Satriani. IMO there's no coincidence Satch ended up playing the guitar the way he did :-)
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I did a lot of cleaning up left-hand stuff in the last year or two and found that an unintended consequence was "automatic " better picking technique. I wonder how often our assumed problems with picking technique are actually more to do with left-hand issues, whether mental or physical?
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Can you play a scale legato at 60bpm and slower with transitions between notes absolutely instant?
You mean all legato? With no picking at all?
ANd what instrument - acoustic or electric?
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Originally Posted by cosmic gumbo
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Yeah, remember when playing the head and being able to improvise on Donna Lee was pretty much a requirement because it was going to be called?
usually other bop tunes like Anthropology were called
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Originally Posted by Jonah
Call it and flub it, and it's like "who's the a-hole now?"
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Better be pretty confident you can pull that head off if you call Donna...I know a few drummers who'd be like "yeah, hotshot? try it at this tempo!"
Call it and flub it, and it's like "who's the a-hole now?"
Not that it's bad but it's like a label a bit...
Maybe partly it's because of Jaco's version.. it was so astonishing... that it became kind of symbol of virtuosity... sometimes it sems nobody listens to teh tune just watching: if the guy can make it at that tempo without fail
Debussy it? Steal that classical lick!
Today, 11:06 AM in Improvisation