Grondak's progress and musings Mid-November '14

[grondak]

Hi all,

I joined about 2 weeks ago. I’m returning to guitar after a long absence. As Mark asked, I’ve made an effort to practice and visit these forums every day.  I am following the Melodic Principles volume 1. Here are some thoughts so far. I think any “self-directed complaints” you see below will be resolved by More Practice.

1. It takes a while for my hands to warm up. I can definitely tell the difference between cold and ready hands.
2. Scales are getting faster and I miss less often, especially after my fingers are warmed up.
3. I’ve completely shifted my fretting technique to follow Sarah’s.  She frets each string not in the space between the frets, but right behind each fret.  As Sarah wrote, the fret acts like a fulcrum. I can definitely hear the difference in “tone stability.” That is, sometimes when I fret in between the frets, the tone warbles, but when I fret right behind the fret, the tone is rock solid. (no pun intended. well. maybe some pun.)
4. I can play the riffs I’ve studied so far at all three tempos Sarah shows in the video.  This is good and they sound correct in rhythm and tone. Consider riff 3 (minor 2nd)– I cannot play the 16th notes with alternate picking. I can only pick downward on the highest tempo work.  Every time I try alternate picking as fast as the highest tempo, the whole thing sounds like fudge and I have to slow way down.  More practice.  I tried to see if an adjustment to the way I hold my pick would help, but no go. It’s not that! Just practice.
5. I like the sample riffs.  PS they do sound like Sabbath but I think that is due to a roots-of-metal effect and that is perfectly fine!
6. I really enjoy the focus on each interval in the first part of the Melodic Principles video.  Riffing on an interval gets me a lot closer than just hitting two notes and thinking “oh that’s what it sounds like.”
7. I bought Guitar Pro 6 for my Mac and the iPad app. It plays the tab quite well but it mostly sounds “okay” but in the same way that a CZ-101 sounds like “brass” when you ask that keyboard for a sound. 🙂
8. Playing songs I remember from my playing past has improved, too.  My tone is better and the music sounds like it should. My friend could easily recognize the tunes I played for him and my tone didn’t warble embarrassingly.

Overall, I’m pretty satisfied with my own work and very satisfied with the coursework and instruction. I’m not ready to record myself for you yet, but I will as I get on to more advanced work. Listening to me pound out riff 3 as fudge is no fun 🙂 Thanks for all the time and energy you put into this company and the lessons!

Metal Method is helping me across the board!

[Sarah Spisak]

Hi Tony,

Thanks for your post!  That’s an interesting point about riff #3; I think it’s easier for most people to alternate pick at higher speeds.  If you can downpick the riff, that’s going to sound great!  You might just take notice that alternate picking is something you may need to work on.  I’m really glad you like the sound of the riffs- that should make it more fun to learn theory.

The app version of Guitar Pro sounds a little cheesier than the full computer version but it’s just supposed to give you an idea of the timing, really.

Thanks again for the detailed and interesting report!  🙂

Metal Method Guitar Instructor

[grondak]

Hi Sarah– you’re welcome! Thanks for the encouragement!  Last night, I think I figured out the alternate picking: I held the pick farther from the strings than before. The pick seemed to glide over the string instead of plucking the string but the force was enough to sound the note loudly and the speed was right.  The tangled-up fudge sound I had before practically disappeared.  This might be a case of “whatever works.” 🙂

I think you choke up on the pick, right (which to me means hold the pick very close to the string…)

How do others hold it? Am I the only one who holds it farther out? (poll time…?)

 

Metal Method is helping me across the board!

[metalj]

If you want to go into detail about picking check out cracking the code on youtube. Doug gives you the basics in the basic course disk 1 and again in the speed and accuracy program.

Jay aka the letter J

[superblonde]

Hm, as for picking, sometimes if you watch the lessons in slo-mo, like frame by frame, you can see the pick doing funny things that, at least for myself, I try to ignore. It could get you in trouble. For example – well I won’t say which lesson to protect the innocent ;-D – but I was having a hard time getting past a certain BPM because I was trying to mimic the same use of the pick as I saw in the video. Once I got more comfortable with going maybe 75% of the target BPM where I could continually repeat the exercise without mistakes, then I was able to find my own groove for the pick and get the rest of the way to 100% speed. Also maybe you are describing the depth of the pick, as a way to describe it. (Choking up on it to me would mean holding more of the pick with the fingers, less poking out, for less depth.) That does seem to be important. Isn’t less depth better (faster to move between strings)? I got better at picking, simultaneously with using less depth, when practicing Speed & Accuracy. It’s not that my wrist is farther out, my thumb is in the same position, but the pick has less depth to the string. Then there is also the angle of attack. Edge closest to the guitar neck tilted down slightly. I think.

I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

[grondak]

Thanks J and superblonde. I watched Cracking the Code.  I saw the angled pick that superblonde mentioned– that is a great revelation and gift to all players.  The idea of noting pick depth and where you hold the pick (basically amount of pick sticking out past your thumb) is important.  Using “pick depth” and “exposed pick amount,” I can explain what I learned:   Leaving the thumb in the same place relative to the guitar body, reducing pick depth, and thus reducing exposed pick amount gives the same picking behavior as superblonde noted.  That is the style I shifted to as I fixed my fudge-sounding alternate picking.

 

Thanks All!!

Tony

Metal Method is helping me across the board!

[Sarah Spisak]

grondak wrote:

I think you choke up on the pick, right (which to me means hold the pick very close to the string…)

Yes!  Full choke-hold. 🙂

Metal Method Guitar Instructor

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