Pretzel finger problem.

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hollow2010

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I've been playing guitar for years but recently have been getting more into rock guitar and soloing. I practice the solos in songs, but whenever I get on stage it's like my fingers have a wrestling match. I can't play fast enough and I hit the wrong frets. Does anyone out there know of any GOOD exercises I can do to increase my dexterity and accuracy.
 
Buy a metronome and build up your speed and dexterity gradually. Don't get ahead of yourself. Use all four fingers (too many people leave the pinky out). Work chromatically at first and gradually move into scales and take it from there.

I'm not assuming your a begginer but to go back to the fundamentals of playing and ridding your bad habbits is essential. Can you play allright when not on stage (ie.is it a nerves thing).

Also, always warm up thouroughly.
 
Sounds like you just need to relax..Do you just tense up on the performance? ..Get a book on scales/modes and just run them while watching TV...On the solos that you are playing ..have you tried singing them in your head while you play?

Don
 
Gidge... maybe I should have given my reasoning in my earlier post..Its about the athletic part of playing..Bulding up dexterity by endless repition, mindnumbing excorcise ..It eases the chore of it for me anyways..And you will play a group of scales for hours at a time ,you will not even realise it..That was the reason I suggested that ..dexterity/muscle memory..Of course the metronomic/structured practice is important ! As is "free" practice..Sort of like the pianist who uses a practice board ..

Don
 
There's another thing that could be going on, and that is that the band is rushing the timing on stage. Everyone gets a little jittery, and pretty soon it can be like a runaway train.
 
You already know what to do, just keep running those scales up and down the fret board day after day for at least an hour and don't stop until you can double pick like Steve Morse except without distortion. ;) If you can play it clean then you'll certainly be able to play it distorted.

And don't forget to do intervals. One exercise I like is to simply play a scale and skip every other note in it. I have no problem with doing scale exercises in front of the TV. You're only working on dexterity which is a fairly mindless activity. Make sure you carry those scales out from the sixth string to the first and back again. One of the biggest problems players have at first is jumping from string to string while double picking quick runs. You just gotta keep doing it till it's second nature.

As far as the metronome thing goes: well I'm probably gonna catch some flack for it around here but personally I don't think rhythm can be taught. You either got it or you don't. I've never used a metronome in my life and I don't know any good musicians who do.

And get a book with some difficult runs in them. It's not just about playing scales blindingly fast (although everyone should be able to do that or play any piece of music put in front of them IMHO.) Try and find Mickey Baker's old book of "Jazz and Hot Guitar" that Mel Bay used to put out. A book of Ted Green's chord progressions too. If that stuff don't limber you up nothing will! :D
 
By double picking you mean alternate picking right?

I agree with the metronome thing to a point. I also agree rhythm (some)can't be taught, just like you can't teach anyone how to write a song.

But.

Practicing with a metronome (or click track) has advantages. It allows you to focus on a single point of reference. This applies to anyone, whether you have a sense of time or not.

I see too many people who know what they want to play, but can't play to a click. That is the missing piece.

'If you can play to a click you'll be a hit'

yes I made that up.
 
Double picking is called alternate picking now and fingerpicking has turned into fingerstyle. It's like all those dopey books in the business section at the bookstore; every one of them saying the same damn thing, just making up a new term for it. Why do people have to keep changing things? I'm too old for this! :eek:

The hard songs to keep time to are the extremely slow ballads that some singers will take and not keep a set tempo to. Like some of the gospel stuff, Mahalia Jackson singing "His Eye is on the Sparrow" (remember the old movie she sang that in?) Or "Ole Man River" and like that. Singers will stretch out a note for a long period and then follow it up with some short staccato bursts and, heck...you never know where the tempo is going! Good luck playing behind them.

I'll tell you something odd; a drummer I played with for years and years amazed me a while back when I asked him to play a simple bolero pattern. Darn if he could do it to save his life! And this guy's a great drummer. But he absolutely couldn't play this amazingly simple little drum pattern that almost any grade school kid could tap out on a desk. Life's funny....
 
Using a metronome has nothing to do with whether or not you inherently have rhythm (and unless you are dancing, if you have sense of the beat, then you can learn rhythm). A metronome is strictly about keeping within a structure of time. If you can't play against a metronome, then how in the world are you going to be able to play against a drummer with impeccable timing (regardless if he is playing swing or intentially playing behind the beat)?

As to the original question, I too suggest getting a metronome (if you don't already have one) and practicing your solos with it. Get to the point to where you can play the song at a faster tempo than the established one so that when you play it live, you can relax and focus more on making a good performance.

Cy
 
Cyrokk said:
if you have sense of the beat, then you can learn rhythm
Click to expand...
If you have a sense of the beat, you already have rhthym, thus, nothing to learn. At least I never did and don't know any other musicians that needed to learn it. if they did I'd strongly suspect they never lasted long at learning an instrument. Maybe I'm wrong but I never met any good musicians that had to learn rhthym. Besides, this guy never said he didn't have rhthym anyway. He said he couldn't play fast enough to keep up. I don't know why anyone would need a metronome to learn to finger better and play faster. You just do it. Faster playing comes with better fingering after it becomes second nature, no? All things in time....
 
Most practicing musicians that practice without a click or a metronome cannot keep a consistent beat and have a tendency to play fast through the easy parts and play slower during the more complex parts. Then, when they play with a drummer who keeps an even keel of time, the complex parts come out garbled because the musician failed to practice them in a constant tempo.

By practicing with a metronome at a slower speed, the musician can condition the brain on how to approach the complexities. Once the musician is comfortable playing at that speed, the tempo can then be raised a couple notches until he can play at that speed, and so forth and so on.. The result becomes a smooth performance that comes across as easy and natural.

So then in a sense you are right: All things in time.

Cy
 
I couldn't disagree more. I reckon I've played with at least half the jazz muisicans in St. Louis over the past 25 years and I've yet to meet one that even owned a metronome. We tend to keep time just fine. If you're not born with it you'll never have it. It's as simple as that. Think what you want. If it somehow magically works for you, fine.
 
Regarding the metronome

Like I said when I rasied the subject of the metronome; I've not had one long. I bought really to play slow as I can fast. When warming up there is a tendancy to get ahead of yourself and leave the slower stuff. The metronome applies disciplione. What you may think is in time wwne playing by yourslef may in fact not. If you want to play fast runs, you have to be able to play them slow before you can play them fast. Getting the technique down to start with and starting on a slow tempo forces you to play how you wouldn't otherwise. By moving up in small incremants you really get the most out of your practise, that is when you get up to a high tempo you've got the technique wired(without the bad habbits). For me it applies discipline and gives rise to flaying faster and faster. You have something to push yourself against. By gradually progressing as opposed to what I used to do and 'dive into the deep end' I am far more disciplined in my playing.

I regarded myself as having good timimg. The metronome wasn't to prove this one way or the other. It was to have a refernce so that I can now know, for example, I can play this lick up to any given speed and have that refernce point to build upon.
 
Have a couple of beers , put your best rock n roll face on and remember you own the stage then go out and kick FUCKIN ASS seriously. Gag
 
Well if this only happens when you play onstage, then dont drink as much. If this happens before you go on, then dont smoke as much. If this happens all the time you may be able to have your strings narrowed. I have a small hand and fat Gibson necks always gave me trouble "until" I narrowed my strings. This can be done with the nut {strings lay on it @ the top}. You'll need jewelry files and a piece of bone or nut material. Cut it, shape it, then carefully and slowly make notches for the strings to rest into it, to costomize it to your fingers. Do it closer at first, but not too much other wise you'll end up with crowding of your fingers {if this is the case before you start, than make them farther away} Oh experiment, you can always make another. Oh and keep the original nut. This doubled my speed and is custom to my guitar as well as hand.
 
wow records4u, never thought of that before, worth trying out....hey gag,,,remember when we had to put our drummer on a click track, lol,,it was because he had a few of the beers lol, but i do remember you rockin away on the other side sound tasty and nasty as always
hey hollow2010 you said that you are just getting into soloing rock stuff, but have played for years,,,all these guys have excellent suggestions, do em all!! love the guitar have fun, it'll come in time, i remember doing stupid solos like the one to the song "turn up the radio" by the band "autograph" or the john sykes solo in "give me all your love tonight" on the whitesnake album, i'd always pull them off but back then i was like 19 or so and very green, fast fingers, good timing, but green, very green, the more i played those cover tunes, the better and less tense the solos got....unless u want a weird tense, then just learn the solo to "knocking at your back door" by deep purple lol ritchie's great. practice with the tunes on tape, with yer band, but the one thing to remember is.....time will smooth ya out, just like gag, he's a smooth dooood lol peace p.s. get to know yer guitar's fretboard really well, study theory and harmony (don't go to fast and have yer guitar on have when learning the theory and harmony) do ear training 2 good ear trainers are "playing by ear" and "guido" guido is a program that i think u'll have to have an old 486 on hand for, but i haven't found any others that are better double peace.
 
records4u; Just out of interest, I don't get how that works. I know what your suggesting and how to do it but surely the problem is with the neck being to 'fat', not the distance of strings apart from eachother; unless you play strictly without the thumb over the neck.

But I guess I'm asking why would having the strings closer together improve speed? I'd think that it would create problems with bending strings , not to mention the fact that the pick-ups would be less responsive (on the neck position anyway) as not alined to the magnets.
 
should have known you,d hit this forum since your up and running again lol talk to you soon montra. anyways hollowman good luck, I used to practice 5 or 6 hours a day give or take an hour or two before I was old enuff to drink now I don't , I just try writing songs ( and drink lol)but seriuosly when I practiced I couldn;t stop .Give it time see if any of the above suggestions help Good luck,Gag
 
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