Home › Forums › Guitar Techniques and General Discussions › Musical New Year’s resolutions anyone?
- This topic has 8 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 6 months, 1 week ago by John H.
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January 17, 2024 at 10:08 am #361826
Has anyone reassessed their practice routine and set any resolutions this year?
For me, I’m going to add more acoustic bluegrass lessons. 🙂
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January 17, 2024 at 2:31 pm #361833
It’s funny you said that, because one of my resolutions this year is to learn some bluegrass. I guess I’ll start with Brian’s bluegrass lessons, but there aren’t a whole lot to choose from. I’m a bit afraid that my speed might be insufficient to play that fast cross-picking style the skilled bluegrass players use. And you have to use a pick to play fast bluegrass, so that means I have to start using a pick more than I normally do. This could be interesting.
Sunjamr Steve
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January 17, 2024 at 6:20 pm #361837
Upon searching there are 23 lessons tagged “bluegrass.” So not a ton, but if I do one every other week that’ll last a year! I tried a few lessons from Banjo Ben Clark years ago, he’s pretty good.
If I zoom out a little, my bigger goal is to simply play more acoustic. There are 150 lessons tagged “acoustic” so plenty of material.
I considered working on fingerpicking; a technique based goal was kind of intimidating, and the acoustic goal seemed more realistic. Some day….
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January 17, 2024 at 7:52 pm #361839
I play only acoustic, and I’m in my 4th year here at AM. I haven’t run out of material yet! Also, just because Brian uses an electric on a lesson, or it’s not specifically tagged as ‘acoustic’, doesn’t mean it’s not appropriate. Everything is worth examining and learning from, even if it would never be a solid acoustic showcase piece. Anyway, my 2-cents.
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January 17, 2024 at 8:27 pm #361840
Totally agree. I came here primarily to learn electric, and have adapted many of the “acoustic” lessons to suit. I play my acoustic regularly, it just hasn’t been a primary focus for growth.
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January 18, 2024 at 3:13 am #361846
… And you have to use a pick to play fast bluegrass, …
You certainly don’t have to use a pick to play fast, no matter the style.
The European Qualification Framework (similar to UK’s ABRSM) for classical guitar requires 144 bpm for the Final grade (ABRSM Grade 8). That’s 144 quarter notes per minute, i.e. 288 eighth notes or 576 sixteenth notes!!!
I don’t think anyone can play 576 notes per minute, not even in bursts, but some flamenco guitarists (e.g. Grisha Goryachev) routinely achieve over 400 notes per minute in bursts. Paco de Lucia or Andres Segovia were also known for their blazing fast burst speeds.That being said, I’ll gladly admit that you typically won’t get the tone if you don’t use a pick.
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January 18, 2024 at 1:21 pm #361861
Once I tried to learn to play “Recuerdos de la Alhambra” like Segovia, but achieving that speed was hopeless for me.
Sunjamr Steve
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January 18, 2024 at 3:00 pm #361862
“Recuerdos de la Alhambra” is not a particularly fast piece; but there is that tremolo picking throughout and that’s indeed a beast to master. It is THE tremolo picking song for all classical guitarists.
The big challenge with tremolo picking is not so much speed but rather smoothness and consistency, particularly when done on inner strings (like in Recuerdos).
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January 18, 2024 at 3:02 pm #361863
My resolutions are to keep working on:
Classical Gas
Freebird
The Ballad of Curtis Loew-Acoustic slide instrumental on Resonator
Flat picking solos on my acousticTall order, lifetime commitment.
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