Totally unrelated department. I tracked two links down: the first on string widths. Guy is a superb guitar player. I've always thought of string gauge primarily from the trade off between flexibility/effort and rich lows, but it's more than that clearly. I wish he spliced the tape together by piece, featuring each one in turn and then a new piece, but it's great. As an electric guitar player first, I always favor lighter gauges because the bend situation gets so bleak as things thicken up.
More interesting to me was the rhythm guitar/metronome link. I have been doing a LOT of work around time in my playing recently, some of this because of an insane dedication to EarMaster, an application I love for two miniature custom drills it has. One is repeating back random rhythms with different degrees of tolerance from the application for accuracy. The other is playing notated rhythms back. I do the second one on the extremely intolerant setting so that you need to get really, really close. Each note gets marked with a tiny on/ahead/behind the beat indicator. What this mostly reveals is one's pattern. I'm a "rusher." It's great to see the problem notated so clearly, and I enjoy the practice.
This has led to a deep connection to the click track to the point that i'm now ultra aware when I'm EXACTLY on the click. Not generally, but indistinguishably on it. It's very, very hard for me to be "perfect" on that. I suspect it is just plain really hard, something like race car drivers try to get every curve right, but it's an infinite journey. What this has done, though, is make me highly aware when other musicians are drifting now (or when they are beautifully locked into it.) I saw a band the other night that were good, but every time the drummer did an energetic fill he ever so slightly lost the beat. I think the obsessive practicing on the ear training tool has made this easier to feel.
I also am striving to ALWAYS hear the click almost as another instrument. If i'm only playing the second and third eighths of a triplet, I still hear the first eighth as the click so that it all sews together. It's very hard for me to stay locked into that universal beat, but it's exciting to start thinking of music that way. The woman teaching that video's exercises will be useful as I translate some of this iPhone work to the guitar itself.
OK, I need to leave room for other people to get a word in here. 😀
Im pretty obsessive about it when I’m recording tracks I’ll be sending to others for overdubs. What I’ve noticed is no matter how many actual tracks there are after all the overdubs are in, is that: 1. The audio engineer can fix anything that’s truly heinous timing wise, and 2. Too much perfection sounds a bit unnatural - a little flex is good.
One thing I do is find songs on the Chordify app with repeated quick chord changes (at least 2 chord changes in a measure) - though the overall tempo can dictate more or less. Then I visually try to stay on that one beat consistently. I pretty much just fingerpick, so different tempos force different picking patterns. Dunno, works for me - usually takes me a couple of times through an unfamiliar song and I have it, but sometimes longer.
So, I was reading along and suddenly saw a reference to my page! Thank you! It's pretty disorienting actually to suddenly see yourself pop up. I felt like a rock star hearing themself for the first time in a 7-11 and calling their mother. "Mom, we did it! I'm famous."
LOL - you should be used to it by now, Adam - You did it! You’re famous!!
But all I really want is to play in time. 🤣
Totally unrelated department. I tracked two links down: the first on string widths. Guy is a superb guitar player. I've always thought of string gauge primarily from the trade off between flexibility/effort and rich lows, but it's more than that clearly. I wish he spliced the tape together by piece, featuring each one in turn and then a new piece, but it's great. As an electric guitar player first, I always favor lighter gauges because the bend situation gets so bleak as things thicken up.
More interesting to me was the rhythm guitar/metronome link. I have been doing a LOT of work around time in my playing recently, some of this because of an insane dedication to EarMaster, an application I love for two miniature custom drills it has. One is repeating back random rhythms with different degrees of tolerance from the application for accuracy. The other is playing notated rhythms back. I do the second one on the extremely intolerant setting so that you need to get really, really close. Each note gets marked with a tiny on/ahead/behind the beat indicator. What this mostly reveals is one's pattern. I'm a "rusher." It's great to see the problem notated so clearly, and I enjoy the practice.
This has led to a deep connection to the click track to the point that i'm now ultra aware when I'm EXACTLY on the click. Not generally, but indistinguishably on it. It's very, very hard for me to be "perfect" on that. I suspect it is just plain really hard, something like race car drivers try to get every curve right, but it's an infinite journey. What this has done, though, is make me highly aware when other musicians are drifting now (or when they are beautifully locked into it.) I saw a band the other night that were good, but every time the drummer did an energetic fill he ever so slightly lost the beat. I think the obsessive practicing on the ear training tool has made this easier to feel.
I also am striving to ALWAYS hear the click almost as another instrument. If i'm only playing the second and third eighths of a triplet, I still hear the first eighth as the click so that it all sews together. It's very hard for me to stay locked into that universal beat, but it's exciting to start thinking of music that way. The woman teaching that video's exercises will be useful as I translate some of this iPhone work to the guitar itself.
OK, I need to leave room for other people to get a word in here. 😀
Im pretty obsessive about it when I’m recording tracks I’ll be sending to others for overdubs. What I’ve noticed is no matter how many actual tracks there are after all the overdubs are in, is that: 1. The audio engineer can fix anything that’s truly heinous timing wise, and 2. Too much perfection sounds a bit unnatural - a little flex is good.
One thing I do is find songs on the Chordify app with repeated quick chord changes (at least 2 chord changes in a measure) - though the overall tempo can dictate more or less. Then I visually try to stay on that one beat consistently. I pretty much just fingerpick, so different tempos force different picking patterns. Dunno, works for me - usually takes me a couple of times through an unfamiliar song and I have it, but sometimes longer.
So, I was reading along and suddenly saw a reference to my page! Thank you! It's pretty disorienting actually to suddenly see yourself pop up. I felt like a rock star hearing themself for the first time in a 7-11 and calling their mother. "Mom, we did it! I'm famous."