Over and undershooting problem...

[curiousgeorge]

Hey, just havin a problem with over and undershooting target notes on long slides from above and below...I'm working on Km'Pee"Du Wee by Steve Vai right now and I seem to over or undershoot my target notes half the time... Frustrating because I'm not a rank amateur...I've been playing for years but this one little thing is so effing annoying! Any suggestions? Gotta clean up the slop! Thanks... :D

[joeyd929]

Hey, just havin a problem with over and undershooting target notes on long slides from above and below...I'm working on Km'Pee"Du Wee by Steve Vai right now and I seem to over or undershoot my target notes half the time... Frustrating because I'm not a rank amateur...I've been playing for years but this one little thing is so effing annoying! Any suggestions? Gotta clean up the slop! Thanks... :D

I have dealt witht he same problem. To help fix the issue I practice little one position runs in every key by moving on the same string. I would play like C D Eb on the low E string. Then I stay on the same string and move in falling fifths. So then I would go to the 13th fret of the same string and play F G Ab.

After that, stay on the same string and play Bb C Db, and so on. After weeks of practicing one and two string runs primarily in a horizontal fashion I am finding that I can hit the notes much better.

Horizontal motion is sometihing that I have noticed that violin and cello players have down to a science. It's all about practice. After 30 years of playing I realized that I am not good at it because I don't put the time in to improve it.

Good luck.

[newamerikangosp]

Well dude, even though you have been playing awhile, anytime you have an issue with something its going to be inexperience (unless of course you are dealing with physical issues like ALS or an injury)

You need to practice being one with the instrument. Play laying down on a bed or couch. Since you will tend to not look at the instrument you will learn muscle memory instead of hand eye coordination. Just try not to look at the instrument. Try to feel what you are playing instead of looking for it. Now I am not trying to tell you OMG I CAN PLAY THAT U N00B or anything to the fact, its just that these types of intricacies are starting to fall by the wayside with the modern world. But as with anything, if you are failing with something, practice it. Be it changing your pickup switch in the middle of a legato run, or jason beckers sweeps.

[Poparad]

Most of it is muscle memory... knowing how far 10 frets up from the 2nd fret 'feels' and so on. However, forcing yourself to look ahead sooner is also important. If you're not used to large leaps, then you've probably trained yourself to just look at your hand while playing. Whenever I have a large leap to do, I move my focus to the fret I'm targeting at the same time or before I begin to move my hand to that location.

[curiousgeorge]

Most of it is muscle memory... knowing how far 10 frets up from the 2nd fret 'feels' and so on. However, forcing yourself to look ahead sooner is also important. If you're not used to large leaps, then you've probably trained yourself to just look at your hand while playing. Whenever I have a large leap to do, I move my focus to the fret I'm targeting at the same time or before I begin to move my hand to that location.

Yeah, I really should focus on looking where I'm going next a split second before I go there....I tend to do that staring at the hand thing too....The tapping section to Satch Boogie and the tapping tune Midnight (Satriani) are difficult to nail consistently without looking ahead before the next move...

[silent-storm]

try to learn how to play arpegios on one string. Take the top E string and play all 12 major7 arpegios. Then once you can do that, close your eyes and see if you can figure it out by ear. Repeat on other strings and using other arpegio types. Scales work too.

I saw Lorne Lofsky play once and he would play with his eyes closed and still leap 12 frets or more to grap a chord or play a few notes. It was unreal.