A guide on how to work on difficult musical passages more effectively
Preface
OK, this article deals with some advice on how to learn and practice complex and long passages and licks. Although I used a solo-passage by Steve Morse as an example, it pretty much applies to everything you might want to learn on the guitar, rhythm and lead guitar or whatever...
A few years ago, when I was still studying at the GIT in North Hollywood, I was preparing a performance there with some friends of mine (students of the other departments of the MI). We planned on performing all original songs (fusion-stuff), but also decided to include two songs by Steve Morse/The Dixie Dregs. The first one we chose was "Cruise Control" which is a classic and allowed us to improvise a lot. We played the original intro and melodies and then went off to jam-land.
The other song we chose was of the (back then) last Dixie Dregs-album, "Full Circle", a song called "Pompous Circumstances". This song features a pretty long and quite complex guitar run by Steve. It lasts for 8 bars and consists of precisely picked 16th-notes. Did I mention the time-signature of 12/8?
How to approach something like this?
Well, let me start by saying something I always tell my students: donīt exaggerate in setting your goals. Keep them ambitious but not TOO ambitious!
An example: Imagine you go out to see someone like Paul Gilbert play live. Youīre really impressed by his playing, the speed and accuracy and everything, so you go home and think something like "Alrighty, cool, Iīm gonna learn how to play all of Paulīs leads on that first Racer X-album". So you go home, put a CD into the player and pick up your guitar. Soon youīll realize that this task is more difficult than you expected it to be, that it will take you quite a bunch of time to do this, and your main goal (to learn all the leads & riffs on that record) suddenly seems to be unreachable...
So you skip the first song and attempt to learn the second one. Again: that oneīs difficult, so you skip that one, too. To sum this up: the whole effort becomes frustrating and therefore is a negative experience.
To keep our motivation (always pay attention to it!) high we should set our goals realistically and go step by step. Small steps are easier to accomplish, and every time you do accomplish one, itīs motivating, and that is very important!
We should keep that in mind when we attempt to learn something like the lick in this article.
It makes no sense to play the whole thing all the way through over and over again until it works. The lick features several different problem points, and the best way to learn the whole thing is to isolate each one of those segments and problems and work on them separately.
The whole lick can easily be separated into small segments for you to work on. After you worked your way through each one of them, you can attempt to piece them together again and play the whole thing.
So our first rule would be: If you try to play a long passage or lick and a problem occurs somewhere on your way through it, find that problem, isolate it, work on it and eliminate it.
The Run
So, letīs work our way through the whole run from "Pompous Circumstances". Here is a MIDI-file of the run, played back a bit slower and without a backing...
Click this LINK to hear the MIDI-file
So there we have eight bars of 12/8 time signature, the whole run. And we will now work our way through it. I will try to point out the most difficult parts and hopefully will be able to show you ways how to a) understand the concept between every segment of that lick and b) how to memorize the whole thing easier and c) how to work on some parts separately so youīll be able to nail them!
Letīs start with measure no.1
As mentioned before, the time signature is 12/8, key of G major. The way to execute this whole run is: precise, accurate alternate picking all the way through!
Here is measure no.1:
This run is based on pattern no.III of the G major scale. In this first half of the measure we can see an ascending part, then the run descends again. This part occurs several times throughout the whole run. The difficult part about it is a common one that often occurs when dealing with alternate picking: changing from one string to the other.
So start by playing the first half of this measure slowly and accurate (use a metronome!) until it feels natural to play it. The next problematic part is the skip to the G-string and the two notes (G# and A) you have to play there (on top of that weīre leaving the G major scale here for a sec, because G# is actually not part of it). So, start from the beginning again and slowly play the run till you reach that A. Then itīs moving back up again and down to the E (D-string, 14th fret). Before you continue with measure no. 2, you should be able to play this first measure accurately and with steady timing. It is not that important how fast you play it... make sure all notes are correct timing-wise ! Once you are able to play the whole thing all the way through you can concentrate on bringing it up to speed gradually... it will only sound good at high speed when it already sounds good at low speed...
Here we can see some pentatonic phrases. Whatīs critical here is the amount of notes per string, because there are parts where you have an even amount of notes on one string and an uneven amount on the next. That is why you should use all alternate picking... economy picking does not work here.
Separate this part like this: The first ten notes (until the D on the D-string) is one bit, then we have a different part. The latter is pretty easy to understand:
C to B, A to G, D to B, A to G etc... Pay attention here, because the first two measures will reoccur slightly altered later in the run!
So, once youīre able to play this measure accurately and steadily (just like the first one), we can move on to measure no.3. If you want to, attempt to play the first two measures all the way through....
Hereīs measure #3:
This one is easy to explain too. Itīs a rather typical 4note-sequence, which often is used as an exercise. It works like this: Start on the G, play the next 3 diatonic notes (F#-E-D), skip back up to the F# (which was the second note of the first part), again play the next 3 notes of the G major scale (E-D-C) etc.
As I said, a pretty common scale-sequence. If you want to, include it into your practising routine, itīs a nice chop-builder and sounds pretty good while being a good tool to help you to memorize any given scale. The whole thing continues until we reach the F# at the 16th fret of the D-string, and by then we have reached measure No.4...
Does this look familiar to you? Right, itīs the part from measure 2, but it has been moved ahead by one 8th-note (the first two notes are to be found at the end of measure 3)... this is a nice little trick that Steve uses in some of his other leads as well. Advice on the execution of this measure is the same as the one for measure 2, so letīs go on to measure 5...
Here we have another 4note-sequence, in the lower areas of the neck. Same concept as before, it goes C-B-A-G, back to B, then A-G-F#.
After some more notes there is a diatonic skip upwards, which means that we have to shift our fretting hand, but the concept stays the same... moving through the G Major patterns with a 4 note-sequence...
...a concept which continues throughout measure 6 as well. As you might see, this stuff does look way easier once you understand the concept and sequence. So you donīt have to remember each single note. You could instead just think "A descending 4 note sequence in pattern III, starting on G, ending on the lower F#..."
Here is measure no.7:
This should look familiar too. Itīs a repetition of measure 1. Here is the final measure of our lick:
That last measure again is a variation of measure 2 (or 4). The end is slightly different.
Hey, thatīs it already (no I donīt mean that to be sarcastic!). So my point would be: if you try to learn a long, complex passage, take it apart, learn it divided in little segments that you work on separately.
It will take some more time to eventually piece those together again and to play the whole run through in one piece, but you will be able to get through it easier, and youīll know each part very well cause you worked on them separately.
So take it "step by step", and that is true for almost everything we wanna learn... picking licks, sweeping arpeggios, playing chords....
The bottom line of this article is not that you should now be able to play this whole lick (although it is a really cool lick and a great chopbuilder!). Whatīs important is to understand the approach I used on learning and practising it.
Set your goals not too high and you will surely have more motivating experiences of success...