Joined: 05 Jan 2007 Posts: 10 Location: Brighton, England
Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2007 3:49 am Post subject: Legato!
Hey guys! New here
Just wondering about your tips on legato.
I noticed Guthrie may be using the whole hammer on/pull off approach (as apposed to Allan Holdsworth)
What i am interested in. Is it for example, he hammered on with his first finger, and when hammering on with his 2nd, would he lift his first finger or keep it on the fretboard?
What exactly is the "best" way of doing this. Keeping only one finger on the fretboard (even when using pull-offs), or keeping them behind the fingers?
Also!
Something i noticed when listening to Guthrie's stuff is the legato and alternate picked licks aren't your usual "speed lick" stuff. Lots of it are descending in 3s and 4s or whatever.
But the legato stuff is beyond me. I just can't tell what's going on with some of it because it's flying by too darn fast
Anyone care to post some of the licks he uses that you guys have worked out? Or prehaps give hints?
Yeah you'll find that he tends to use allot of odd groupings as opposed to regular ones. The more Odd grouped stuff tends to sound more interesting because the accents fall on strange beats and inbetween so you almost don't know what to expect, it's a very cool sound but requires allot of practise and more importantly, an impeccable sense of rhythm and timing...
Another important aspect is the use of passing tones, since the extra "outside" note played in the odd grouping gives the lick an even more interesting taste.
I'm not much of a "lick" man per say, i usually improvise off the cuff, but if you're interested in that kind of thing i could put together some lines for you to try out.
as for legato tips... to get the best legato sound and technique, you basically need to get comfortable with the whole economy of motion concept.. in that only the movements required to achieve an action are used, and any other then that hinder progress or speed...
First off, unneccesary lifting... generally once my index finger has gone onto the string, i will only lift it off to prepare to hammer to another string.. other then that it remains.. since it's moving would be wasted motion. Another important aspect is controlling how much you lift off the board... you'll notice that guthries fingers on the faster lines don't lift off much at all... whereas if you look at allot of other players, you'll find they lift off allot... which ultimately hinders you... the further away you are, the longer it will take for you to reach....
A good excercise around this is trilling. Hammering and pulling rapidly two notes using two fingers, since to get speed out of the trill you have to minimise your movements to almost not lifting off at all... try it using combinations of all fingers... 1+2 1+3 1+4, 2+3 2+4 3+4
it depends where you're at with your legato techinque.... where's it at, at the moment?
That's me playing about 6 months ago odd (sorry for that terrible vibrato and sloppyness! )
I just want to try and get into more interesting legato lines rather then those straight 3 note per string things. Again, i'm not much of a lick guy either but i find learning licks tends to help influence you and usher you into areas you want to head in by taking the principle of the lines
I've just been focusing in on this keeping fingers intact or one finger at a time style of playing. I know Allan Holdsworth uses the one finger on a fretboard approach, as well as people such as Magnus Olsson (although unlike Allan, Magnus doesn't employ a strict hammer-on only approach) _________________ Me playing!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTKI4Jx4P9c
i find myself switchin between the all hammering, and combination of hammers and pull offs dependin on the situation, albet i'm not great at pulling off...was always too heavy handed to get this to feel comfortable and usually did the hammering thing...
basically i would build upon groupings, since there you're playing 3 notes on a string then playing 3 notes on another... i would try playing 3 on 1 string then 1 note on the next string then 2 on the previous string and then 2 on the next string, then 1 on the previous string and 3 on the next string, since that kind of thing is used allot in making more interesting lines...
next, do you want the licks/ideas written out? or would you prefer video with fast and slow examples? not great at that since i heavily improv and tend to rarely play stuff exactly the same.. but it's all good i guess.
one thing to try like i said would be taking a simple pentatonic and adding a chromatic note here and there and using that as the extra note to make the note grouping odd (group of 5 or group of 7).
plus what kind of ideas are you after musically speaking... Rock, Fusion, Metal, i ask because i don't want to come up with anything that will not be of much use to you.. i love those crazy lines with weird notes... but they don't have much place in the music i write so it's almost like dropping the dead donkey so to speak.
Joined: 05 Jan 2007 Posts: 10 Location: Brighton, England
Posted: Thu Jan 11, 2007 1:35 am Post subject:
Hey cheers mate for the ideas
I don't mind if ya tab or video, it's all up to you really. Any help is good help aye
I hear what'cha mean about the chromatic stuff. I've got lots of lines i refer to when i'm bored which have an outside Allan Holdsworth esque thing. I just find it very hard to come up with these on the spot (the mind of a guy who unfortunatly thinks diatonic all the time and when does go outside finds it hard to come back again )
As for the whole thinking diatonically it's quite important that you get comfortable with that.. gotta be able to think inside the box before you can think outside of it...
A good excercise for that is singing what you play.. i was never able to do that.... and now i can, and intervallically speaking it's helped me wonders, especially for playing more interesting lines that i would not neccesarily think of in a diatonic sense...
also... forgive the playing... i haven't played that guitar in 6 months and only restrung it yesterday......
As for the whole thinking diatonically it's quite important that you get comfortable with that.. gotta be able to think inside the box before you can think outside of it...
A good excercise for that is singing what you play.. i was never able to do that.... and now i can, and intervallically speaking it's helped me wonders, especially for playing more interesting lines that i would not neccesarily think of in a diatonic sense...
also... forgive the playing... i haven't played that guitar in 6 months and only restrung it yesterday......
Nah mate tis great, i aint played in 6 months since my shoulder injury so no worries
Yeah i do sight reading and interval recognition singing and the like. I can tell what's outside and chord tones and all, but it's a case of i go a little bit mad and end up completely away from tonal centre haha _________________ Me playing!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTKI4Jx4P9c
shoulder injury? nasty. I injured mine some time ago, RSI related, now they're both completely shagged... but ironically from starting from scratch at the time... i became better then i was....go figure........
Ah... well the main thing is to limit yourself when doing the outside thing, only add two or three extra notes as opposed to a whole bundle... as Scott Henderson once amazing demonstrated on one of his videos... you can make a ton of phrases just from 4 notes.... you don't need 8 or 9.... so it's a case of phrasing more then moving around intervallically...
Main thing is just to keep playing... playing is the best practise......
hmmm... i get the Impression you're going to BIMM or ACM or something if you're working on that stuff
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