02 Nov Hell ain’t a bad place to be cover
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoZP8r5Bx-A
Renato Figueiredo
rjofig@gmail.comRenato @ Florida; I bought and started learning to play guitar about two years ago, a bit late in life (I am 39). Still a beginner, but motivated and inspired by Fil and other 'bedroom rockers'. I've been posting a few videos here and sound bites on soundcloud, as sort of a logbook with snippets of how my playing (hopefully) evolves, and it may help inspire others who love music to take an instrument, practice, play, and have fun. To contact me by email, my gmail.com username is the same as my username here.
frankjoss
Posted at 00:04h, 09 DecemberHi Renato, You are living proof that practice and practice and practice and more practice makes perfect. Wish I could make as much head way in so short a time. How do you figure out the fiddly bits of the solo (2:48)? I just can’t get my head round these things (and Angus does it very, very, very frequently alas!) Still I’ll get there one day. Keep going at it, you’re my bench mark.
Couldn’t help noticing your right arm action comes a lot from the elbow and not the wrist. Just on a basic physical leverage principal thingy would’nt this slow you down, bigger muscles, longer distance to travel. I did this a lot but have been recently mentaly using my wrist only (even tried stapping my fore arm to the guitar!!!) in a sort of trying to wave out a stubborn matchstick motion. Don’t want to teach my grandmother to suck eggs but it would be stupid for me not to say anything, same boat, same Captain, same sharks swimming around if you get my drift…
rjofig
Posted at 02:31h, 09 DecemberFrank, wow, mate, benchmark makes me feel more important than I should 🙂 Joking aside, yeah, it’s practice, and to keep practicing, passion, patience, perseverance (the four P’s? – am I a motivational speaker now? 🙂
Fiddly bits, yeah, I have struggled a lot, and continue to! To figure them out I usually go with the pentatonic minor scale of the song’s key and fiddle around until the lick sounds right; actually a lot of my unstructured practice time is just fiddling with pentatonic licks.
Timing is the most important thing, as Fil will tell you. I mix alternate picking with pull-offs and hammer-ons on the faster licks (I don’t know if Angus does this too, but some are just too fast for just alternate picking). My left finger sometimes bars a couple strings; I try to mute the B, E strings with my index finger, and the other strings with my palm. I’ve been trying to use the right hand fingers to mute as well… well, in general, I’m trying to work on better positioning right arm position/movement, like you noticed, can be improved. Haven’t gone as far as you did with strapping but maybe I should 🙂
Anyway, it took me *very* long to get halfway decent with these licks, I’m more comfortable doing them now but still of 10-20 takes maybe I get one right… I will get there, and you will too, mate, I’m sure!
Big thanks for the words of encouragement – keeps me going!! Cheers!
rugster
Posted at 22:57h, 02 NovemberFantastic! really good stuff. Nice to see you standing up & playing, best performance yet by far 🙂
rjofig
Posted at 03:48h, 03 NovemberThanks for your comments and feedback, Rob, I do appreciate it! This has been the most fun one to do so far, too 🙂 cheers
Dave4433
Posted at 16:26h, 02 NovemberWhen You elbow is out of the shot (@ 3:18) it looks like someone elses arm playing, lol.
Great playin’ there man! You really are improving with every video You put out. =)
rjofig
Posted at 16:35h, 02 NovemberThanks, Dave 🙂
hehe yeah I’m on a tight space and had a hard time framing the camera; I’m glad my head didn’t get cut out of the shot 🙂
Cheers!
Ant
Posted at 11:04h, 02 NovemberAwsome! Renato. realy good
you realy getting the hang of recording too! looking professional 😀 and yes you right hand has loosend 😉 how does it feel?
3:13 = pain! lol
rjofig
Posted at 14:18h, 02 NovemberWith the right hand, it feels more natural to loosen it when I’m standing, sitting down I sort of had to force myself to try to loosen it.
Hah, did you notice the color difference between the rhythm and solo takes? That wasn’t me! just my camera acting up with its auto-adjustment I guess 🙂 I did separate takes because I used different GR4 settings. And because I still have a hard time playing a solo right consistently, this took several takes.
3:13 – no pain, I guess I was just into it 🙂
Cheers!
Ant
Posted at 16:25h, 02 Novemberhehe still very good though 🙂
to get into it is the best way 😀
banane
Posted at 08:05h, 02 NovemberThat was very cool, Renato! Saw you playing upright for the first time! 🙂 And very nice playing, I know how hard this is to learn, especially for the solo. Still struggling hard with solo playing when standing. Congrats for that! 🙂
rjofig
Posted at 14:10h, 02 NovemberThanks, sir! Yeah, the first solos I played standing up sounded like I had never played before 🙂 hitting the wrong strings, couldn’t bend nor vibrato, took a while to start getting the hang of it. I’ll try to keep it up now.
Cheers!
banane
Posted at 14:33h, 02 NovemberYes, do that. Playing standing feels more like the real thing, right? 🙂 But indeed, when I learn new things, I do it always sitting down till I got everything right. Then playing standing and learning it again, hehe 🙂
rjofig
Posted at 03:59h, 02 NovemberOnce again, Epiphone and Guitar Rig 4. I like how the tone turned out for this one.
(Ant, Rob – right hand not quite there yet but the fingers naturally got a bit looser just by standing up, so it’s progress 🙂