I have decided to grow a pair and commit to making my picking for Fives the new sixteenth note...Sixteenth notes are lame anyway...But my sarod quinties are getting up there...They are pretty damn clean up until trying em at the 140 BPM Mark....I havent forgot my dream to picking sarod sevens past 100 BPM....Since sextuplets are alredy natural to me at these tempi...5's are the lst thing standing between me and my Bucketfoot Sarod diddies of 7...I think 5's feel alot like 7's as far as feel goes...I'll get there soon because I am not gonna take my foot of the gas pedal until I can do 7s as easy as those sextuplets that Dimeola loves so much...Plus as a bonus I would have the satisfaction of showning Dr. Laben that those sevens he told me might be impossible and should be off my radar are something that is possible for me to do
(-:

Nick, please go back and really, slowly, carefully, pensively read post #57 in this thread. Get back on that track man. Perhaps others will have a different view, but I think you've regressed in this one. Even if your intention was just to show us how you are practicing to reach the goals you wrote, and not to show us that you actually achieved any of them, it's still not good. Don't practice like that.

Don't get upset. Reread that post, and some from a few others around it (e.g. Joel & Ursin), and then start using all of those practice hours you put in more wisely. Hang in there.

I got to stretchhhhh myself....Sooner or later ones of these days...bang zoom...straight to the moon...I focus on big ass goals...I will either wind up a really shity guitarist...or be the bees fucking knees kingpin...That if preferable to me than thew prospective of simply getting "pretty good". but thank you my friend laben for letting me drink the aguas of your experience (-;

lmao I have no clue what your're saying here hahaa

I really need to get some friends...As great as sarod is...*mind you* it sure is...i am paying heavy price for learning how to do it...

Ye I don't even know what sarod exactly is even.. I don't even know what im doing is lol, I think it is scalpel though.
Your other post just made me laugh that's all I was sayin

I think Sarod is kinda like going directional picking on a 3 NPS scale...Oh I think it was Ted Nugent who first figured it out.../-:....but i dont know...sigh...back to practice my on pride and joy...

last post is ficticious...I have a warped sense of humor and I must laugh off my frustration before it gets in the way of my art.

Nick you gotta slow this stuff down man! Like WAY down! Sarod is NOT simply for speed playing! It is simply a different wrist/forearm rotation. It can be done slow, medium, fast. You need to practice SLOWER. MUCH MUCH SLOWER. You will develop very very BAD HABITS this way that will take YEARS to correct and even then might not be correctable.

Your brain DOES NOT understand good and bad muscle movements. You have to play SLOW so your brain understands what you want the correct movement to be aka: muscle memory.

You are building poor muscle memory. Slow it way way way down.

I think some people on this forum have the WRONG idea about sarod. It is NOT simply a speed technique. It's just...ANOTHER technique that CAN be used to play very fast or very slow or very whatever speed you want to play at.

But you have to practice SLOW.

hmmmm....i am confused here

Slow down is what he is saying. Do not play as fast as you are. Lower the metronome.

i really wish i coul sit down face to face with pebber & ursin and figure out some sort game plan for how to procede...i guess must have totally lost any understanding of what I am suppossed to be beating myself silly with for 12 hours of each day...Whats the point Of practicing trill of not to beef up them finger muscles & working em hard...whats the point of practicing sarod if not to get further and further into eating up the trills more and more with the right hand? I dontg understand what constitutes porogress on this instrument anymore.

Pebber and Ursin are the only 2 people that I can trust 100% advicewise on these important issues raised here...Pebber I know you are a very buisy man so I will not risk interupting anything you got going on by calling you...I have talked briefly with Ursin recently on the phone but I guess I am still going down a bad path...If you have some empty time on your hands I will send you a PM with my #, Even a few minutes of even being yelled at by you might be a good thing for me. I Just thought I was doing exactly what you would probably be doing while practicing if you where still gung ho to practice all hours of every day without having to stop for work or distractions and what not.../-:

I still practice gung ho when I can. I routinely did 8hrs a day for years. I still do that when I can. I still practice every day for 2hrs minimum. I teach guitar full time and just accepted a job teaching guitar at LSU plus playing in my own band I just don't have 8hrs to practice every day but on the days that I do, I will. So, it's guitar 24/7 really.

Your practice routine (for now) should be:

1hr picking on single string (10 minutes each string) SLOWLY and ACCURATELY. If you are missing the string completely every now and then you are playing too fast. SLOW and ACCURATE.

1hr trills (10 minutes per permutation primarily focusing on 3rd and 4th finger)

1hr ladder exercises (10 minutes per permutation focusing on 3rd and 4th finger)

1hr Spider exercises (More time can be added if necessary)

1hr+ Picking Scales with metronome or drum machine. Start with 5pos system. SLOW and ACCURATE. (10 minutes per scale)

1hr+ Legato scales with metronome or drum machine. 5pos system. SLOW and ACCURATE. (10 minutes per scale)

1hr+ Picking Scale sequences with drum machine or metronome. SLOW and ACCURATE (10 minutes per sequence)

1hr Chord studies. Learning new shapes, ideas, progressions, grips, etc.

1hr Sweep arpeggios starting with 2 string and (gradually) working up to 6 strings over weeks months years SLOW and ACCURATE. (More time can be added here if necessary up to 3 or 4 hours or an entire day)

1hr Tapping 1, 2, 3, 4 finger tapping starting SLOW with Van Halen style shapes moving into things like Tony MacAlpine style tapped arpeggios and Buckethead style diminished/symmetrical sounds. (More time can be added here if necessary up to 3 or 4 hours or an entire day)

1hr Licks by famous musicians guitarists, horn players, pianists, whomever. Investigate new music and new licks/patterns. (More time can be added here) Spend at least 10 minutes per lick/phrase/pattern

1hr Solos of famous musicians. (More time can be added here)

1hr Creating licks of your own. (More time can be added here)

1hr Improvising over backing tracks. Record progress daily. (More time can be added here.)



I have done versions of this practice routine for years as instructed by Pebber to reach MY goals. That's 14hrs+ right there. Nick, if you have the time this is what you should be doing. SLOW and ACCURATE. If you're not doing this I don't know what you're doing.

Well, lets give this a go just for today, one day at a time, It will be a breath of fresh air for me. This sounds like it will be alot more intresting/ mentalym stimulating than those single string picking exercises which have almost because nausiating to me from doing them to much. I do feel though like I am really close to a huge personal precupice with really getting the sarod to do nutty stuff...By minding the left hand so that it is not fretting notes with the oomph necessary to legato scales, it allows it to start skating around the neck like its an ice rink even if it means that certain notes arent sounded by it...then after gently letting it walk these circular scale paths (as if they were a spider/ladder drill) with the freedom to not have to press hard to sound all them them. Then gently position the right hand like mclaughlin does so that it is perfectly positioned to be acted upon by the strings...I have found that not only does each note get an articulation...but the way the strings physically act upon the pick is sufficient to get the right hand to start fluttering without the mental effort of telling it to. Maybe I am full of crap with this and just think I am onto something here...but there are so many clues and little signs I am starting to notice that all seem to point towards this.

Wow. I've just made a salad dressing for the first time in a very long while- three parts olive oil; one part vinegar. I've never been able to whisk it so well before, or get such a good suspension. Picking exercises for the win!

Merry Christmas to all!

Emulsion! I meant emulsion, not suspension. May Thomas Keller forgive me.

... I had to look up who Thomas Keller was.... I had no idea.

:D

Sorry - obscure reference. He was a cooking hero of mine when I lived in the UK. I moved to San Francisco for work, and found myself very close to both him and the Mesa Boogie factory :).

Hey Merry Christmas everyone; Hope Santa was good to everyone!

Nick, I gotta say man... you need to start practicing some actual music. I mean that in the nicest possible way, because I know you work hard... perhaps a change in focus?

Anyways, here's a rough clip. Not too big a deal, but a good representation of what 'off the cuff' is for me. No real practice or warmup, and probably about 3 days had passed since I had practiced. I was going to use my amp, but I had to be a bit quieter, so Line6 PodProHD it was! Anyways, this is the 'base' skill level I start with. Any of the other techniques we yip about here are just things I thought might be neat to add... Scalpel and wrist is my main focus still.

There's some alternate picking, a smidge of scalpel, no sarod, some tapping, some hybrid picking. The key was G Major, but I used the relative minor (Eminor) or E Aeolian. Meh. I just played E F# G A B C D E all over the neck. E Minor pentatonic fits in there as well, so that got used. Also, a G Maj7 Arpeggio found it's way in there GBDF#, sounds great over an E minor progression to my ears, as does any of the chords diatonic to Gmaj/Emin:
Gmaj7 Amin7 Bmin7 Cmaj7 D7 Emin7 F#min7b5. I tried to add applicable 9/11/13 tensions where possible, but mostly thought it would be fun to just zip around for kicks. Is what it is, hope y'all enjoy.

Nice job Scott! Legato licks sound good.

Thanks, dude; It's all very rough and I know it, hahaha I'm (very) slowly, but surely integrating scalpel, and a relaxed arm into what it is I do.

As long as you can do what you want to do and sound like you want to sound. That's the whole point. You know that but I think since this forum is primarily dedicated to technical development people easily forget that PLAYING MUSIC is the point! People get confused. Trust me, Pebber knows the point is to to JAM AND MAKE MUSIC! I was just talking to him the other day and we were talking about what ever happened to just going out and being a solid MUSICIAN! People get too caught up with playing in their bedrooms. It's one thing to play in your bedroom. It's another thing to stand in front of 250 people in a club with a band and make it happen. So many players can shred in their bedrooms but can't make it happen live. So, what's the point.

Uder; Very true. You learn under pressure in 30 seconds playing live what might elude you forever if you never leave the practice room. Most folks don't 'get' it until they get a chance to truly bomb, or succeed in front of an audience. Playing with other people is so fun and inspiring, no matter what level you do it on. I mean, you HAVE to start somewhere, right?

Your video just blew my mind bro.. Did you just make that solo up? because it sounds intense. How you're playing in that video is exactly what im working towards haha!!