Question about excercises from Speed Mechanics for the Lead Guitar....

[Fragger]

Hey guys, I have just started using the SM for alternate picking excercices and somethings need to be cleared for me. Its basically the settings for the metronome. Troy gives the instruction for using the metronome according to his settings in the beginning of the first alternate picking excercise. The one that's supposed to be some Iron Maiden stuff it goes like, 15000, 14000, 12000 and so on. My question is, could anyone recommend/translate the metronome settings, when applied to the excercises involving triplets and sextupletes, and so on? I'm sorry, I'm not very good at understanding time signatures and etc, so basically translate Troy's settings for me, so I can avail them in the coming excercises. Thanks in advance! Take care!

P.S: Guys, does playing quarter notes per beat 4 times translate into sixteenth notes? I mean, Troy tries to show the difference of playing the eigth notes and sixteenth notes. To me, it sounded like he was playing just 4 notes or quarter notes per click/beat. Could anyone explain the difference? Thannks again!

[PowerTube]

Re: Question about excercises from Speed Mechanics for the Lead Guitar....

I don't know the answer, but here's the perfect place to ask:

Troy Stetina's Forum

[Fragger]

Re: Question about excercises from Speed Mechanics for the Lead Guitar....

Yeah man, thanks, I fianlly decided to post there, I was hoping to get some answer here. Thanks again! Take care!

[Grandturk]

Re: Question about excercises from Speed Mechanics for the Lead Guitar....

In 4/4 timing, the following is true:

A whole note is 1 note per 4 beats
A 1/2 note is 1 note per 2 beats
A 1/4 note is 1 note per beat
A 1/8 note is 2 notes per beat
A 1/16 note is 4 notes per beat
A 1/32 note is 8 notes per beat

In the exercise your talking about, you're playing 16th notes, which is 4 notes per beat.

[SeventhSon]

Re: Question about excercises from Speed Mechanics for the Lead Guitar....

Where are you getting those numbers from (15000, 12000, etc.)?

I'm staring at the SM book on p17 (the 1st alternate picking exercise, Iron Maiden style) and it talks about starting at 80BPM and going up to 144BPM.

[Grandturk]

Re: Question about excercises from Speed Mechanics for the Lead Guitar....

He means 15th fret, open string, open string, open string. Tabbed:

---15-0-0-0-12-0-0-0 etc.

[Fragger]

Re: Question about excercises from Speed Mechanics for the Lead Guitar....

Thanks guys. I have no problem in playing that exercise, I mean I have to play 4 notes, that is G, E,E,E BETWEEN the CLICK right? That is, until the next CLICK comes, I should be done playing 15, 0, 0, 0, right? I think you have to play that till 12X or 13X before moving to the next page, but I'm having trouble TRANSLATING Troy's metronome instructions to the next exercise, like the one where he plays the triplets and stuff. I don't know what to do, the more I read about time and time signatures, the more confused I get.

Anyway, just curious, how do you guys practice this stuff from Troy? I mean how long or how many times do you play a riff before going up 2 units on the metronome, then going back 20 units down and repeating? Not to mention how do you guys manage to play the same riff with the same time on ALL strings? I was just curious, as what Troy instructs us to do, could take forever, so I was just wondering how you guys manage that problem and also fit that stuff in your routine. Thanks in advance!

[SeventhSon]

Re: Question about excercises from Speed Mechanics for the Lead Guitar....

Yeah, you play the 15 part of the 15-0-0-0 on the 1st click, then the 14 part of the 14-0-0-0 on the 2nd click, etc.

You should be counting 1-e-and-uh, 2-e-and-uh, 3-e-and-uh, 4-e-and-uh (evenly spaced) where the numbers coincide with the click.

On the triplets, you should be counting 1-trip-let, 2-trip-let, 3-trip-let, 4-trip-let (evenly spaced) where the numbers coincide with the click. You'll notice that this pattern kind of sounds like a blues rhythm pattern (think about the turnaround lick in the intro to Stevie Ray Vaughan's Pride and Joy).

likewise:
1/8 notes (2 notes per beat)
1-and, 2-and, 3-and

16th note triplets (6 notes per beat...exercise 28)
1-e-trip-and-let-uh, 2-e-trip-and-let-uh. Notice that if you want to play half the notes in the same beat, what do you need to get rid of? The "e" "and" "uh", and you're back to counting 1-trip-let, 2-trip-let and playing 3 notes per beat.

You're doing the right thing in using a metronome. Keep a spare guitar and metronome by the TV. When you veg in front of the TV, you can go through a lot of these exercises.

[SeventhSon]

Re: Question about excercises from Speed Mechanics for the Lead Guitar....

And to complete the music/math lesson on 16th note triplets...look at exercise 28...

If you take the 16th note triplet sequence (6 notes per beat) and count it out as: 1-e-trip-and-let-uh

and get rid of the "e-trip" and the "let-uh", you're back to playing 2 notes per beat, which are 1/8 notes which is exactly what you are counting: "1-and"

Yet another way of looking at this:
If you only play the 1st of every *2* note group in a 16th note triplet sequence (15-0-0-0-0-0 from exercise 28), you're dividing the number of notes that you play by *2*. So you are playing 3 notes per beat (6/2 = 3). Otherwise known as 1/8 note triplets and you're counting "1-trip-let" per click.

If you only play the 1st of every *3* note group in the 16th note triplet sequence, you're dividing the number of notes that you play by *3*. So you are playing 2 notes per beat (6/3 = 2). Otherwise known as 1/8 notes and you're counting "1-and" per click.

Here's a visual if you can imagine subdividing the beat into 6 even chunks:

1-e-trip-and-let-uh 1/16 note triplets
1 trip let 1/8 note triplets
1 and 1/8 notes

That's the theory. In practice, you can only count 1-e-trip-and-let-uh up to around 90 bpms. When you get to 100 bpm, the easiest way to learn to play 16th note triplet sequences is to count "1-and" "2-and" and to squeeze out a triplet starting with a downstroke on the "1" and followed by a triplet on an upstroke on the "and". Remember 3*2 = 6.

I hope that made sense.

[Fragger]

Re: Question about excercises from Speed Mechanics for the Lead Guitar....

Thanks for the lesson Allan. Again, I know you explained real well, but as I said, the more I read, the more confused I get. Regardless, thank you so much for the lesson. However, I still don't know how to translate the metronome settings to the up coming triplet exercise the one that is Randy Rhodes style, and so on. I mean, I know that, I have to play 3 notes per beat, as it is listed in the notation of the lick, but I don't know how to translate tempo settings. Can you help me in that. Furthermore, I was curious about how you guys practice from Speed Mechanics, I mean how long you play an exercise before increasing the tempo 2 units, then when you max out, go down 20 units and start over. Not to mention, how long are we supposed to play a certain exercise over all. Thanks again!

[SeventhSon]

Re: Question about excercises from Speed Mechanics for the Lead Guitar....

You're talking about exercise 27? And you're saying you don't know how to translate tempo settings (such as 80 BPM) to how you should play the triplets in that exercise?

[Fragger]

Re: Question about excercises from Speed Mechanics for the Lead Guitar....

Yes basically, plus there is like a Sextuplet exercise too in there, and if not, it is bound to pop up. Thanks again!

[SeventhSon]

Re: Question about excercises from Speed Mechanics for the Lead Guitar....

Let's start out with an easy concept. 60 BPM is 60 beats per minute. In other words 1 second. 80 BPM is going to be a little faster (because you're evenly dividing the same 1 minute into 80 clicks). Don't worry...no one ever actually counts to 80 and times it. Just trust your metronome.

Now for the remainder of the lesson, set your metronome to 60 BPM. AND KEEP IT THERE! [img]images/icons/tongue.gif[/img]
Also, tap your foot to each click (and bop your head like you're at a heavy metal show)...cuz ultimately it's a "feel" thing.

Eigth notes
Playing a note with every click is playing a quarter note. Playing two notes per beat is playing eighth notes. Here's where I think you are getting confused. You do NOT crank up your metronome to 120 BPM, play on every click, and say you're playing eighth notes. Nor do you think to yourself "at 60 BPM each beat is 1 second, so I need to play a note every 1/2 second". No. You keep the metronome pegged at 60 BPM and you *mentally* divide the click (or beat) into two equal lengths of time and play a note at the beginning of each subdivided beat. The way to reinforce this mental subdividing of the beat into two equal parts is to count OUT LOUD "1-and-2-and-3-and-4-and-1-and-2-and-3-and-4-and" etc. as evenly as possible such that when you're saying "1" it coincides with a click (and your foot coming down and your head bopping down), when you're saying "2" it coincides with the very next click. Etc. You'll notice that the "ands" come right smack in the middle of each beat. Congratulations, you're counting out eighth notes.

Triplets
I'm going to backtrack on what I wrote in an earlier post. Instead of counting out "1-trip-let-2-trip-let-3-trip-let-4-trip-let", I'm going to have you count out "1-and-uh-2-and-uh-3-and-uh-4-and-uh". You actually hear big band leaders count that out before going into a song with triplet feel so that count might be more familiar to you.

So with triplets, you mentally divide the beat (or each click) into 3 equal time intervals. Here's where I think you're getting confused about BPM and translating them to triplets. You are NOT supposed to find the right metronome setting for triplets based on some equation. You keep the metronome pegged at 60 BPM and you mentally divide each beat into 3 equal time intervals. How? It's like dividing a bag of dope between you and 2 friends and you don't have a scale...you have to "feel" it out. How do you practice feeling it out? You count OUT LOUD "1-and-uh-2-and-uh-3-and-uh-4-and-uh" etc. AS EVENLY AS POSSIBLE such that when you say "1" it coincides with a click (and your foot coming down and your head bopping down) and when you say "2" it coincides with the very next click. And the "3" coincides with the very next click after that. In terms of when/where you say "and" "uh", pretend they're your two buddies and the beat is the bag of dope. Make sure everyone gets an equal share. Work at it. Practice. You'll find that you get into a zone and this becomes pretty easy.

Hope this helps. Let me know how this goes.

[Fragger]

Re: Question about excercises from Speed Mechanics for the Lead Guitar....

Thanks for the lesson bro. See I'm not confused at all, as to how to play triplets or sixteenth notes. The easy way to do this, is just look at the standard notation, and you will know how many notes go between each click, am I right?

The proble came to me in terms of tempo. For example, Troy explains the settings for a 4 notes per beat lick and expects us to translate that to Sextuplet. My confusion is, how could one play 4 notes per beat, and then 6 notes per beat at the same 80BPMs? So, I wanted to know how to fix this accordingly so that I may translate exercises accordingly. Thanks again for your lesson! Peace and ALLAH hafiz.

Faraz Ahmad.

[maddog]

Re: Question about excercises from Speed Mechanics for the Lead Guitar....

Nice work seventhson! I have to say that was an amazing dislplay of patience! I have great respect for you [img]graemlins/notworthy.gif[/img]