Mr. Fastfinger - Blog

The Scetch Book

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 17:36:00 +0100

Earlier we discussed here about developing unique ideas. Here's one simple tool that can seriously help you. Big time!

Get a book, with empty pages. start writing down all ideas that you come up with. Little licks, technical ideas, stories, cool scales and modes, song scetches. Write the stuff down every day, or when ever you get inspiration and come up with cool ideas. This book will help you not to forget the ideas you want to learn or develop further!

Here's a random folder of Mika's scetchbook. What a mess!

Developing your unique style

Sun, 7 Dec 2008 08:04:00 +0100

What tips you could offer when jamming and finding your own unique style and ways to approach?

Calm down, don't rush. Remember guitar playing is not a sport or competition. You are making music and a personal statement. What is your mission? Breath in, breath out, listen to you heart and follow it.

STUDY AND EMULATE

Emulating guitar players with different styles is very good idea to get ideas and influeces. And to go even further I suggest trying to emulate and study other instrument players as well. What ever might get you excited: violin vibrato, harp like arpeggios, Jan Hammer pitch bends, chinese Erhu licks!

And how about singers! Anybody ever tried to sound like Kate Bush or Lemmy Kilmister on a guitar? Hmmmm.

But remember to walk your own path. Listen to different music styles and keep your ears and mind open.COMBINING DIFFERENT STYLES

Many times musicians have found their unique styles by combining two or more already known styles. Putting two totally different styles together might help you create something totally new. But remember: hard rock and classical music is already been married by Richie Blackmoore, Uli Jon Roth, Yngwie and few others.

IT IS YOUR VOICE

You should know that developing your own style can be challenging. I know this, all musicians know. But this is essential. You are a unique human being, you should talk with your own voice. Even when singing through your guitar!

This is a subject I'd like to see comments about. How do you develop your own voice?

How to build up the speed

Mon, 1 Dec 2008 16:08:00 +0100

Mr FF I need ur help more than anyone else right now. I need to build up my speed!

Sloooww dooown! Take any lick you want to learn, maybe a simple with only few notes. Important: practice with metronome!

Put the metronome very slow so you can make sure you can play all the notes clean and nice with a steady rhythm. Pay attention to your left hand fingerings (also your little finger) and right hand picking. Be sure to mute the strings that your currently not playing. Play with some overdrive, so you will easily hear if your muting is working or not.
Repeat the lick as long as you need, untill it feels like streaming water. Smooth and nice!
Then make the metronome go just a little bit faster. Again repeat the lick as long as needed to make sure it runs smooth. Then faster. Then faster. Then faster. That's the secret. If you do a steady workouts, maybe few hours of this kind of practicing every day. Within a couple of hours, days, weeks, months or years you will play the lick very fast! Then you take another lick and practice the same way.

Don't try to rush or fool yourself. This takes time and patience.

P.S. To pick even faster, try 3 notes per string licks. Something like this:

Secret Ninja Techniques IV : Rolling mini sweeps

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 13:32:00 +0100

SWEEPING!

Sweep picking, what a nice way to play arpeggios. This technique gives you that nice smooth legato like tone. Let's your fingers fly around the fretboard!

Beware:
- One note per string.
- Aim is to make a smooth stroke from beginnig to end. You sweep, just like stroke of a broom!
- One note ringing at time. No chords, no overlapping of the notes!

Popular is to play triad based sweeping arpeggios (think Yngwie Malmsteen). Google "sweeping", You will find that kind of material all over the internet.

ROLL THAT BROOM!

Here we have two simple and short examples. Bsus2 and F#sus4 arpeggios. Three notes per string down, three notes per string up. Listen to the audio samples. To make sure the only the right note is ringing at the right time I only press the current fret down. Don't play it like a chord.
You can also try using palm muting to get a different tone. It's good idea to practice with a metronome. Slightly (but not too much) overdriven tone is best for practicing. It will reveal all your dirty mistakes and unwanted noises, such as overlapping notes). Try developing your own three note arpeggios!

Know this: Mastering this technique will take time! Practice hard!

Mode changes: F Lydian - Ab (G#) Lydian

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 13:32:00 +0200

Here's a new mode change to play with. It's a nice modulating tone, the changes between two lydian modes in different keys, F and A flat. This jam will get you flying!

F lydian notes: [F-G-A-B-C-D-E] formula: [1-2-3-#4-5-6-7]
Ab lydian notes: [Ab-B-C-D-Eb-F-G] formula: [1-2-3-#4-5-6-7]

The backing track is same as on Magic Carpet Tour -game, but with this cool change added. Enjoy the ride my friends!

The wisdom and Zen of Mr. Petrucci

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 20:07:00 +0200

Mr. Fastfinger interviews John Petrucci, who kindly shares his wisdoms and visions on guitar playing: how to develop speed, picking techniques, how he prepares for a show and more. Very important for every guitar player!
I respect this moment.

Secret Ninja Techniques III : Ninja slides in action

Sun, 14 Sep 2008 14:51:00 +0200

Very busy here with the ninja slide techniques. A little guitar improvisation, just for you!

Secret Ninja Techniques II : Multi scroll Jutsu

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 12:19:00 +0200

MULTI SCROLL JUTSU

This special "Multi Scroll Jutsu" is used when a ninja wants to fool his enemies and not let them know which direction he's heading next. There are several ways to do this technique. Study these examples. But pay attention to the left hand fingerings.

THE NINJA BEAT

Again practice these and your own ideas and jam the ninjas! This goes in the key of B aeolian (minor). Very Cool!

Finding inpiration to your melodies

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 12:06:56 +0200

"Can you tell us how do you think melodies? My melodies sounds ordinary and I dont like them. I just wanna know how to make them quirky, more interesting, angular, weird riffs or melodies? "
Anonymous (09/08/2008 - Mr.Fastfinger blog)

Melody is the most important element in music. Rhythm and harmony, very important too! No good melody, no interesting music. Hard to say where the melodie comes. Everything I experience, see and hear is affecting me, then I process. The best melodies usually appear on my head, then i search for the way to bring it out into the air. Sometimes finding the melody is very simple, like booom! Sometimes it takes work, time and patience. All that musical theory can help you creating music and melodies, but,the heart is the key. Guitar player put heart into melody, audience gets big feeling. Emotions very important here. I will now open a discussion on how to find inspiration to creating unique melodies? The thoughts about creating melodies can also apply to song writing and other creative work.

Getting Inspiration from music and art
If you feel your melodies are boring, uninteresting, unoriginal, try finding some freash inspiration from other music and art. If you simply listen to your favourite bands only, you will only start creating similar melodies and ideas on your head. But getting influenced by other musicians is normal and very fine. Just remember, if you want to do more than just cloning, keep you mind, ears and eyes open for more and more influences. Always keep on moving and seaching, searching and listening!
Maybe your next thing could be electronic music, classical music, eastern/asian, or the sounds from nature? The birds? Finding some music by some african tribe could give you cool ideas of using rhythm. Or maybe some strange and forgotten avantgarde composer from early 1900 could lead you to some fresh discoveries on using cromatics. Search!

Getting inspiration to melodies and music can be found from other arts too. Music is art that is time based like movies and stories. True. You can get inspiration from art such as painting or sculpture too. Even abstract art! See the colors, contrasts, shapes, figures... Try turning the visual sharp edges or soft round shapes into a musical ideas. Explore and experiment. How the strong blue color scene of the painting turns into your music. And that little, strong red spot on the right corner of the image that steals the attention of your eyes. How would that sound on your song. Is that the super strong agressive section on your song that comes after your mellow and bluesy solo?

Now to the library or nearest art gallery!

What do you think? Are you already using methods such as this to get inpiration? We continue with other methods and ideas. Later.

Mode changes: B Aeolian - Bb Lydian

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 11:00:00 +0200

Here's a very nice backing track for soulful solo improvisations. Thanks to the looping machine, one can enjoy jamming this for hours. And maybe some more. But before we begin let's take a look at the actual modes we are using here.

B aeolian notes: [B-C#-D-E-F#-G-A] formula: [1-2-b3-4-5-b6-b7]
Bb Lydian notes: [Bb-C-D-E-F-G-A] formula: [1-2-3-#4-5-6-7]

Learn where to find these modes on the guitar. Put the loop on and close your eyes.

Note: The two modes share four same notes (D E G A). Try playing around with these notes!