Practice tips, solo tips

[hotwired]

Good Morning,

My questions:

1. I am playing out every other week now (me and godin a6 ultra with p-rail upgrade). I used to be a lead player so I hate to just strum and sing, though I know that's what is most appropriate at times. What are some good resources to get ideas for getting solos, double stops, frills, trills, and "just cool stuff" interspersed among my strums? I know this is not too specific a question, but any thoughts might lead me in the right direction.

2. I practice 1-3 hours per day. I do NOT have a natural singing voice, so I really need to practice a lot. What do you some of you do for daily practice, both vocally and to improve your overall guitar ability? I want to really take advantage and have my time spent wisely. What I do now is to do my weakest 20 or songs, go over parts where I'm weak 5-7 times, and also try to sing every one of my 60 songs once a week. I just bought a Zoom H4n and can't believe how well that works. I couldn't get anything but garbage on every phone, tablet, even PC recording-wise, but the H4n I can throw it down anywhere, hit record and it sounds just like the original (to my old deaf ears anyway!) I find using this both useful and discouraging. Useful to nail down my weak areas, discouraging because I think, "Gosh, I really stink sometimes!!" haha.

Thanks for any feedback folks.

[rmp]

The only way to practice singing for me, is to be in the similar setting to which I'd be performing. Mic and guitar into a my mixer, and then out to either earbuds, head pones or small power speakers. I don't think I can actually practice singing for performance while sitting on my sofa. They are two different approaches IMHO.

As for strumming verses not.... Are you just flat picking or are you also finger picking?

As one who's worked as a solo acoustic kind of performer, I probably play more music finger picking that I do flat picking. I also hybrid pick when I do use a pick (using fingers and the pick)

Regarding double stops and things like this to enhance the playing aspect, just keep at it. I think a little bit of that goes a long way, but it does add a bit of texture to what the guitar is doing, you just have to pick your spots.

Basic turn around and the likes fit best I think at the end of a verse, or a chorus, and not so much in the middle of a verse unless it's some kind of blues tune where there's room for it.

All just my perspective, mileage may vary

[Toby Walker]

Hi Hotwired,

As you're playing solo and wish to incorporate solos, licks... etc, have you considered using a looper? I've seen a few folks in bars do this and for them it truly pays off. They play the basic rhythmic parts first... recording them, then loop it and record a few other things... bass runs... double stops... whatever. That works well if you're a flat picker.

If you fingerpick, then there are tons of material out there for learning all kinds of different patterns to add some variety to your playing. Taking it up a notch, you may even consider learning how to play the melody on top while keeping an alternating bass pattern on the bottom, which is what I like to do.

In regards to your second question on practicing, I'd say you're on the right track for sure. You're getting in an ample amount of time and by working on your weakest material, you're spending that time wisely.

I once was teaching at a guitar camp along with Adrian Legg. While talking about practicing we found out we did the same thing: maintenance. Part of our practice was spent maintaining arrangements... basically to keep them fresh. So it's good to see you're doing that too.

Some other thoughts:
Always push yourself to learn new things.

Add Pressure: Record and listen back... as hard as that may seem. Leave your evil judge behind and think of yourself as simply looking to improve. Just the act of turning on a recording device adds pressure, which you'll need to improve.

Play one of your new songs in front of a family member or a friend before taking it out to the gig.

Hope that helps.

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by hotwired

…Thanks for any feedback folks.

Hi hw

How about taking on a gigging partner? I know my 'skills' grew exponentially when I turned my solo into a duo - in fact we both grew.

He was a flat-picker, hybrid picker, bassist/guitarist who sings baritone/bass, and I'm a fingerstyle player who sings tenor. When we started arranging (and writing) it changed both our us musically.

Toby is right!
And when I need to cover a gig solo, I often carry a looper, usually just to 'capture' a verse to solo over later. I tend to sing a verse or two, then loop a solo. I have done 'duets' playing harmonies with the loop for instrumentals as well.

My gigging partner and I have even combined double looping at times for fun!

[hotwired]

Thank for this advice. Especially the looper...I don't use one but I DO have one, and it's the simplest of all, I'd say (the boss RC-1 or something like that)

I'm glad you mentioned the recording pressure...I hadn't thought of that. I do notice that when I play a song sitting with my wife and a glass of wine, it's low pressure, but as soon as I plug into my board/headphones or hit that record button, I find myself playing from my "head" vs. "heart" straight away, so maybe that's a key. practice hooked up to my system (headphones vs. QSC 8's!!) and or using my new Zoom H4n. Eventually I should be able to play from the heart under THOSE conditions ...

Right now, I'm learning the natural minor scales (vs. pentatonic and blues), and learning the "weird" minor chord forms. Just trying to get so natural with the fretboard that no matter where my hand lands I can throw out a quick lick.

Back to work for me now! Thank you for taking time out of your day to advise me.

[hotwired]

To answer your question, @rmp , I do mostly pick work. I am learning John Mayer's version of Free Fallin' which is all finger. It's so alien to what i normally to that I can feel my brain growing from the strain! I have the guitar part down now where I can do it asleep, but next comes the vocals. I am a Keith Richards fan and tune to open G sometimes, so I do a lot of "keith style" riffs like ascending and descending double stops (think Tumblin' dice, Honky Tonk Women, Wild Horses, etc.) and John Fogerty's licks on like the intro to Lodi, etc. Other than that I add flourishes with as much open string as possible (like the Wildwood flower style licks).

[mattbn73]

Sounds like you're doing really good work already. One thing I'll throw in with regard to learning to sing better... The hardest thing in my opinion is the phrasing aspects. The problems I see with the singers I work with are mostly "form problems" , meaning they have problems with sections of songs which don't repeat, like unique second and 3rd verses or tags/bridges.

Get some kind of looping app for your phone or tablet, like the audipo app, and loop back each unique section of the song, especially individual verses. You can really work hard and efficiently in a focused way on the specific phrasing and learnto hear the way different singers phrase things.

Good phrasing is honestly much more important than tone and many other factors. Good phrasing also greatly affects these other factors on the first place. It will get you a lot of mileage, especially as your voice ages etc.

[hotwired]

It's so funny you talk about phrasing, I've actually notice that only the past couple of months. I've come to realize that if vocal phrasing is right in a nice tight rhythm with a guitar, a lot of other shortcomings can be forgiven. But having to rush we're coming in too late or too early Really stands out like a sore thumb. I've noticed that in recording myself and listening back. I was not aware of that looping app but I will give that a try because that's just what I've been meaning to do, his work on the vocals the same way I work on learning weeds with a guitar on a song. Breaking it down into little parts. Thank you.

[Mandobart]

Spend time listening and watching artists who do what you want to do. Some that I find inspiring in the Standard Singer Songwriter (SSS) category are:

James Taylor, Joe Pug, Gilian Welch/Dave Rawlins, Steve Goodman, Leo Kottke, Dennis Kamakahi, many more.

[hotwired]

I did find someone thanks to a post on this forum: Mike Massé. He literally is like the "champion" of one guy with an acoustic. Does many of the songs I do, so I watch and try to emulate him a little. I hadn't thought of James Taylor...he's one of the kings of "one guy with a guitar".

I did do a little phrase work last night and it felt great, like I really accomplishes something. @mattbn73 thank you for that advice. I was really "under doing" that work.

[rmp]

Originally Posted by hotwired

To answer your question, @rmp , I do mostly pick work. I am learning John Mayer's version of Free Fallin' which is all finger. It's so alien to what i normally to that I can feel my brain growing from the strain! I have the guitar part down now where I can do it asleep, but next comes the vocals. I am a Keith Richards fan and tune to open G sometimes, so I do a lot of "keith style" riffs like ascending and descending double stops (think Tumblin' dice, Honky Tonk Women, Wild Horses, etc.) and John Fogerty's licks on like the intro to Lodi, etc. Other than that I add flourishes with as much open string as possible (like the Wildwood flower style licks).

Good stuff, keep with it, it takes time to develop the required muscle memory.

Keep working in the "finger picking" direction. You will succeed, we all had to work this out the same way. Time, patience and practice.

BTW.. the looper suggest, hadn't thought of that, I think that's a great way to figure out what kind of fill licks you can slide in to various chord progressions.

Play on!

[Silly Moustache]

Hi Hotwire,

Here's the old fashioned way of finding melody and breaks simply by playing them out of the scales without the chords.

Hope this helps.

[Playguitar]

Silly Moustache, how do I learn to noodle the way you do? I can walk between chords, but I use the typical bluegrass walks.