Best way to learn how to phrase better

[Guitar1969]

Mark:
I'm kind of stuck in a rut. I know my Pentatonic scales in all positions, but am having a hard time making my licks and riffs sound creative, more rock oriented Your lessons on minor pent phrasing helped a bit(build upon smaller call and response licks) but I seem to have no creativitity, and my phrases always sound like old school bluesy licks, which is okay sometimes, but not in all rock situations. I am not a fast player, but I know speed isn't everything - What is really hard for me is switching between timings - for example, licks going from 16th note timings into triplets, then back to 16ths again. I always use a metronome, but that doesn't give creativity.

It seems to me that phrasing is something that's not easily taught(and is what defines a guitarists tone) but how do you teach this concepnt to students - is there a book that you can recommend that will help get me on the right path, and teach about changing timings for creativity. I don't assume your Foundations book covers any of this at all does it?

Thanks,

Michael

[Mark Wein]

Mark:
I'm kind of stuck in a rut. I know my Pentatonic scales in all positions, but am having a hard time making my licks and riffs sound creative, more rock oriented Your lessons on minor pent phrasing helped a bit(build upon smaller call and response licks) but I seem to have no creativitity, and my phrases always sound like old school bluesy licks, which is okay sometimes, but not in all rock situations. I am not a fast player, but I know speed isn't everything - What is really hard for me is switching between timings - for example, licks going from 16th note timings into triplets, then back to 16ths again. I always use a metronome, but that doesn't give creativity.

It seems to me that phrasing is something that's not easily taught(and is what defines a guitarists tone) but how do you teach this concepnt to students - is there a book that you can recommend that will help get me on the right path, and teach about changing timings for creativity. I don't assume your Foundations book covers any of this at all does it?

Thanks,

Michael


Hi Michael

I think one thing that is important to remember is that phrasing is something that is developed over time. There are the techniques that I cover in the lessons but one thing that I am able to do with my "live" students that I can't do online is teach them existing solos by other artists. The more solos you learn the more you actually start seeing how other players put melodies and ideas together. At a certain point all of this information dissolves into "your sound". Its a relatively long term process, but here is a list of rock solos that I regularly teach my students as I try to give them the vocabulary to turn the theory that they learn into music (not in any particular order):

1. Celebration Day - Led Zeppelin
2. Just What I Needed - The Cars
3. Stairway to Heaven - Led Zeppelin
4. Lights - Journey
5. Smoke on the Water - Deep Purple
6. All Along the Watchtower - Jimi Hendrix
7. Hey Joe - Jimi Hendrix
8. Fade to Black(Intro) - Metallica
9. Sweet Little Angel - BB King (Live at the Regal version)
10 Crosscut Saw - Albert King

If you look in the "Bookstore" of my site you'll see "Texas Blues" by Robert Calva which is about playing "Texas Blues" obviously but working through that book and learning the sample solos will also give you a nice sense of melody, as well...

http://markweinguitarlessons.com/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=8

Hopefully some of this will be helpful!

[Jake S.]

I just started focusing on scales and such and I have the exact same problem...I was gonna tell Mark (I am a student of his) but I wanna get through the funk book I'm working on...I will look for some tabs for those songs and try to do that while I'm not doing the funk book.

[Ronk]

Hi,

New here... I don't know if this is much help, but it did help me awhile back when I found myself in a similar situation.

http://www.gibson.com/warrenhaynes/

After the page loads click on the player tips at the top...

[Guitar1969]

I just started focusing on scales and such and I have the exact same problem...I was gonna tell Mark (I am a student of his) but I wanna get through the funk book I'm working on...I will look for some tabs for those songs and try to do that while I'm not doing the funk book.


I'm working on the Bolton Funk Guitar Book as well - Some of those chord shapes are hard to form, without getting a dead string(When you don't want one). I am currently balancing my time between the the Funk Book(For Rhtyhm), lead scales and phrasing techniques(Lead), and trying to build my lick vocabulary(Improv) playing to backings

Question for you(Or Mark would probably be able to answer this) , What is the target BPM for the funk Rhythm stuff are you tryning to get to(Since its 16ths, its hard for me to get faster speeds)- I am doing approx 90bpm - 16ths, which is pretty slow for most rock.

[Mark Wein]

To be honest, I have most of my students play the exercises at 60 bpm first to get the rhythms together accurately before moving the tempo up.

Most rock where you would be strumming 16th notes I wouldn't think would be much faster than 120bpm. I don't really have a target tempo for my students but a goal might be to be able to play something like "Pinball Wizard" in time and at tempo...if you can do that I think you can do just about anything rock-wise...

[Guitar1969]

Thanks for the info - just for reference, what tempo is Pinball Wizard roughly at. I'll have to track that tab down.

[Mark Wein]

No problem!

Pinball Wizard is 132bpm according to my "Acoustic Guitar Tab White Pages" :)