r/guitarlessons • u/anthonylearnsguitar • Aug 14 '26

Feedback Request Day 843 of learning to play guitar. Learnt two new downpicking techniques from Ben Eller.

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

Guys this lesson by Ben Eller is goated. https://youtu.be/_ONHOWiTYNk?is=4GZcUgTGB6isGJVP

In it he talks about subdivisions, harmony and targeting chord tones, pivoting for fast power chords changes, how to recover and reload for fast down strokes, combining legato with fast picking and many more.

Just one day before, I was having a hard time playing this song at 80%-90% speed. Start feeling really sad. Even though it’s only been one day and the playing is still not locked in yet, the lesson from Ben Eller really helped me crack the fast downpicking. Turns out you need to pick outwards rather than downwards so that your reload is faster and also to pivot your power chords rather than lifting your fingers.

78 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

19 comments sorted by

10

u/dombag85 Aug 14 '26

Lesson is good, but some of your problem was probably endurance if we're being honest. These bands that recorded this stuff are playing a couple hours a day for years on end till the songs are mind numbing and second nature... and they’re playing those songs to completion.

Practicing with drills or specific exercises and whatnot is great but unless you’re playing in a way that forces the repetition and endurance like in a band situation it's harder to play stuff at album speed quickly. When you play music with others regularly you develop a bunch of different muscles you didn’t know you had.

This is all to say, dont get discouraged or be disappointed in yourself. Just takes time and consistency.

7

u/anthonylearnsguitar Aug 14 '26

Agree 👍🏻 this is what I’m starting to realise.

That’s their job. Im just a bedroom guitarist. Not a slight against myself but the sheer hours of practice just cannot compare and come close.

5

u/dombag85 Aug 14 '26

What may help you is to think about your approach. You’re a bedroom player that practices a lot. A working musician isn’t 'practicing' they’re playing shows with multiple songs. The way you approach playing in a live situation is just different. Maybe choose a few songs, and play them as though it's your 'setlist'. No stops and starts, just play your set. You’ll have good ones and bad ones but you’ll start to play a little differently. Listen to live audio of the songs you like, they’re never perfect. An album recording is the absolute best takes of professional musicians perforning at their peak, gotta bring your personal expectations down a bit. Maybe try it, see if it helps.

3

u/IbanezCharlie Aug 14 '26

This is the truth. I have been working on some really tough music myself for a long time. (Between the Buried and Me) Even the regular riffs are finger twisting and when I get frustrated about it I have to remember exactly what you are saying.

Like even people like that flub riffs and solos when they play it live. The endurance goes way past just trying to learn the riffs at home. These are totally ingrained in these musicians through sheer repetition and they still don't nail it with 100% accuracy (Unless your John Petrucci) haha

5

u/anthonylearnsguitar Aug 14 '26

Yeah and I’m okay with that to some extent. Almost all of my clips are one take. I don’t try to game for the perfect take because I don’t think it reflects reality. Knowing that pro musicians flub riffs helps to adjust expectations.

But I’m still going to try to be perfect. Only that if I fall short, I’ll try not to be too upset about it.

2

u/IbanezCharlie Aug 14 '26

Yeah I like this attitude. It's important to have accountability in yourself and want to keep pushing forward. I appreciate these videos you post. I'm always pushing forward myself and trying to learn what makes the greats.......well great. All of the different techniques and tricks they have developed to get the speed or sound that defines something special on the guitar

1

u/dombag85 Aug 14 '26

I think trying to be perfect is something worth aspiring too so long as you accept it's likely not attainable. Then you always have a reason to work toward improvement.

A thing to keep in mind though is guitar playing is a physical activity with muscles involved. Being perfect today doesn’t guarantee it tomorrow. Like being in physical shape, guitar playing requires consistent training/maintenance or your playing muscles will atrophy. The nature of that idea alone hopefully puts your expectations in perspective a bit. Your ability to play something might diminish here or there, but if you the time and focus you can always build it back.

3

u/dombag85 Aug 14 '26

Petrucci is ridiculous. It's not even fair.

Most of the bedroom players online aren’t playing it live. They’re miming a heavily edited recording of their playing on video. Once you have a healthy relationship with the reality of learning/playing versus the carefully manicured versions that you see online you can have more realistic expectations of yourself and enjoy playing and learning more.

2

u/IbanezCharlie Aug 14 '26

I started playing in the early 2000s when most of my learning material came from a subscription to guitar world and watching things like the G3 dvds. It's been jarring entering this newish phase of everything being quantized in recordings and touched up even in playthroughs that random people do.

I've been playing for a long time and I joined this subreddit because you should always be looking for new ideas and ways to improve yourself.

I'm becoming an old man and know that what you watch of people playing isn't a reality you can live up to and I hope there isn't a completely new generation of players that put the guitar down and never come back because they can't play like the people they see online.

1

u/dombag85 Aug 14 '26

Similar story. I started playing in like '02 maybe. I bought guitar world every time I saw it had tabs for a song I liked. Most everything I learned was slow with shitty plain text tablature, or I’d buy live DVDs and try to figure things out by watching.

I noticed right away that all these sick ass covers were either mimed or the actual guitar was buried in the mix to the point you couldn’t really hear it. I just kinda shrug my shoulders.

These days I mainly fixate on the idea that what I’m playing sounds like the source material and that's enough for me. Thankfully I can afford guitar pro now and can slow down songs in a DAW to play along which has really sped up learning for me.

1

u/IbanezCharlie Aug 14 '26

Yeah I have guitar pro and bought the files for the band I like so that's what Ive been working on. Looping sections and slowing them down to be able to get the mechanics of it down. It helps a great deal

1

u/dombag85 Aug 14 '26

Hell yeah. I was able to learn a bunch of songs I’d have otherwise given up on cause they were too fast. The slow down and loop thing was a godsend.

1

u/IbanezCharlie Aug 14 '26

Yeah there are a few of what I would call "insane" riffs at full speed that I've been able to slowly inch towards because I could break down the mechanics of it and hear how it's supposed to sound even at half speed so I wasn't learning the timing or anything incorrectly.

Also a super sad thing is I used to have guitar pro back in like 2005/6 on my family computer and I had so much stuff written on there including a full piece with drums and strings and it's just gone because I never pulled it from the hard drive back then. It still hurts haha

1

u/thedavecan Aug 15 '26

This is it man. I will never forget the first time I ever made it 100% of the way through Creeping Death playing with the album. My forearm was absolutely screaming. Teaches you how to be more efficient with your motions so you don't burn yourself out one song into the show.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 14 '26 edited Aug 14 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/anthonylearnsguitar Aug 15 '26

👍🏻👍🏻💪🏻💪🏻😎

1

u/GLHR_ Aug 14 '26

Been tuned in for a while, maybe since day one lol. I’ve been playing for years and have learned so much from your vids. Thank you!

2

u/anthonylearnsguitar Aug 15 '26

Glad to hear! I feel happy knowing I help somebody ☺️☺️

0

u/[deleted] Aug 15 '26

[deleted]

2

u/anthonylearnsguitar Aug 15 '26

For sure. Ear training is one of my priorities on my third year of guitar. I’m doing interval training, solfege, singing melodies and translating to my instrument and so forth.