Another good week going in the books. Since I got through the beginning parts, things have become easier for me to tackle. I've noticed that Eddie has used the same techniques throughout the song, but slightly different. Recognizing this and applying what I already know to it make it a ton easier to thoroughly learn what I am playing. At this point, I'm actually excited to learn the new parts of the song when I'm usually nervous that I won't be able to completely get them down. While I wasn't able to devote a ton of time to playing this week, I was still able to make some solid progress on the solo. Last week I had started the section where it's really far up on the fretboard, now I'm quite close to being finished with it. The beginning part of this section was pretty easy, but more difficult to get up to speed as always. Towards the end of this section there's a part that is much like the beginning of the solo- rapid pull offs and hammer ons. If it was on a similar spot on the fretboard as the beginning sections, that'd be relatively simple to get down. But, as you go farther up the fretboard, the frets get smaller. So essentially I'm doing the same thing on frets that are half the size as usual: As you can see in the above picture, the frets get smaller and smaller as you move up, so mobility is severely limited. Alas, I should be able to apply what I already know about stuff like this and pull through that difficult section.
I'm looking forward in the solo, and I'm realizing that everything after the high part on the fretboard is pretty much the concept, which is just rapid picking by the right hand. There is one part I'm worried about though- the tapping section. This is the final section you hear before the song ends. I've heard it's easier to learn than it sounds, but then again I have no experience with tapping whatsoever. So when I get to that part, it sure will be interesting to see how I do.
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This past week was a brilliant week for this project. I was able to actually sit down and perfect the new and old parts of the solo that I needed work on. I was able to finish my schoolwork for the following day the previous evening, just as I had planned. For this past week, I kind of went back on what I said about "Quantity over quality". I just focused on adding a little bit of new stuff and then perfecting everything that needed touching up as well as the new stuff that was added. I really think doing that was a good use of my time. It won't be something I do every week, just here and there.
I pretty much just picked up where I left off the week before last. I found out that if I take breaks frequently while playing, I don't get as discouraged and usually practice longer. So, I've started taking breaks every ten minutes while I practice and it's been working pretty well for me. If I want a break from the new stuff, I usually just play through all of what I know up to that part in the song. If I have trouble anywhere, I stop and go through it until it is near perfect. There still are some rough spots in that in between part I was talking about a couple weeks ago, but that should be fine with a little work. The stuff that I learned was around that part that was up on the fretboard I mentioned last week. I pretty much perfected the bends that begin it. After the bends there's something I guess you could call a "turn around" where its just a little lick that carries over into the next section. It is played relatively fast, like most things Van Halen, and there were some notes that repeated at different times. It was difficult to memorize but once I did I perfected it in no time. The parts after that were a little hazy though. When a song is played quickly, learning it is pretty difficult because I have trouble putting it all together to make it sound like the recording. I did learn the base of it and I plan to do more work on it this afternoon. All in all, this was a good week for me, and I'm hoping I can be more responsible like this in the following weeks. As of right now, the worst part is over. I'm moving away from the beginning of the solo to the second part of it. Don't get me wrong, it's an Eddie Van Halen solo. It's going to be challenging no matter what. At least for now, I am in a comfortable spot. Alas, I cannot let this get to my head, because if I do, then I will slow down with my work and then all of a sudden, I'll be behind. I think the hardest part about this project is not the solo itself, but being committed to it.
Remember last week when I said that I would finish all of my schoolwork on Monday night so that I would have more time to work on the solo? There was one problem with that. The Pre-ACT. My plan was to just stay up late on Monday night and do my work, but I wanted, heck I needed, a good night's sleep. So, that really screwed me over. Later this past week though, I was able to do some work at least. After the little whammy bar section, there's a small section that is filled with high-note bends and pull offs and hammer ons. This part was relatively easy for me, as I was fairly used to bending high notes farther up on the fretboard. But, it's Eddie Van Halen. There's always a catch with him. What I was not used to was the speed at which it was played. Again, using the same technique as the past couple of weeks, I was able to get it up to speed. Another thing that I was not prepared for was the rapid movement of the right hand rather than the left hand. The most active hand, usually, is the left hand because it is on the fretboard and moving all around it. Contrary to that, this section starts to use rapid movements of the left hand to put out more articulated notes. You can hear this at the 26 second mark of the song. I've done some work on it, but I don't think it should be too hard to get it under my fingers. Like last week, I'm having the same issue of getting too caught up in school and not having enough time to really sit down and practice this. Yes, I know. Wednesdays are the days to work on this project, but I still have other work for other classes that take up a large portion of my day. So, rather than staying up late on one night to finish all of my work, I'm going to start getting up earlier in the day to finish the schoolwork up in the mornings. I'm hoping this will help me spread out my time and be more responsible in general You know, I'm starting to think that this project is a little more than just learning a new skill. I think it's about learning how to properly manage your time and being responsible with your actions, as well as being able to balance different activities. This past week was a little tougher for me to work on this project. As I'm sure a lot of other students can relate to, I was just really weighed down with schoolwork. I still did work on the Genius Hour project some, just not as much as I should have or wanted to. Nonetheless, I did make some pretty good progress this week even though I didn't have much time to work on it.
I finally was able to get the second lick pretty much down and up to speed. I need to spend some more time perfecting it before I can say it is completely perfect. The same theory for the first lick I used worked just fine with the second lick. I just took it slow at first, then moved up to speed and worked more on it as it got faster. As for the in-between parts, I'm still struggling with them. They're so finicky, I have to slow the song down just to hear them better, and even then they're really vague and I can't exactly tell what it's supposed to sound like. I just got a general idea of how they were played, and moved on to the lick I was really concentrating on. After that part, I moved on to the next part which was quite a relief. It's just a section of about five seconds that are just descending quarter notes on the D and A strings. Pretty simple stuff compared to everything else in the solo. Then it moves onto a part where he uses the whammy bar, the fun part. If you don't know, the whammy bar is a slender piece of metal on the bridge of the guitar that lets you lower the pitch of whatever you're playing by just pressing it down. It is an easy thing to get the hang of if you know what you're doing. I have an idea of how I want to change this part of the song up to make it more personalized. I don't want it to be a carbon copy of the exact solo. With now only nine weeks left and only being through about seventeen seconds of the song, I need to really get a move on. It is a very difficult solo, especially if you aren't experienced in that style of playing. However, I have a plan on what to do. This week on Monday night, I'm going to do my schoolwork for the next following days so I won't have nearly as much to do. During the following days, I'm going to spend as much time as I can on moving forward with the song. Nine weeks seems like a long time, but is it really? This first quarter went by in no time at all, and that was nine weeks. No, I'm not saying I'm behind, but I need to pick up the pace. I hate to say this, but I'll start focusing more on learning the part without it being 100% perfect, but good enough to where it wouldn't take me long to get it perfect. The last couple of weeks I will work on perfecting everything and rounding up the rough edges. |
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