[Hexer]

ok I sometimes write that kind of riffs with a few palm-mutes on the low B and other notes in between (hope you get what I mean lol).
now I wrote a riff like that, but when playing it, I sometimes have to jump up/down 4 strings between the low B string and the G string (that IS string skipping, right?).

at the speed I play that riff, I'm having problems clearly hitting that low B, especially when its an upstroke (I play it with alternate picking). I keep hitting the low E and stuff like that.

are there any secrets to it or do you have any tips for me? or does it just simply come down to practicing that kind of stuff a lot?

to give you a better idea, here is one measure of said riff:

-----------------------------
-----------------------------
--------------12--11---------
----10--9-------------13-----
-----------------------------
-----------------------------
-0---------0--------------0--
 PM        PM             PM

those are 1/8 notes at 160bpm

[eaeolian]

There are several places in our songs where I do things like that. I've found that hybridizing the picking pattern (so that the low B is always a downstroke, for example) helped the clarity a lot.

Then again, I pick pretty strangely, so YMMW...

[Mykie]

One thing I do is I take my pinky of my picking hand and I put it between the bottom two strings and keep it there. Sorta a habet for me, but that allows my hand to stay closer to the strings and allows me to do faster rests and pick other strings with out hitting the once I dont want to pick. Mike Muchok does the same sorta thing when he plays. But he puts his pinky below his bottom string since he uses a 6.

[Hexer]

I'll try that stuff tomorrow, thank you guys! if anyone has any more comments: keep em comming!


PS: I doubt that I'll be able to play with the pinky of my picking hand at the bottom 2 strings.... oh... are the "bottom" strings the 2 lowest or the 2 highest? because I already have my pinky somewhere at the high e string or the edge of the bridge-PU a lot of the time

[Mykie]

Yeah the high E and the high B. I play allot of riffs like the one you tabbed out and this helps me allot.

[nitelightboy]

Personally....I agree so far with anchoring your hand/pinky. The next thing to do is slow the riff down until you can play it perfectly 10x. Then slowly speed it up to your target tempo. This way you practice without mistakes, which yields much greater results.

[eaeolian]

Originally Posted by nitelightboy

Personally....I agree so far with anchoring your hand/pinky. The next thing to do is slow the riff down until you can play it perfectly 10x. Then slowly speed it up to your target tempo. This way you practice without mistakes, which yields much greater results.

+1000. I'm often guilty of NOT doing this, and it makes my life harder.

[nitelightboy]

Originally Posted by eaeolian

+1000. I'm often guilty of NOT doing this, and it makes my life harder.

Yeah. I'm usually guilty of it myself. But now and then, I go on a quest to work out my flaws and that's the first thing I notice about my practice.

[Hexer]

eaeolian: the "hybridized" picking-pattern helped I think. it works better that way.

thats the problem when you write a song without a guitar in hand most of the time: you can easily end up with something thats pretty difficult to play LOL I have written some stuff that I'm having much more problems with though

[Brett89]

Hi there people, I have got a problem!

When I play on guitar, I think I'm too noise, you know, I touch the other strings and like that , what sould I do? Become Trey Azagthoth and use my little finger to mute every string?

Please give me some good tips! Thank you!!!