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  • Learning Solo bits from November Rain

So Norio seems to think things are too quiet ? I'll have a go:

After hearing that G&R were coming to SA (4 weeks ago) I figured I would try learning the solo to November Rain (I've always loved the song)

For the last 4ish weeks I have used my time as follows:

Generally I have 30 minutes of practice time per day on weekdays and on weekends its a crapshoot w.r.t. how much time I can find. I spent 5 minutes doing scales and picking drills. Then I spent 5 minutes doing whatever my next task in Yousician is. After that I spent 15 minutes on November Rain, and the last 5 minutes I crank the amp and do whatever I like (I just got the "just got paid" riff up to speed so I like playing that, and I am making agonizingly slow progress on getting the riff from RHCP's Snow to anywhere near the proper speed).

I spent week 1 finding a good tab, importing into tux guitar, transposing to standard (Slash plays it tuned to Eflat), importing it into Yousician, and syncing it to a backing track. I also found out there are two solos, the first is a slower melodic section in the middle of the song, and the second is the face-melting ending. The first solo is much easier so I focused my attention there:

At the end of week 1 I could play it at around 40% of the real speed, but I quickly realised my bending accuracy was garbage, so I added some bending practice to my drills. That first solo has many bends, and also uses some of the really high frets (19) so I had to get used to reaching those on my LP.

Week 2 was mostly spent on getting the speed up; if I remember correctly I was up to around 65% of the real speed, but I lost a day due to changing strings and cleaning the guitar (broke high-E while bending), and another day due to work travel. I seriously considered going from 10s to 9s to make the bends easier but then decided to stick with 10s to build finger strength.

Week 3 was a good week, I got it to 80% fairly cleanly, and a 50/50 shot at doing a sloppy 100%.

Week 4 has been a disaster with work travel so I haven't practiced yet. I installed reaper on my practice laptop, but was disappointed to find out that my sound card doesn't allow me to capture what I am hearing (combined speaker output and guitar input, I only get the guitar input). I will have to go for the audacity route on Linux which has allowed me to do this in the past.

Looking Forward:
I think I will have a fairly decent shot at getting the first solo to 100% with another week or so. I feel that the first solo is very close to the limit of my current technical ability so I am very worried about the second solo which is much faster but less bendy.

I also will need to start memorizing the actual notes, at the moment I have the fast licks memorized, but I play the rest by sight as they scroll by in Yousician. I know Norio has also mentioned it before, but Yousician/Rocksmith are really bad for song retention.

Gear:
Its just my Epi LP going into my Line6 Amplifi. I have found a fairly believable Slash patch on the Line6 Tone Search which I am using. It is fairly unforgiving though and seems to amplify my mistakes more than when I am just using a clean tone. Backing track comes from the Laptop into the Amp via USB.

If you got through this wall of text, congrats ? I'll try to get myself recorded next week.

klaasvakie After hearing that G&R were coming to SA (4 weeks ago) I figured I would try learning the solo to November Rain (I've always loved the song)

I wanted to do the same! My favourite solo is in Sweet Child. Hopefully I'll still get a chance to do that before the concert!

klaasvakie It is fairly unforgiving though and seems to amplify my mistakes more than when I am just using a clean tone.

That's something I've also found with a lot of these patches. Seems to be across the board from GarageBand to Rocksmith to my Korg PX5D and my Boss BR-600.

I'd love to hear a clip of this. Progress clips are awesome too, btw ? I'm trying to do the same with the Tom Petty — Good Enough but failed today coz our camera decided to be temperamental.

These threads are great for people to see that even us mere mortals can play these epic songs, if we put in the time!

Thanks @klaasvakie, great thread ?

        5 days later

        Update:

        Week 4 was a disaster - I only manage one day of practice, and nothing on the weekend.

        For this morning's practice session I managed one poor playthrough at 80%, and then promptly had to deal with a sick baby.

        The plan is still to record something this week, I've got the tripod set up, just need some time.

        klaasvakie The plan is still to record something this week, I've got the tripod set up, just need some time.

        I feel your pain! I wanted to record something last week but 1) recording is more complicated than it should be and 2) then you need a tripod and decent camera and it needs to be set up and ready or it won't happen. At least that's my problem.

        I'm thinking of buying a small GorillaPod tripod for my phone or for our "point and shoot" G5X camera as my wife's Manfrotto is not allowed to live in my office, I discovered ?

        Also thinking of getting a decent little USB mic (like those ones people use for Podcasts) for the occasional "record the room" recording. It won't be gorgeous quality but at least it gets us recording, which is important.

        Well, more power to you for picking it all up again this week! We both fell off our horses and got back on. That's worth a lot, in my books!

          NorioDS I'm thinking of buying a small GorillaPod tripod for my phone or for our "point and shoot" G5X camera as my wife's Manfrotto is not allowed to live in my office, I discovered

          So my hairbrained recording scheme is as follows:

          1. Canon Point-And-Shoot on GorrilaPod for Video
          2. Windows Laptop Running Yousician (I have the backing track and tabs synced up in there) outputting to the Amp.
          3. Heaphone output from the amp running into my Linux laptop to capture the complete audio stream.
          4. Hopefully I can put everything together in Reaper on the Windows laptop in the end.

            klaasvakie Ja... exactly my point. Recording is a PITA!

            That's one reason I appreciate these dedicated devices like the Micro BR, BR-600, etc. They take some of the complication out but as soon as you want to add video? Fuhgeddaboudid! ?

            Well let's keep comparing notes. Maybe one of us will eventually find an easier way. Although I'm betting it will involve a lot of this:

                Got about 20 mins this morning - feeling solid at 80% again, and managed to do a wobbly one at 100%. The struggle continues ...

                OK, so I promised I would record something, and I did manage to record "something". So this is current progress at 80% of the real speed. Notes and criticism below:

                Notes about recording:

                • I allowed myself 3 takes and I used the 3rd.
                • Guitar was recorded straight from the Amplifi into Reaper using USB.
                • Video was recorded on a Canon Ixus XX Point and Shoot.
                • I was using Yousician to slow down the backing track while playing, but couldn't get that audio looped back into reaper which turned out to be major pain in the butt.
                • So I loaded the backing track into reaper and slowed it down, but the Reaper 80% and the Yousician 80% are not quite the same, so you will notice some major syncing issues between the backing track and the guitar.
                • Syncing the video was relatively easy as the camera audio matched the guitar and it was just a question of lining them up.
                • The backing track already has Slash on it so I made my guitar much louder than it should be in the mix. This makes it clearer which bits are me and which bits are Slash ( The wrongs bits are all me ? )

                Notes about the playing:

                • I have a big issue with touching neighbouring strings while bending, not sure how to fix this
                • Bending accuracy is a problem, man some of those are hard to listen to ?
                • There were a couple of fumbles, but I could probably solve them by doing a couple more takes.

                So here it is:

                Nicely done bud! And that guitar looks sexy as heck ?

                So if you want a bending exercise, here's one I was taught. It's pretty common. Basically, you play your target note, and then bend to it.

                For example, if you're on the high E string, bending up from E on the 12th fret to F#, you'd play the F#, let it ring out a bit (for your brain to kinda memorise the sound) and then bend up to it.

                You wanna do this all over the fretboard as the amount you need to bend a string to achieve a whole note or half note bend will differ depending on where you are.

                This helped me a lot but I still sukkel. It's something you keep at, I suppose, until it becomes natural.

                As for muting the other strings when you're bending, I try and "cover" the other strings with my remaining fingers. It helps but it requires practise and doesn't work too well when you're busy using those fingers to support your actual bend. (Lower frets I usually need more supporting fingers.)

                This picture kinda shows what I'm meaning. Check out the first / index finger:

                Anyway, I'm no guitar teacher or expert. This is just a tip or 2 from one hopeful guitarist to another ?

                Huge kudos to you for your progress and for sharing with us! Looking forward to hearing more from you!

                  Thanks for the encouragement man. First time I've put something out there for the world to see. Scary ...

                  The bending exercise you described is the one I'm using, I just need a lot more practice I think.

                  W.r.t to muting, I've mostly been trying to mute using my right hand, but I'll have to give my left hand a go like in the pic you attached. Will post another progress vid next week I think, keeps a man honest.

                  klaasvakie Totally agree: Putting yourself out there is scary but also keeps you honest ITO it keeps you practising and pushing.

                  I feel a bit swak for not having done much this week on my song-learning project but, ja well, I'll get there ? Tough week!

                  Congrats again on the awesome progress and for sharing!

                      7 days later

                      So here is an update:

                      Got a nice long practice session on Sunday and a normal session on Tuesday, the rest of the week was a write-off. Didn't have much time this morning, so I didn't do the whole dance with Reaper --- you are hearing the camera mike only, and listening to it now the guitar amp is still clean, I forgot to load the Slash patch. Also ignore my whistling ?

                      I gave myself 5 takes, used the 2nd. I flubbed the rest early on. Even this one has a couple of flubs. I think the bending is better and at least it is up to speed. Let me know what I should work on next week.

                      Had a fairly good weekend for practicing. Worked on getting the first solo cleaner and also started working on the final solo. I got through it at half-speed this morning, but don't have it memorized yet. Here's to hoping for a quiet week at work ?

                        NorioDS Thanks for the encouragement. I think I've pretty much saturated the wife's tolerance for listening to the middle bit of November Rain getting played over and over again. I used the headphones this morning ...

                          klaasvakie Hahahahha! Ja that's a VERY challenging part of learning songs or parts of songs. We can listen to the part over and over but our poor family goes berserk after about the 3rd or 4th listen.

                          What's an axe-man (or -woman) to do?!

                              11 days later

                              So I've had a couple of disastrous weeks w.r.t my progress here. Work kept me real busy and traveling. The first solo is getting better and easier to play. Second solo is at about 50% speed with the first half memorized and working on memorizing the last bit. Definitely not worth taking video of.

                              At least I managed to record something for the space challenge, but am gonna have a try to get a cleaner take on the weekend.

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