I've just spent some time listening to recordings of myself playing over the last yesr or so and it confirmed what I thought ...I'm stuck in a rut playing the same thing over and over. I exclusively play at jams, mostly the same one, and by myself in the woodshed(garage).
One thing that stuck out and I really only noticed when I compared myself to one of the other jam regulars (Leonid Titkov) was that I can't seem to be able to play fast runs very well. I'll start one and then bottle out and just play a long single note to cover my tracks. Those little runs really sound good when played well and really add something to the song (IMHO).
Any good tips on playing fast? Is it just a case of playing something slowly and then speeding up?
I listened to one of Jason's Youtube videos on this subject and good as it is, it just seemed like Jason playing really fast without explaining the method of how he got there.
Why do you want to play fast? I'd say let it just happen or not happen. Study something else like phrasing in general or a new scale. Speed will come with confidence.
It is also a lot harder to keep things fresh when playing fast...so many notes!!!
It might be much easier to work on phrasing within a scale with lots of texture.
I can pull off some John Popper and Jason Ricci-like stuff (not saying it is that awesome), but that came from learning scale patterns and ornamentations and playing them perfectly over and over while slowly speeding them up.
Both those guys tend to play a line and insert patterns into it to lengthen it. Although Popper is able to play some pretty complicated melodies super fast too. When Jason gets really fast, it is all about action patterns and creating a moving line by moving from pattern to pattern.
So again, the melodic content is more about a target tone with lots of ornamentation around it moving to another target tone. You can use note patterns and varied rhythms to get from A to B. ---------- Mike Fugazzi vocals/harmonica MySpace YouTube Twitter Facebook Album Ordering
Learn to play the harp by breathing through it. I bet most of you play by thinking about individual notes, think in terms of motion and try to play with as few breaths as possible.
Here is a good exercise.
Play a note and hold it HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA Play the same note and without taking another breath, interupt the stream of air on that note... HAAA HAAA then increase the number of airstream interuptions.
---------- "The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are." - Joseph Campbell
Thanks for that tip Chris. Do you mean to stop the stream using the throat muscles.? I'm just trying what you suggested now and I can do it by closing the throat or sort of using the tongue in a Ta Ta way.
Also if there are draw notes in a run what then?
Mike...I'm not talking about playing as fast as Jason here ...just slightly faster than I can play at the moment.It's more about what Chris is saying in the way I'm breathing and blowing and drawing rather than learning complicated runs.
There's this thing that most good players (and probably most of the guys on here are a matter of fact!) that I can only describe as daddle ah dah that I can only do by tongue articulation which I'd love to be able to do. It's something you hear quite a lot at turnarounds and when I do it using my tongue it just doesn't sound right. I hope I've explained that properly. Here's video of West Weston playing (sorry but the embedding has been disabled) and he's doing this at 0.34/0.44/0.56 into the song.
I'm nowhere near this guys standard in playing but just using it as an example.
yes, it's just like saying HA HA HA HA. If you're on the creepy side of life you can use Heh heh heh or if you're maniacal like me MooooooWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA always makes me smile.
---------- "The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are." - Joseph Campbell
Last Edited by on Mar 01, 2010 2:28 PM
Another way to do it is to start and stop the diaphragm. Same concept.
Bending with the throat(instead of the tongue) makes it easier to play accurate bends at fast tempo.
IMHO the less the tongue is used to articulate separation between notes or to bend, the better the player's tone is, the smoother and more even the player's attack is AND the easier it is to play really fast.
I didn't get this stuff from Chris, but i do agree w/everything he is saying.
Last Edited by on Mar 01, 2010 4:35 PM
Hmmm...well I can bend pretty good tongue blocking so I'll try doing practising what CHris and Hv are saying. The old Daddle la da still illudes me though!
If you can imagine a turnaround going ....
daddle la daddle la daddle la da, da da da. That's what I'm trying to get....the daddle la where the daddle la is 4 draw bent then 4 draw. I hope I'm explaining this ok. I think if I can master this it will help with playing a bit faster
jason ricci had a video about 1 year ago about playing fast. i think he said he practices playing fast by doing something with scales. sort of like a shuttle run, maybe.
@Oisen: I THINK you are talking about playing triplets. Controlling the bend is a big part it. If you can bend ok TBing you are well on the way.
Try this for exercise: Drop the 4 draw to 4 draw bent and then take it out to the 4 blow WITHOUT releasing the bend. Then play th 4 draw bend hitting it bent and then releasing up to 4 draw unbent. Then repeat, hitting the bends clean and in the proper order. Do this until you can do it accurately at fast tempo. It will help you build speed.
