Me too. Real tunes are a lot more fun than straight drills.

John

I am like Brett, sometimes I just want to be shown how to do it. I too would like to see some simple tunes deconstructed, slowed down to a point where I can figure out what your left hand hand is doing (as well as your right for that matter). Left more importantly though because I can usually figure out how to play the melody on my own.

A video songbook so to speak with 5 to 10 songs for newbsters like myself. That would really be worth something to me....

cheers,
kev

As one who has logged nearly 20,000 hours as a music instructor, I think there is great value in making very simple arrangements of familiar tunes for beginning players of any instrument.

Greg,

BEWARE! Happy Birthday, contrary to intuitive knowledge, is NOT in the public domain.
in fact, it brings in 2 million a year! The copyright has been acquired and repurchased over and over and is under the new Copyright Act goes until 2030.

That's why, if you saw the episode of iCarly ( parents you get this) Carly says " well its your birthday, but we can't sing that song, so we'll sing the public domain song "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow".

http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/music-licensing5.htm

so you have to be real careful about "public domain" tunes.
as far as exercises with recognizable tunes isn't that what your Songbook and The Stick Book is all about?

big fan of printouts, so I vote for the pdf's.
take care,
Dave Brosky

take care,
Dave Brosky

Thanks, Dave for your cautionary tale.

I imagine that some of this material will be posted as free downloads, and some not, so all the gray areas that entails may come into sharper relief.

And thanks for the other suggestions everyone. I wonder if "little Brown Jug has made its way into the public domain yet.

One of the things I'm going to try to emphasize is getting more legato playing going on. I get so tired of hearing all those staccato tapping videos.

Hand movement and the increased control it leads to are the definitely going to be the order of the day.

But what if I want to play staccato?

I like the idea of the "written exercises with video" format. You've already got a bunch of material, that sort of format could pull it all together. I also like exercises that lead to a tune, as was previously pointed out you're already doing that (Stick Book, song book and DVD).

When I'm practicing, I'll usually pick some exercise out of the Stick Book to work on, it's quick and simple to find it. On the DVD, I have to know where that one topic is and I generally find it takes too long to get to what I'm looking for within a two hour video (even with the chapter headings). It would be great to have a quicker way to get there (i.e., bass on this tune from the songbook is at "x" time on the DVD). I know creating bookmarks for the DVD would allow this, just haven't yet had the time. Having a bookmark list of specific topics would make the DVD even more accessible for me. I'm not stating this as a complaint about the DVD, just pointing out how useful it might be to have access to short videos that tie in to specific exercises. Maybe I just need is to sit down and do those bookmarks. There's a ton of great stuff on the DVD, and I don't use it enough.

Not sure if you're looking for feedback outside of supplementing the DVD…
You might also consider doing more videos that support your current written material. I've found the videos of "Morning Song" and "Del Mar" very useful and would love to see more of those videos showing how you play tunes from the song book. I know you've got live concert videos of a lot of those tunes, and that's always fun to listen to, but the format where you get the close and alternate camera angles is more helpful for learning to play. I'd also like to see videos that show the techniques in the "Expression" chapter of the Stick Book or that go over the song-specific exercises in the song book.

I also appreciate the videos you've already posted, like the bass and chords independence exercise or the explanation of the 5ths bass tuning. I'd love to see more tech-specific videos like the truss-rod adjustment. While I understand the mechanics of the flaps, bridge, pickups, etc, I don't know when I should change those or what to look for as the "correct" setup. A demo of the possible adjustments and what effect they have would be great.

-Claire

Hi Clare and everyone else. Many thanks for the suggestions.

As far as staccato goes...getting serious now...

From my perspective there are really three basic articulations to be aware of and in control of at all times:

1. Legato
2. Hammer-on/pull-off
3. Staccato

These don't include expressive techniques like sliding or muting which are also important to know how to do.

Hammer-on/pull-off seems to be the default strategy for people who want to rip up and down scales. The first note played on each string generally still has some attack to it, but all the rest don't.

When not using the hammer-on/pull-off approach, most tappers sound very staccato to my ear. I believe it's because the energy is all coming from the fingers, and each notes must be "ended" before the next note on the string can begin. This creates a gap between the notes, and one that I believe is largely unintended.

The legato articulation has no space between the notes, and also clear attacks for each note. It can only be accomplished by using hand movement, which ends a note a split second before the next begins. It is by far the most uniform articulation, and with it differences between the fingers and the position within the scale disappear.

This type of articulation is completely missing from most tapping musician's vocabulary. Don't take my word for it, just watch a few videos.

Anyone who wants to find out more about this just has to watch my video or schedule a lesson via skype of privately.

I'm really making it a mission to improve the sound of tapping for everyone. Don't let your technique limitations limit your musical vocabulary.

If you find you have trouble playing descending lines smoothly, hand-movement-based legato is the answer

get legato

greg I get the feeling that you are unable to point out directly "too much staccato" playing
because you don't want to point out anyone by name or performance.

Feel free to use any of my videos for that purpose. Legato is something I'm always working on and I think I would learn a thing or two.

Just a thought
Brett

Hi Brett,

Your playing is pretty smooth. You use a lot of-scale based movement, and the 1st-finger and 4th finger, which mark the position-boundaries are very strong. If there is one technique element that sticks out to me that you could work on it would be that the internal fingers within the position, specifically the 2nd, and 3rd fingers just don't come through as loudly as the 1st and 4th.

This is a common issue with 4-finger melody. I'm not advocating that you give up on the 4-finger approach, but that you may want to involve the wider scale positions more, where the 1st and 2nd fingers are 2 frets apart instead of just one fret, and see if they feel different to you.

The 3rd finger is kind of the orphan of 4-finger technique. so when it does get used, it's pretty weak in comparison to the 1st and 4th especially.

There was moment in your "Charlottesville" video that I thought illustrated the point, but I don't know what your musical intent was, so I can't be sure. The little descending melody line at 0:52 right before the "Autumn Leaves"-ish chord progression is pretty staccato (intentional or not, I don't know). It's the one place where you have to move quickly from one position to another, something that would be much smother if you had hand-movement more integrated into your technique.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4Gai7z-j7Y[/youtube]

Check it out and see if you get what I'm talking about.

You're right, I absolutely don't want to point to examples of other players, as I'm not interested in criticizing individual musicians with this issue. Thanks for volunteering.

I tend to notice it most in classical music and "proggy" music where there's a lot of position shifting. And again, it comes from the player relying completely on finger movement, instead of a combination of hand and finger movement together to energize the string (the method I advocate).

OK thanks Greg

I'll check out the video when I get home tonight. And I think you are 100% correct in your assessment.

Brett