Timing and Note Value Alteration

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Instructor: Richard Lundmark Level: Intermediate Topic: Improvising Style: Any Style

Excerpt: Welcome guitar slingers! The goal of the Timing and Note Value Alteration tutorial is to expand your improvisational and musical abilities drastically. When you apply these concepts, I can guarantee you that you improvisational skills in all styles will increase exponentially, and you will be that much closer to unlocking your full potential! Before launch...

Media Length: 8:34

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Instructor: Richard Lundmark Level: Intermediate Topic: Improvising Style: Any Style

Excerpt: Very well then! Let's begin shall we? The first thing I will tell you is the no.1 commandment of timing practice! ALWAYS STOMP YOUR FOOT TO THE BEAT! This is extremely important to help in internalizing your feel for various note values. And NO, saying "but. but... I use the metronome?" isn’t going to cut it here Buster! As I stated before, you need ...

Media Length: 2:30

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Instructor: Richard Lundmark Level: Intermediate Topic: Improvising Style: Any Style

Excerpt: So, on we go. Now that we have some major note values down, we can start exploring the possibilities of note value alteration. The first concept we will dive headlong into is to take any idea, and alternate the note values with which we play it. That is, Note value alteration! In example 2a, I have taken a familiar rock lick in the G Dorian blues scale. That...

Media Length: 2:51

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Instructor: Richard Lundmark Level: Advanced Topic: Exercises Style: Any Style

Excerpt: So, on to example 2d then. In this example, I have mixed two note values within the same line; sixteen note triplets, and straight sixteen notes. You hear how much more random and musical this is starting to sound when compared to examples 2a-b? You should be able to do this with any lick or idea you have, changing note values within your lines as you go ...

Media Length: 2:36

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Instructor: Richard Lundmark Level: Advanced Topic: Improvising Style: Any Style

Excerpt: Now it’s time for some real excitement people! Let’s look into the concept of Rhythmic Superimposition shall we? Do you remember me ranting about Scale Superimposition in my Pentatonic Finder tutorial? Well, this is sort of the same, but with rhythms. If you recall, in the previous examples, we took one example, and varied the rhythm in that, w...

Media Length: 3:09

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Instructor: Richard Lundmark Level: Advanced Topic: Improvising Style: Any Style

Excerpt: Did you make it through? Warmed up yet are we? Sweet, let’s continue. One thing that most people don’t think about is that this concept is every bit as useful when it comes to riffing and rhythm guitar playing! Let’s take a look at what that might look like. In example 3d we have a rock/metal riff in E Phrygian. Pretty straight forward with...

Media Length: 2:01

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Instructor: Richard Lundmark Level: Crazy! Topic: Improvising Style: Any Style

Excerpt: Okay then, let's dive head first into example 4. What I've done here is I've taken the rhythmic figure from example 3a, and used it in improvisation. What you see below and in the video is me improvising over a drumbeat, and whatever I play, I hold that rhythmic figure alive. This is what you want to aim for, to be able to use this concept in actual improvis...

Media Length: 1:58

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Instructor: Richard Lundmark Level: Advanced Topic: Improvising Style: Any Style

Excerpt: Ok, time to break out that tapping finger! Before cutting into this one, look at this video and the next one as I explain my view of, and approach to tapping. This could help you immensely when attempting these things, and especially when later on improvising yourself. I would first recommend that you go through Sean Conklin's Finger Tapping tutorial, which...

Media Length: 2:11

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Instructor: Richard Lundmark Level: Advanced Topic: Improvising Style: Any Style

Excerpt: In this part, I discuss my approach to tapping more in-depth, and exemplify the technique I use. What I tend to do, is to tap upwards instead of downwards for several reasons. I find it more comfortable, and I see tapping as being right hand hammer-ons and pull-offs. Thus, it seems only natural to make the same type of pull-off, closing the hand, as I do whe...

Media Length: 3:28

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Instructor: Richard Lundmark Level: Advanced Topic: Improvising Style: Any Style

Excerpt: First off, we have example 5a, where I have taken an E min pentatonic tapping lick (actually not strictly E pentatonic, since I’m starting off with F#, which is the major 2nd). Follow the advice given in the video about how to play it, and then just play it! The example is in 8 note triplets, and with 3 notes per string, this makes it a fairly easy lic...

Media Length: 1:16

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Instructor: Richard Lundmark Level: Advanced Topic: Improvising Style: Any Style

Excerpt: Then we come on to example 5d. Here I’m using Ninetuplets (nine-what now?). This might look intimidating at first glance, but is actually not much harder to play than triplets, same feel almost, just faster. This is a note value that is not often seen outside a Frank Zappa tune☺ In the video i explain how to approach this note value. It is just b...

Media Length: 4:25

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Instructor: Richard Lundmark Level: Advanced Topic: Improvising Style: Any Style

Excerpt: Next up is example 5e. This is another pentatonic tapping idea that I personally use a lot. You can see these types of thing in a real musical context in my Super Continental song tutorial. Same idea here in example 5f, but using straight sixteen notes. You get the idea by now ☺. Same idea, using sixteen note triplets is up next here in example 5...

Media Length: 2:32

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Instructor: Richard Lundmark Level: Advanced Topic: Improvising Style: Any Style

Excerpt: Here we are, the final section! What I will do here is similar to what I did in example 4. I will take the rhythm from one idea, and superimpose that over everything I improvise. So to begin with, here is example 6a, where you can see the same idea as in examples 5, but with two different note values intermixed. And then finally, in example 6b below, I u...

Media Length: 2:06

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Instructor: Richard Lundmark Level: Crazy! Topic: Improvising Style: Any Style

Excerpt: And we're at the finish line!! Time for the outro impro. Here I have improvised with tapping over a drum beat, but kept the rhythm from example 6a, regardless of what I play. Try it on, analyze it and make it your own. After you have nailed this one, try to turn on a drum machine and keep it going with this (or another) rhythm until you drop the ball. Then ...

Media Length: 3:16