| Rate This Article |
|
Current rating: 0 stars by 0 user
|
|
|
|
Accenting Exercise
by Toshi Iseda
What’s happening Premier Guitarist? Thanks for tuning into the first installment of Intense Guitar for 2008. I’ve been crazy busy lately, and after not playing for a few days, I need to hurry and get my chops up to speed for gigs and sessions. So seeing as though everyone seemed to enjoy last month’s intervallic picking exercises, I thought we’d take a gander at more exercises I use to get my chops up to par.
This exercise involves more string skipping but also has some linear applications as well. We’ll also utilize accenting notes within the line – something we haven’t really touched on, but is a large part of my playing. When you play, it’s extremely important to have accents in your playing, whether you are tackling rhythm or lead. Look at it as though you are speaking – you are going to have different inflections in your voice if you are angry, happy, sad, nervous, etc. Your playing should reflect the same.
A wonderful example of this is Steve Vai. I recently got the Steve’s DVD, Visual Sound Theories – Live With The Holland Metropole Orkest and was completely blown away by his performance of “I’m Becoming.” Simply astonishing. Steve has always been a great player and I think one of the things people often overlook in his playing is his sense of dynamics and accenting.
Besides Steve Vai, other rock-oriented players who make great use of dynamics and accents in their playing include Steve Morse, Andy Timmons, Joe Satriani, Neal Schon, and believe it or not, John Mayer. Seriously. His latest CD, Continuum, is awesome. Just check out the tune “Gravity” for a great example of some very dynamic playing.
With the exception of Mr. Mayer, all the players I’ve mentioned are at times very technical players but don’t fit into that “shredder” category, because their playing offers more than just speed. Remember that technical virtuosity also includes the use of accents and dynamics. In my opinion, technique is only a means to an end – being able to fluently express yourself. I hate guitarists that play as fast as they can in every song and lack dynamics in their playing. It sounds more like a machine than music.
Look at it like you’ve got a very, very fast car. If every time you got into it and drove 120 mph, you’d eventually crash. If not that, then whomever was a passenger in your vehicle would in all likelihood get very tired of your driving. However, if you drove slowly at times so that your passenger could relax and enjoy the scenery, they’d likely have a much better ride. Having said that, if that same person were in a hurry and needed to get somewhere quickly, you might be the one they call. After all, when listening to music, we’re all just passengers going for a ride.
In our example, the accent marks are indicated over the notes (resembling a horizontal “v”). This means with that particular note you are to strike it both harder and softer – the first time through hit it harder, and the second time through hit that same note softer than the other notes. As always, alternate beginning with a downstroke and an upstroke. The note you’ll be accenting will feel completely different with a simple change of pick direction.
That about does it for 2008’s first installment of Intense Guitar! If you have any questions or would like me to cover something specific, feel free to contact me at intseguitr@aol.com. com or Toshi@ToshiIseda. com. For those of you on MySpace, it’s myspace.com/toshiiseda. We’ll see you next month here in Premier Guitar, and as always, “Who dares wins!”
Toshi Iseda
Toshi Iseda is an Alumnus of the prestigeous Berklee College of Music and the American Conservatory of Music. He has been featured in Guitar Player, Guitar World and Guitar/Guitar One Magazines, and is a former instructor at the National Guitar Workshop and former instructor at the American Institute of Guitar.
toshi@toshiiseda.com
intseguitr@aol.com
www.TOSHIISEDA.com
myspace.com/toshiiseda
» Click Here to view the Digital Edition Version of this Article
Comments, Rants and Raves
Add Your Comments by using the form below. If you see inappropriate language, e-mail us.
Link to this Article
Want to link to this article? Just copy and paste the text below into your website.
|