The One Month Challenge

[Dominik Gräber]

How is everybodys challenge coming along so far?
Anybody still want to join??

Mine is going okay. The Stage Intro is a total bitch and at some days I feel like moving backwards. Today was good though. Not sure if I have the whole thing down in a month, let alone play it fluently.

 

[ari.mac]

How is everybodys challenge coming along so far?
Anybody still want to join??

Mine is going okay. The Stage Intro is a total bitch and at some days I feel like moving backwards. Today was good though. Not sure if I have the whole thing down in a month, let alone play it fluently.

I think I found something I want to work on, I think I'll start with it sometime this week and I'll post a video on my first day

 

[Dominik Gräber]

I think I found something I want to work on, I think I'll start with it sometime this week and I'll post a video on my first day

So I guess you won't tell us just yet what you chose??

 

[Calvin Phillips]

How is everybodys challenge coming along so far?
Anybody still want to join??

Mine is going okay. The Stage Intro is a total bitch and at some days I feel like moving backwards. Today was good though. Not sure if I have the whole thing down in a month, let alone play it fluently.

I was doing random taps the other day and realized the muscles used are much different and that alone may be part of the slow down for you.. I was fine using 1 3 but once I did 1 4 stretches my wrist was like naaah.

I dunno the taps in the intro but I know they change per chords right? So all those fingerings must be a pain.

 

[ari.mac]

So I guess you won't tell us just yet what you chose??

Nope

 

[idssdi]

How is everybodys challenge coming along so far?
Anybody still want to join??

Mine is going okay. The Stage Intro is a total bitch and at some days I feel like moving backwards. Today was good though. Not sure if I have the whole thing down in a month, let alone play it fluently.

I'm at my fourth song and learned a bonus gypsy jazz solo so I think it's going pretty great

 

[Dominik Gräber]

I'm at my fourth song and learned a bonus gypsy jazz solo so I think it's going pretty great

You really don't know how to slow down, do you? Good to hear it's going well though!

 

[idssdi]

You really don't know how to slow down, do you? Good to hear it's going well though!

No, I don't really know how to slow down. I've developed some sort of workaholic mindset in the past couple years

 

[chris_is_cool]

So I've been slowed down on my progress with my main project, because I'm also working on another song with my teacher (it's Dear God ^^).

But as far as Sweet Child O Mine goes along: Im working on having everything before the main solo down as cleanly as possible, and I have the first half of the main solo down. I think I'm gonna learn the second half of the solo and then leave the outro solo out for now. I probably won't get the main solo up to full speed within this challenge anyway, so I'm prioritising:
1) main song as tight as possible
2) main solo as precise as possible (and with "feel")
3) then increase speed of solo

Will post some video update at some point this week.

 

[William B.]

I only practiced my challenge yesterday again since last week. I figured out ( I think ) what I was doing wrong with the super hard part for me. Might need to use different fingerings and pick a specific way to go fast. I'm not going to get it down and up to speed in a month for sure. Gonna record the video later as I'm already late with my progress video.

 

[chris_is_cool]

4 weeks are over, and I'm gonna be honest: I haven't really made any progress after week 1.
The fast parts of the solo are just way, wayyy out of my current league just in terms of raw speed, so I just learned the first fast lick and use it now as a picking exercise, but didn't really progress after that. I'm still glad that I tackled the solo, now I have a long term goal to work towards to, and I will keep revisiting the song every once in a while to see how much I progressed.


But for this challenge, it was probably a mistake choosing a song for which I already knew the rhythm section . I will upload the final video for the challenge tomorrow or friday, and for the next time I will definitely choose a completely new song .

 

[Dominik Gräber]

4 weeks are over, and I'm gonna be honest: I haven't really made any progress after week 1.
The fast parts of the solo are just way, wayyy out of my current league just in terms of raw speed, so I just learned the first fast lick and use it now as a picking exercise, but didn't really progress after that. I'm still glad that I tackled the solo, now I have a long term goal to work towards to, and I will keep revisiting the song every once in a while to see how much I progressed.


But for this challenge, it was probably a mistake choosing a song for which I already knew the rhythm section . I will upload the final video for the challenge tomorrow or friday, and for the next time I will definitely choose a completely new song .

Ahh damn. Well you could have learned the whole thing and showed it all at the speed you're currently at. Either way, looking forward to your vid!

 

[William B.]

Guys, my net shut of twice for 2 weekends and some days. It really threw me off my routine, I haven't practiced much or played anything. Was really sad cause I couldn't listen to music for all those days or use my DAW. I managed to organize and clean more stuff (still got lot's to do). Got lot's of pain, been sleeping a lot too. I need to slow down the coffee but I like it. It's almost like chocolate milk. Sun started shining again, I'm sure I need some. Do you guys want me to keep trying? I only did like 3 practice sessions for the challenge which is not enough for my memory. I could dedicate some minutes a day to get better at it, I know it will make me a better player for trying. I'm not motivated at the moment and got to get the ball rolling again. I turned my FB back on, rabbit holes everywhere. Stuff drives people nuts.

 

[chris_is_cool]

Ahh damn. Well you could have learned the whole thing and showed it all at the speed you're currently at. Either way, looking forward to your vid!

Yeah, that was the original plan, but then I realized, that a 5 minute version of a 2,5 minute solo wouldn't have sounded very good and probably would not be very useful at learning something either . So I decided to cannibalize the solo for some useful picking exercises and tackle it again when I am at least in the same ball park. The solo in its quick parts features 16th notes and 16th notes triplets at 125 bpm, so 500 notes per minute. I can barely push 8th notes at 150 bpm with my best pentatonic exercises, so 300 notes per minute. And of course, pushing raw speed should not be the priority in practice anyway, so I decided to leave the solo on it's own for now, to be revisited regularly .

Anyway, to finish up, will post the final video today or tomorrow with a playalong to the song and the 40 s or so of the solo that I can play along to. And I'm thinking about starting the challenge again very soon, when I find a more suiting project for me at my current level.

 

[Gemma G.S.]

I have... NOT made much progress. But I have like 4 more days until 4 weeks are up, so maybe I can still bring up my picking speed a little bit like I wanted to. Really did a number on my finger when I sliced it open at work last week, so that has set me back a bit!

 

[Dominik Gräber]

Sad to hear it's not going well for everybody. The Same for me. I made some really good Progress but it's still Not there.
So I think I won't give up though and Just keep going with the Challenge until I am satisfied with the results.

Also friendly reminder that the Challenge is about working on your Goal EVERY DAY even If it's just a Couple of minutes

 

[William B.]

I'm gonna give it another try, I started playing again yesterday. It sounded pretty bad for the first half hour or so. Need to build up my fingers again. Found a new setting for my amp, copied it from UG.

 

[Ashley Willis]

I haven’t been very active here lately and haven’t “officially” joined the one month challenge, but behind the scenes, I’ve been working on learning all of Master of Puppets. I did the intro already and will post some more videos to show my progress. Learning this whole song is one hell of a challenge and a great guitar workout since you do basically everything in it!

 

[Dominik Gräber]

Finished mine today! Here's the result

https://syngates.com/media/one-month-challenge-the-stage-intro-a-month-later.4941/

 

[Alicia Willis]

I started the challenge late, April 12th to be exact so I’ve still got some time. I’m at 75% speed on the Master of Puppets intro. I had to stop practicing for a few days because I was having some awful arm/shoulder pain
I can technically play the first bit faster, but the main riff is holding steady at 75%. I honestly don’t know if I’ll be able to bump that speed up anymore but I’m damned sure going to try !