The Secret to Learning Fast Songs, Riffs, Licks, Runs and Lead Breaks

Gear, Learning

You know the feeling: you are learning a new song and you get to a passage that’s just too fast for you to get it down. Or you want to learn a great lead break or lick from your favourite guitarist but it’s going too fast for you to pick out all the notes.

If only you could slow it down so you could hear every note and get the timing and phrasing right.

Don’t despair! These days there is a technical solution which can help with just about anything – and it’s technology to the rescue for us here as well.

There is software readily available which will slow down a song or part of a song – without changing the original pitch. So there are two effects:
1. slow the music down to a rate where you can hear – and play along to – all the notes; and
2. keep the music in its original pitch (not sounding like Darth Vader or the Chipmunks!) – this is very important

One such software program is called Audacity. I learned about this software when I was doing my guitar training at Berklee College of Music.

You can download Audacity here. Amazingly – it’s free!

Once you’ve installed the program it’s very simple to use. Just import an mp3 file of the music you want to learn (File – Import – Audio). Then select Effect – Change Tempo and choose how much you want to slow the music down by. Select Play and your piece will play at the reduced speed (and at the original pitch)!

Learning to play tunes all the way through is a great way to progress rapidly on the guitar. Don’t let a fast passage slow you down – slow down the passage with a tool like Audacity and really get that piece under your fingers.

Guitarist little girl. (Dorothy Takacs) - Budapest, Hungary, Author Taak

Too old, or young, to learn guitar?

Learning

Grammy Award winner and Judas Priest lead guitarist Glenn Tipton didn’t start learning to play guitar until he was 19. Legendary Jazz guitarist Wes Montgomery was 20 when he took up the six string guitar. Pat Martino, another jazz great (whom I saw perform in NYC a few years ago) had a stroke at age 36 and lost his memory of the guitar – he succeeded in relearning to play to a virtuoso level. Bluesman T-Model Ford started on a guitar given to him by his fifth wife.

There are thousands of professional guitarists who started “late” – in their 20’s, 30’s, 40’s and beyond., And many thousands more who started at all ages who are getting tremendous enjoyment from playing music for themselves and with family and friends.

The point is – it’s never too late to start playing the guitar. It’s entirely up to you: the instant you decide so you will be a guitarist – you will make music the very first time you pick up a guitar. The journey will begin. There will be many paths to take and many challenges to meet along the way.

I recommend you take some private lessons from a professional teacher – particularly at critical stages in your development such as when you are first starting out, when you are moving from beginner to immediate level and when you are making the challenging breakthrough to advanced playing.

For parents – if your child is keen and has the necessary physical development then they can start as young as five or six.

Guitarist little girl. (Dorothy Takacs) - Budapest, Hungary, Author Taak

[Image: By Takkk (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html, via Wikimedia Commons]