This exercise is from the Core Skills section on slides.
As you have probably guessed by now, slides can be a fast technique. They are a great way to add flair to your licks and riffs. Here we look at a simple example. This is a couple of little Blues Rock riffs using some quick slides.
In this ActionTab there are 2 similar riffs (mostly using the A blues scale). The first riff starts here and is repeated twice. Then the next riff is played through 4 times. After that, return to the 1st riff again, twice, then back to the 2nd riff - play to fade.
Both riffs are similar, but pay particular attention to the slides. They are used to quickly play 2 notes in the same time as 1 standard note. This will take some determined practice and control to get right. As soon as you have picked the note, instantly slide it and move straight to the next note. Don't hang about waiting to hear how lovely your slide was...the next note should already be sounding!
Practice the 1st riff over and over until you get used to the technique before working on the 2nd riff, which has more notes and is trickier.
Notice that only two fingers are needed on the fretboard. However, it's not as simple as it may seem. Your picking hand needs to be fast and accurate to get up to the speed you hear in the Normal Speed Audio. If you find the picking awkward, you can just forget the upstrokes and use only downstrokes throughout. Either way is fine for this pace of tune. As always, don't get frustrated and try to play it too fast. Get it right slow first, then build speed with practice once your fingers know their way.
There is backing music to help you keep pace. Just break the ActionTab down into the 2 main riffs. Work on them separately, until you get them consistently right, then work at playing them together as 1 tune.
As you get a better at these riffs, your skill set should improve considerably (this goes for all practice). Then it's time to start creating, not just copying. Try making your own riffs up using the technique(s) you have just learned. If you don't know where to start, then just play these riffs again, but with one or two different notes. Naturally, some notes will work better than others.
It is very likely that when practicing, you hit the wrong notes or did something weird that wasn't in the ActionTab. These aren't necessarily to be thought of as 'mistakes'. Sometimes, those 'mistakes' will have sounded good to you - even if it was just for a note or two. Keep a mental note of what you did, try and backtrack to get them again. If you can learn to do this, you will turn the 'trial and error' aspect of practice to your advantage. It will help you to become familiar with notes that work together, and to think more about what you are doing as you play! And, of course, the resulting music will be your own creation!
