Members CarmenJuandeago Posted June 2, 2010 Members Posted June 2, 2010 ice cream man lick that basically screams eddie van halen... my fingers can't really make that stretch so what im doing right now is just hopping my fingers around..... but in vids i see eddie just keep his hand in one place.... what to do?
Members CarmenJuandeago Posted June 3, 2010 Author Members Posted June 3, 2010 eddie don't tap http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7Uv2-MPWsA
Members the_gunslinger Posted June 3, 2010 Members Posted June 3, 2010 So what? You know, you don't have to do everything the way Eddie does. The only other thing I can suggest is make sure your thumb is directly against the back of the neck like the pic below(best pic I could find), and not curved around the top of the fretboard. This should allow you to stretch pretty far.
Members Alex_DeLarge Posted June 3, 2010 Members Posted June 3, 2010 Do stretches exercises for a while. I'm doing 'em nowdays to improve my stretch in some chords.
Members Li Shenron Posted June 3, 2010 Members Posted June 3, 2010 ice cream man lick that basically screams eddie van halen... my fingers can't really make that stretch so what im doing right now is just hopping my fingers around..... but in vids i see eddie just keep his hand in one place.... what to do? Short-term solution: when you reach the difficult stretch passage, tilt your guitar neck up so that the guitar becomes more vertical. This always lets your hand reach a wider fret distance. EVH does it himself in this very video, check out around 1:45! Long-term solution: stretching exercises obviously, but only on the guitar, never try to do stretching exercises where you pull your LH fingers with your RH fingers, this is totally dangerous for them. The only stretching exercises you should ever do are those where the LH fingers pull themselves apart with their own strength, and don't rush into practicing this too much. Just check how many frets you can reach comfortably with each pair of LH fingers, then practice slow trills (hammer-on/pull-off) and gradually go down the neck. If for instance you can play 12-19 comfortably with index+pinky, practice trills on 11-18, then on 10-17... The position you should practice should be giving you the typical stretching feeling of effort (but not pain), still don't practice more than a minute or two continuously. NOTE: The short-term solution is not a trick or shortcut... it's not going to improve your stretch itself, but it's actually a perfectly legitimate way of playing something that would be otherwise unplayable. It's not that once you develop stretch you stop using the short term solution, you will still use it but for even bigger stretches.
Members jeremy_green Posted June 3, 2010 Members Posted June 3, 2010 All great advice. You could easily make that a tapping line. Play the pinky note with your right hand if you cant pull the stretch for now. It is a good idea to work on the stretch but in the mean time make a work around if you just want to play the tune
Members TrickyBoy Posted June 3, 2010 Members Posted June 3, 2010 I have little short fingers, I think if I could get my pointer and pinky to stretch to the point that they created a straight line I might have a shot at that lick. Since I can't do that, I always tapped that part. If I was going to try to recreate that lick picked, I'd have to do it up at the 17th and 21st frets of the B string and the 19th fret of the E string to eliminate that stretch. I was just having this conversation with someone last night. I have tiny hands, not much I can do about it. There are licks that I'll never be able to play. All I can do is maximize what I can do with the hands I was given.
Members Li Shenron Posted June 4, 2010 Members Posted June 4, 2010 I have little short fingers, I think if I could get my pointer and pinky to stretch to the point that they created a straight line I might have a shot at that lick. Since I can't do that, I always tapped that part. If I was going to try to recreate that lick picked, I'd have to do it up at the 17th and 21st frets of the B string and the 19th fret of the E string to eliminate that stretch. I was just having this conversation with someone last night. I have tiny hands, not much I can do about it. There are licks that I'll never be able to play. All I can do is maximize what I can do with the hands I was given. C'mon renaissance man, I checked your band's page and you don't have tiny hands at all. You don't know how many guitarists convince themselves they have tiny hands to feel less bad about their skills (which as far as I see from your videos are just fine BTW!), probably almost as much as those who think they have a small wiener to feel less bad about their lack of success with women . If you really want to improve your stretch, you can do it, as long as you have patience to wait for results because this is not something that you can choose to put more hours into practicing and get results sooner... it's pretty dangerous if you overdo this one!On the other hand, there is nothing wrong in just choosing not to do it... Changing the technique or finding workarounds to play a tricky part is not against the law. Or ultimately, you could even just play another song, there are tens of millions of them, you hardly ever run out of options
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