Is it just me? This riff should not be difficult

[SteveXFR]

I really don't understand why I can't get this riff right. It should be dead simple. I'm even messing it up at half speed. I'll keep at it until I get it but is there something tricky? There can't be surely. 

it's from Freya by The Sword and played in C standard tuning 

 

 

[sprocketflup]

Wierdly, I just tried the same pattern an octave up on the A and G strings and found it easier 0-o

[nige1968]

Overthinking? 

[SteveXFR]

6 minutes ago, nige1968 said:

Overthinking? 

 

I don't think so. I play riffs like this all the time but this one is causing me trouble it shouldn't. 

[Jackroadkill]

That's a great song - you'll nail it.  Will you be playing it live?

[Downunderwonder]

It turns inside out in the middle.

 

I imagine the double top E is where you stumble?

 

Whereever the stumble happens you need to note how you tried to play it and assess if it is appropriate.

 

Having worked that out I would count rests into the stumbled note and pick it up with the correct pluck or stroke of the lead in note. Practice just that until blue in the face and then go from the start again being sure to arrive on the correct stroke.

[Geek99]

39 minutes ago, SteveXFR said:

I really don't understand why I can't get this riff right. It should be dead simple. I'm even messing it up at half speed. I'll keep at it until I get it but is there something tricky? There can't be surely. 

it's from Freya by The Sword and played in C standard tuning 

 

 

No, you’re actually that stupid. Don’t try and punch over your weight 

 

*seriously, just try it tomorrow 

[SteveXFR]

28 minutes ago, Jackroadkill said:

That's a great song - you'll nail it.  Will you be playing it live?

 

Unlikely, I'm not in a band at the moment. I'd like to though

[SteveXFR]

30 minutes ago, Downunderwonder said:

It turns inside out in the middle.

 

I imagine the double top E is where you stumble?

 

 

Yep, that's exactly where I trip up

[Jackroadkill]

1 minute ago, SteveXFR said:

 

Unlikely, I'm not in a band at the moment. I'd like to though

 

It would be a killer track to play live; all you'd need to do is play I am The Mountain and High Command along with Freya and then you could go home.

[attackbass]

Are you reading the tab for it? If you are I would suggest just using your ears. Some times our eyes can over complicated the simplest things! 

[Tdw]

There's no indication of rhythm, if it's straight then it's simple enough. The parts mentioned above might seem unintuitive or awkward but if you play it slowly then speed it up after you get used to it, it should be fine.

[Mrbigstuff]

20 minutes ago, Tdw said:

There's no indication of rhythm, if it's straight then it's simple enough. The parts mentioned above might seem unintuitive or awkward but if you play it slowly then speed it up after you get used to it, it should be fine.

It’s got the semi quavers underneath. I’d suggest to the OP count the rhythm as you’re playing it. The note pattern itself is simple.

[Stub Mandrel]

Do do do do  da

Do  do da

Do de

Do da da

Do do do

 

[Tdw]

1 hour ago, Mrbigstuff said:

It’s got the semi quavers underneath. I’d suggest to the OP count the rhythm as you’re playing it. The note pattern itself is simple.

You're right, it has. 

[Bolo]

Play the last bar, then play the last two bars a few times, then play the last three bars slowly a few times before picking up speed, then play the whole thing once slowly. Repeat untill satisfied and up to speed.

Reverse engineering sometimes helps me.

[chriswareham]

Just play it slow. Really slow - as slow as you need to in order to able to follow the tab in your head. Then start to speed it up until you reach the tempo of the original. After a while you'll just find your fingers doing the right thing without consciously thinking about it. This is a similar pattern to a lot of "industrial" or "electronic body music" patterns that I've had to play over the years that were originally written as a sequenced synthesiser parts.

[toneknob]

9 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

Do do do do  da

Do  do da

Do de

Do da da

Do do do

 

[Boodang]

Well, the fingering is easy enough so assuming it’s a rhythm problem. This happens a lot with drumming where limb independence becomes limb dependence. Playing a seemingly simple pattern and one limb automatically wants to do something because of what another limb is doing. The opposite of coordinated independence. 
Im guessing this is a similar rhythmic issue. Rhythmic patterns your fingers are used to playing and this one is slightly different. As with drumming, slow repetition is probably the answer. 

[thodrik]

This is the kind of riff where it is much easier to just play along to the track and work out the general 'feel' rather than trying to work out the part in isolation with notation. The actual track has quite a lot of 'swing' that isn't apparent from the transcription. Frankly, I'm not entirely sure that transcription itself is entirely accurate.

Just thinking, it might be easier/more fluid to play the part entirely on the low C and just playing the upper parts on the tenth and twelfth fret rather than crossing strings.

Being entirely honest, you could probably just hammer away on the low C and you will generally be fine.  

Edited Thursday at 17:31 by thodrik

[SteveXFR]

Got it. I loaded the track in to Reaper, set up a loop on the riff and slowed it to 75% and stuck with it.

The rest of the song was a doddle after that. I still don't get why that was the bit that tripped me up. Great song though and really fun to play. Makes me want to start a stoner metal covers band but that seems like a band no one would ever book!

Edited Thursday at 20:25 by SteveXFR

[Stub Mandrel]

It is an odd one. I have a similar issue with Apocalypse in 9/8. I can only do it by counting the accents as:

one two three FOUR one two THREE one TWO

 

But technically it's:

one two THREE one TWO one two three FOUR

 

So my mental 'bar line' is in the wrong place.

[Mrbigstuff]

7 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

It is an odd one. I have a similar issue with Apocalypse in 9/8. I can only do it by counting the accents as:

one two three FOUR one two THREE one TWO

 

But technically it's:

one two THREE one TWO one two three FOUR

 

So my mental 'bar line' is in the wrong place.

Why don’t you count it as; 1+2+3+4+5?

 

then you know the accent on the 2,3&5

[Stub Mandrel]

17 hours ago, Mrbigstuff said:

Why don’t you count it as; 1+2+3+4+5?

 

then you know the accent on the 2,3&5

 

Because that  isnt how I hear it, I  suppose. Once you learn something itxs harder to unlearn.