This week I attempted to learn the solo on “Today Is The Day” by Lincoln Brewster. Keyword is “attempted”.
The tempo of the song is 120 beats per minute, and the second half of the solo has some quick 16th note runs.
I have never been the fastest player in the world. Most of the songs I play sit in the 80-90 bpm range. I’m not gonna lie, this one pushed me.
I tried to record the solo last week, but I just couldn’t pull it off. I could play it at about 100 bpm, but the target 120 just wasn’t coming together.
I spent all weekend working on each part slowly, getting it under my fingers so I could rely on muscle memory and not think. When parts get this fast, I can’t use my brain to think my way through it.
I have to release my mind and let my fingers find their way instinctively.
To be honest, my final recording is still a bit rough. That is as far as I could get in the timeframe, and I wanted to get it out there.
Very rarely do I see people upload youtube videos of the struggle of learning a part. Usually they only show the end result. We don’t get to see all the time and effort that went into learning it.
We don’t see the mistakes.
Well, despite my best efforts, this video has a few mistakes in it.
I hope you can use that as an encouragement in your guitar playing journey. Keep playing, keep practicing, keep pushing yourself. Even if it is a little rough around the edges. Even if you can’t quite play all the notes as clean as you want.
Don’t give up.
Keep putting in the work. Keep honing your craft.
Remember that plenty of beautiful music has been made, even if it had a few mistakes in it.
Keep putting yourself out there.
See you next week!
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