【2025.05.10】SR01 - Chord etude No.2
Dear Tomo, Sammi and everyone,
Greetings from Huanglong in Guangzhou, China!
Today, I’m excited to share a new recording with you: Chord Etude No. 2. In this etude, I focused on three main aspects:
1）Tone: As Tomo suggested, I experimented with a brighter tone during practice to improve clarity.
2）Dynamics: I aimed to express my emotional connection to the piece by carefully shaping the dynamics.
3）Tempo: I prioritized slower, controlled pacing to ensure precision—especially given the technical challenges of frequent finger stretches and position jumps across the neck.
This etude proved quite demanding, but I hope you enjoy the result. I’d greatly appreciate your feedback to help me refine my skills further.
Thank you, and have a wonderful day!
Best regards,
Huanglong
【2025.04.26】SR01 - Ballad (Duet)
Duet practice is fun. It's like someone playing with you. It's challenging too because we have to listen carefully to the rhythm. But it sounds really beautiful. I kind of love it.
【2025.04.19】SR01 - Chord etude No.1
Long time no see, Tomo, Sammi and my friends!! Here's Huanglong from Guangzhou, China. It's been 40 days since last videos. Today I've got a story to share and wondered what you'll say.
[Position] Sit naturally straight and put my weight on both hips evenly. Check the height and angle of guitar neck and see if the neck is stable when I move fingers. Locking neck with left thumb helps reducing wrong notes and muting 6th string.
[Chord] Analyze chords with theory and write down their names. Discover repeated sections and memorize them in groups. Sustain the duration can be challenging. But it makes my playing more legato and strengthen my finger control.
[Melody] Highest notes are important and try to make them the most clear ones. Sing the solfege of it. Listen to the inner movement of chords carefully. Harmony can be viewed as several melodies combined.
[Dynamic] Studying CD of Book1, I found that volume will increase when melody goes up and vice versa. It brings out something like wave feeling. Create some personal expression for the piece. Change it a little bit by adding a C triad arpeggio going down at the end.
[Problem] How to get over TENSION when recording or performing? As the song goes on, my left hand begins shaking and my right hand loses touch sensation on the pick. It's quite often that when I'm approaching the end, my heart beat will raise up and I'll get more and more excited. But all of a sudden, I press a wrong chord!! Oh my God!! It's like a marathon runner stumbles before the finish line because he celebrates too early... So, yeah, that's it.
THANKS!!
【2025.03.09】SR01 - Waltz in F, 2rd solo, 1st solo
Dear Tomo, thank you so much for watching my video!! I'm a student learning your Guitar Wisdom. This three pieces from book1. If lucky enough, I hope I could hear from you any advice on how to improve. I don't want to be perfect, but I want to be really good. Thank you so much again!!☺☺☺
Wow, what a great performance!
Clean sound, smooth fingering, accurate muting, and great posture!
Your playing really inspires me.
Thank you!
Good job playing these!
Thank you for sharing.
Can you play a little slower? You really should play them much slower tempo.
And you can use more picking volume / picking dynamics too.
As song, this tempo is good but if you want to improve your playing technique, you want to play it much slower.
1st video. (Next time please post only ONE video)
1) At 0:06 You press a note before you picked! Like that I want to be careful to play.
2) Around 0:12.... lower strings were ringing so you want to make sure use your right hand palm to mute them and move your left fingers slower so that your left fingers are pulling those notes.
3) 0:34 ...Press a little softer so that ... that note won't be sharp! Very important to press less pressure especially around fret 1,2,3 near the nut.
2nd video:
1) Please check your neck angle. I hear your hight string has a little fret buzz. So you need to raise the saddles or relief the neck a little bit.
2) Move your body a little more with music! Your picking position is really good!
3) 0:56... please check notes.
Please play a little slower.
3rd video: First solo Page 23.
1) Sustain a little longer duration on chords.
Over all same as other videos.
- Play slower pace
- Use less left hand pressure
- Move your body with music
- Think about each note duration
- Use a little more dynamics
Just like that I can hear a lot of details. Please focus on slower tempo and you will discover more things like that and you can fix them so you can play much cleaner and you can improve your playing.
Good job! Thanks so much for posting these. You gave us a lot of inspiration & detail insights on this subject. I really appreciate your dedication and great efforts.
Thank you.
Tomo
Hi Li,
Thank you for posting these videos from the method book. I appreciate your hard work on these studies. I particularly noticed your right hand picking is very smooth, that’s not easy to do on a narrow string Strat, well done.
I also noticed your ’ritardatos’ were great and added to the listening experience.
I look forward to more examples in the future. I will be working with you in this book!
Nicely done, Huanglong-Li! Thank you so much for sharing your work with us.
I would suggest choosing one out of the three pieces to really focus on when applying feedback. This way, you can really dig into the details that Tomo talks about (less pressure, dynamics, etc.). Slow down your pace so you can really notice and hear for yourself what could use a little work. Once you smooth that out, you'll likely feel ready to share another recording with your progress!
In general, Tomo is very detailed and loves using limitation as a tool to improve. Try out this approach of going slower and studying one piece deeply. You already sound great to someone like me, but I there is always room for improvement! Keep going!
Thank you Ken & Sammi!
I love this thread so much!
Very rare that people posting "Method Book" exercises!
Great inspiration!
Thank you.
Tomo