I haven’t seriously played the guitar in over half a year…
…and now this
So, I took the longest break of my music career over the past 8 or 9 months. I had a lot of other things going on that took up my attention and, honestly, I just needed a break.
After 15 years of intensive work as a solo artist and releasing around a couple hundred tracks in some form or another (playing all the instruments and doing all the production, etc.) and all the products I’ve created, I just started to get burned out on everything.
But I knew inspiration would hit me again when I was ready and so I waited. I waited some more and then I continued to wait.
Lo and behold, about 2 weeks ago, it finally hit me.
But there was a bit of a problem… my chops were the rustiest they’ve been as far back as I can remember. The song that had come to me was filled with some extreme techniques that required some of my best playing. So how was I going to get myself back in action?
When I first sat down to start practicing the techniques, my fingers got tired out within minutes. I thought I was doomed.
I knew I needed an approach that would get my chops back quickly without causing me to need to take days off for my finger muscles to recover.
So, for starters, I practiced with the metronome extremely slowly. I quickly realized that I was pressing the strings way too hard, so I first focused on practicing with the softest possible touch I could – using the least amount of energy necessary to get clean articulation with the notes.
When my fingers started to get tired, I took a break from practicing by revisiting the composition and taking the time to make little tweaks or additions to what would eventually be recorded as the instrumentation. After a suitable break, it was back to the metronome.
The first couple days were pretty rough, not giving me a lot of room to speed things up. But after that second night’s sleep, I could feel my fingers starting to cooperate again and I was able to practice for longer intervals.
By the 4th day, I was getting close to being able to play everything comfortably at speed. I pushed through the tempo of the song and took things a bit faster so that I knew I’d be ready to record at tempo without any difficulties.
To my amazement in about 6 days, I had my relevant chops back in form again.
This was a bit of an experiment for me because I’d never taken so much time off from playing the guitar before. What I can say is that, once you’ve gotten to a certain level and maintained it for enough time, a break from playing is not going to take you out of the game.
It might be a bit discouraging to find yourself rusty on something you’ve dedicated so much time on throughout your life, but you don’t lose it.
Check out the new song “Lost on the Path to Oblivion.” If you don’t see the embedded video, click here.
This song incorporates sweep picking, finger tapping, 8 finger tapping, tapped sweeps, standard shredding and some pretty crazy stuff.
If you’re interested in trying to learn some of these techniques you can get the tab for the song here.
If you’re not quite ready for the techniques in this song but want to get there, check out the link at the below to see my relevant courses.
Enjoy!
Dan Mumm
If you’re looking for a new challenge or you’re ready to take your playing to the next level, take a look at my online store. Check out the link below to see which course or collection is right for you:
Dan Mumm’s Digital Shred Store
https://store.danmumm.com/