# Frustrated



## guitarman2 (Aug 25, 2006)

So the band says they want to pickup "Sweet Child of Mine" and I started to learn it tonight. I haven't much got past the intro. Its so easy, yet so hard. It was easy and fast to get the notes down but to keep that intro going, its like the more I think about it the worse it gets. 
I go over it and over it but the muscle memory doesn't want to cooperate on a consistent basis. 
Does anyone ever get those mental blocks where it just seems like you'll never get it? Its only been about 90 minutes but I can tell this is one of those small passages that I'm going to have to practice day and night for a few days like a finger exercise, so I can get it down with out thinking about it.


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## Mark Brown (Jan 4, 2022)

Fun Factoid. 

Sweet Child of Mine was in fact constructed (the intro) from a fingering exercise that Slash use to do. That is what the internet lore says anyhow. So don't feel too badly about it. It is designed to do exactly what it is doing. Challenge your fingers.


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## Thunderboy1975 (Sep 12, 2013)




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## guitarman2 (Aug 25, 2006)

Thunderboy1975 said:


>


Fine. I'll do that version. Thats what it kind of feels like right now. Actually I'm doing a little better than he was there. But I'll bet he had some stimulants in his system.


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## Wardo (Feb 5, 2010)

I’ve been working on a song for the last two days just to get the vocal phrasing right. It’s coming but this one’s taking more work than usual even though it’s kind of a simple song when you listen to it but the vocal emphasis is different in each verse and the chord progression lands in different measures on some verses.


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## player99 (Sep 5, 2019)

Just relax, it always comes. Give your computer a chance to analyze the info. You can learn whatever you want, just give yourself the space to do it.


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## Derek_T (10 mo ago)

Happens to me recently on Twilight Surfer by Julian Lage, there’s a specific passage that does not seem to come out easily, and there’s a vicious cycle where the more you are frustrated the tenser you get and that’s the opposite of what you need.
Best to stop or slowing down if you hit frustrations.
Side question, you alternate pick or hybrid pick for that part ?


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## Mikev7305 (Jan 6, 2020)

I wouldn't worry at all, sleep on it, the muscle memory will kick in real soon. It kinda reminds me of years when I first tried to learn the tapping part to "eruption", I must have hit those first three notes a million times, so slow, until finally it just clicked and now a three note tap phrase seems completely mindless. 

I remember this happening with " yes - long distance runaround" as well, it's a fairly simple lick that just knawed at my brain for a while, that little mini sweep took so much thought to get through. Then one day it just came. I swear just letting your body learn it WITHOUT playing helped just as much. Introduce the motion to your body with practice, and let your mind do it's thing to fine tune it


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## bw66 (Dec 17, 2009)

guitarman2 said:


> Does anyone ever get those mental blocks where it just seems like you'll never get it?


Yes.


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## Paul M (Mar 27, 2015)

Maybe play it like Sheryl Crow?


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## Always12AM (Sep 2, 2018)

Here’s the thing about other peoples songs…

They chose to do it that way BECAUSE it was easy for them. As Mark said, it was probably a little pattern challenge that he started doing way back and then finally found a use for it years after he had mastered it.

I’ve now hear about 15 people in live scenarios try to do the “waeaahahahagagahahaharm” vocal run in Chris Stapletons “Tennessee Whisky”.. I’ve seen vocal coaches on YouTube try to do / explain it.

Turns out.. he is a just a large man from Kentucky who probably grew up mapping out that run from the word “storm” in gospel songs. He doesn’t do it in the way he does because it’s hard for other people to copy, it’s easy for him and he wouldn’t have gone out of his way to do it that way if it was going to be a risk for him in a live scenario.

No criticism intended, it may become simpler and useful to play for you, but if it doesn’t, I’d forego that intro.

I’ve heard many many covers of “house of the rising sun” where they don’t bother with The Animals method of the plucked chord line. I think the power chords leading up to the begging of sweet child of mine are powerful enough that a band could come up with their own little lick based on their own strength or expression and if anything people would be amped by the time the vocals jump off.

I would use that part of the song to play a joke and pretend that my amp was cutting out while the rest of the band continues with the song lol. It could be a funny skit. I am like OLG.. I know my limits and play within it. Poorly lol.


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## dgreen (Sep 3, 2016)

here is the chart I created for my students. Been teaching this one for years, gets kids motivated and also learning about the great bands of the past
And remember, that opening riff carries thru out the song. You will notice only the first note of each bar changes with the 1st and 4th bar being identical ( and remember to repeat each bar)


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## JBFairthorne (Oct 11, 2014)

Just take a break and come back to it in a week or a month or whatever. You may find that you just have it or that it’s much easier to learn. Sometimes we just get in our own way.


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## Thunderboy1975 (Sep 12, 2013)

Roll your tone way back as well.

Let the sound in your head take over. 

Been rocking that opening since gr 7 and nothing takes me back like that riff. Sitting at the back of the bus listening to that tune over and over. Good times sorta. 

You'll get it! Good luck!


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## Parabola (Oct 22, 2021)

I have the Appetite tab book somewhere that I bought as a kid in 87. It has a paragraph on each song listed as performance notes. I’ll find it and take a picture, you might find something helpful in there.


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## guitarman2 (Aug 25, 2006)

Derek_T said:


> Side question, you alternate pick or hybrid pick for that part ?


I've been experimenting with both ways but I'm naturally a hybrid picker so that is what feels natural. Although flat picking it sounds more like what slash is doing. I've been hybrid country picking so long its hard for me to keep the other fingers out of it and it makes the whole passage seem super easy. It really is a an easy intro. Its just getting my muscle memory used to it. Right now if even another thought comes in to my head it will trip me up keeping it consistent the whole way through.


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## guitarman2 (Aug 25, 2006)

Thunderboy1975 said:


> *Roll your tone way back as well.*
> 
> Let the sound in your head take over.
> 
> ...


I've been playing it on the neck pickup of my les paul. It sounds good but I tried your suggestion of turning the tone down. I turned it right off and it actually sounds quite good.


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## Rollin Hand (Jul 12, 2012)

That riff has always struck me as one of those that you practice unplugged while watching TV. It will eventually become second nature.


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## guitarman2 (Aug 25, 2006)

I'm good now. I've got it where I'm playing along with the guns and roses video flawlessly. I've gotten it all down to the first solo now. Now its time to tackle that second solo then to the end.
Now the question is, what key will our female singer choose to sing it in. Luckily its a song you could play in pretty much any key.
I've actually been playing the intro all over the fretboard as a finger exercise.


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## Vally (Aug 18, 2016)

guitarman2 said:


> I've been playing it on the neck pickup of my les paul. It sounds good but I tried your suggestion of turning the tone down. I turned it right off and it actually sounds quite good.


That’s what Eric Clapton would call the woman tone


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## laristotle (Aug 29, 2019)

Playing 'child of mine' intro would be similar to Rush's 'Zanadu' riff.


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## 63Jazz (11 mo ago)

Mikev7305 said:


> I wouldn't worry at all, sleep on it, the muscle memory will kick in real soon. It kinda reminds me of years when I first tried to learn the tapping part to "eruption", I must have hit those first three notes a million times, so slow, until finally it just clicked and now a three note tap phrase seems completely mindless.
> 
> I remember this happening with " yes - long distance runaround" as well, it's a fairly simple lick that just knawed at my brain for a while, that little mini sweep took so much thought to get through. Then one day it just came. I swear just letting your body learn it WITHOUT playing helped just as much. Introduce the motion to your body with practice, and let your mind do it's thing to fine tune it


You'll master the mechanics soon. Then one day " the feel" will just happen..and your golden after that ..no timeline to " the feel" though it just happens


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