WOW M8 L2 (Higher and Higher by Jackie Wilson) I can do the slow workout but the medium workout seems insanely fast to me! I canāt even imagine doing the fast workout. I am REALLY STRUGGLING to get the medium workout.
I remember that one being tough. Get the tempo into a metronome or drum machine ans inch it up 2bpm, master it, 2pm more. Rinse and repeat. You will get it!
@420bpm Hang tough, man. You canāt make an omelette without breaking a few fingersā¦er, I mean eggs.
Hi @John_E, thanks for that suggestion. Yeah Iāve been working on it and did get much better at the medium speed but I think Iām gonna skip the fast workout on this one, maybe Iāll come back to it along with other workouts that were challenging once Iāve completed the course. Iām learning so much here, itās all good. But thanks for the suggestion of working up little by little with a metronome, that sounds like an excellent idea which Iāll surely use.
I think I played it at medium speed and then moved on because there was no point wasting time trying to play it faster. I came back about 6 months later and could play at the fast speed with no problems.
If you play it the "rightā way though, itās even worse than this because Louis Johnson played the octave on the E string with his thumb
I stopped doing the 50 Song challenge because I started hitting songs that were too tough for me. What I found myself doing instead was picking songs that were way harder than some of those but I put my head down and worked it because I wanted to learn the song really bad. Now I am going back to the 50 Song challenge I find a lot of the songs very easy. That said the damn Strokes song is still killing me. Itās funny how certain things are easy for one person, hard for the next.
Itās the old sayingā¦practice, practice, practiceā¦
Billie Jean will get her due.
Yeah, itās interesting how this works. Some songs are super-easy for me to play because I always liked listening to them. Other songs/genres that Iām either not familiar with or never cared for are not easy for me to warm up to.
I find learning etudes more enjoyable than some songs/genres, possibly because they are more melodic to my ear than a song or genre that never appealed to me.
I finally had a breakthrough with this. I was frustrated and moved on. Then, I took a week off of practice as I was out playing in Death Valley on a camping/off roading trip.
I then revisited the lesson and within about 30 minutes, I did it! After resting my hand a little, I could then do it on medium speed pretty easily. The fast speed, not so much
Now I use this as one of my warm up exercises before starting the next lesson.
Hey, thatās amazing! I knew you could beat it
No one wants to be defeated.
This is where I am going to my post my hard to achieve lessons not just Billie Jean.
I am on M10 L3 (Module 10 Lesson 3, 12:8 time and āI Put A Spell On Youā).
I canāt really say that Iāve nailed the slow workout cleanly but I am trying to do the medium workout and it is VERY challenging.
LOL I decided to just stay on the slow workout for a while to get that down.
Went back to Billie Jean the other day and I know its an easy tune yet it does my head in and thatās just the slow work out.
Slow it down. Way down. Slow it down some more. Play it like that, rinse and repeat. Lock it in slow, then slowly bump it up. Itās there, i promise you youāll find it.
Thanks for that information
It is slowly working
I have nothing but belief that you will get this. One day youāll look back on this and recognise the value of the exercise. Keep going, my friend. Youāll get there.
Another frustrated Billie Jean student here as well. I was just going to post on the lesson thread; Iām not able to get through the slow speed workout. Iāve repeated it a couple of times now and about the time I think Iāve got it down it shifts up the octave and I lose it again. Round and round I chase it like that and itās crazy. Itās the first lesson Iām not able to get through on the slowest practice speed. But Iām going to skip it for now, and keep moving like everyone says. Iām trying to picture how the person thinks, who came up with this riff.