I am a new musician and I am having trouble with my playing. How do I make my playing sound more smooth? Do you have any techniques or suggestions?
Well, if you playing sounds choppy or is not connecting when you play by yourself or with a band, here are a couple of techniques you can practice to help your playing start to flow.
Technique # 1- Octaves
Whether you play guitar, organ, keyboard trying playing on the higher octaves. What happens is that based on style of music that you playing. There are certain points where you don't have to playing in the same octave. That makes you playing sound basic and normal (not that there's nothing wrong with that :) ) The flavour of playing will come from the unexpected movements from the low or high octaves.
Technique # 2- Inversions
Your always going to have the freedom of inverting a chord when you are playing exactly what is on the recording. This is a MUST for anyone who is playing organ, keyboard and guitar. When you are moving from point A to point B. There is a fast way of getting to point B if it's extremely close.
Let's look at an example:
This is a C major chord (Point A)
This is a C major chord (Point A)
To get to point B which is F you can play this chord which is a F major
However we want to use an inversion which is a different form of the same chord. Notice the notes in the F major chord which is:
Root: F A C
1st inversion: A C F
2nd inversion: C F A
We are going to use the 2nd inversion to get to F. This is the same F major chord but using an inversion.
This chord is a lot easier and simpler to play then going all the way to F A C. The best part is that it's just a note away.