Difficult prog riffs to play

Difficult prog riffs to play. Or "took me ages to get that."

Let me kick this one off.  The trick is to play the last two notes on the D string instead. It's still fiddly. 

I think I'm even less of a keyboard player than you are. ;-) 

Tarkus is fiendishly difficult. Keith Emerson must have had an extra brain somewhere. 

Hi,

Ed Mann is a total monster!!

Here is a Vinnie Colaiuta solo from a Jeff Beck show with the transcription below. I don't know what would have been harder, playing the solo or trying to write it out!

I'll just leave this here... Ozric Tentacles-Kick Muck - YouTube

Megistus wrote: I'll just leave this here... Ozric Tentacles-Kick Muck - YouTube Probably not that hard, just sounds it... I've never tried. I prefer playing my own riffs to be honest :)

I certainly noticed it was Brandi on keys -- in fact, that was the line-up I saw that same year in Northampton, UK. That's Hagos, usually the sound man on bass. Messaged him once a long time later and he said it was bloody hard work doing that tour. Certainly, the near-constant grimace on his face during the whole show would attest to that.

Edited by Megistus - January 31 2023 at 16:11

I can't think of complicated Prog riffs . There are many, but nothing comes to mind. Generally speaking...I believe that John McLaughlin plays some intense lines that require skill ..which means that you spend hours on other things such as technique and exercises before even attempting one of his more complicated pieces. It's really nice that a lot of his writing is fun to learn and play.

I am not too knowledgeable on Keith Emerson's background as a musician. I don't know if he was classically trained..but obviously he can play Classical piano. On "Piano Improvisations" from Welcome Back it is crystal clear that he is a virtuoso type of player who has surpassed many levels of playing. I also consider that what he plays on "Piano Improvisations" is likely more difficult to play than the difficult lines in Tarkus.

To play a Progressive Rock style on the guitar such as Steve Howe on The Yes Album, CTTE, Fragile, or Alan Holdsworth on many recordings that we all know and love..it takes hours of sweat and toil.

Playing scales with a metronome in all 12 keys for hours is tedious, but in the real world it warms up your fingers to play challenging pieces. Something as simple as playing note patterns from the Gmajor scale while the band is in Aminor becomes more natural to improvise on if you practice scales in all 12 keys and then the various positions on the fretboard tell a story .

You won't see it until you practice in all 12 keys. Guitarists like Steve Howe, Alan Holdsworth, John Goodsall, and many others practiced so much that they surpassed the level of having to think about it. By the time they reached this level they were able to create beautiful music and improvise without having to think about it. In other words...going inward and making music. Fusing precision with simplistic melody is very important as well. Ginger Baker always said that he didn't think about what he was going to play before playing it. Music is about "feel" even when it's complex..

cstack3 wrote: Argentinfonico wrote: Close to the Edge. It goes through all the E notes and I just can't. Indeed!  I've been studying Squire's bass lines on CTTE since I was 16.  That's fifty years!  I still don't have it down yet!