Tips for "Second Heartbeat"?

[Andrew Chung]

Hey all. I've been practicing a lot more recently, channeling my inner ZV, and seeing results. I almost have the rhythm part of "Bat Country" down at speed, with a bit of lead during the outro. I'm also working on the rhythm parts for a few other songs, but here I want to focus on "Second Heartbeat".

During the first verse, at least according to UG's official tab, they do C5, D-F, Eb-G, G-Bb, Ab5, G5. I'm struggling with the G-Bb minor third because of the reach between the first and the fifth frets. Any tips?

The song is fast, but I can probably work up to full speed with time. But while I'm practicing rhythm at, say, half speed, it gets to the point where I feel like my hand is going to cramp when I'm just holding the power chord fingering for so long. I might get a little break when the lead lines come back -- those are easy enough that I'm mixing them in -- but then the rhythm comes back and my hand returns to wanting to cramp. Is this just something that goes away as time passes? Are there exercises for this kind of thing?

Stay safe and rock on! \m/

 

[Jesse Salmons]

Are you tuned down to drop D? Also, would help alot if you could post a video so we can see what youre doing and offer more specific tips!

 

[William B.]

Take breaks and do stretches with your hand and forearm muscles during your practice. Not sure if it's the action on your guitar is making you want to press harder or not. I still get some pain in my fretting hand if I make power chords the entire time. Guitar players are pretty strong, bass probably even stronger. If you want to train the fingers alone, you can do chromatic Drop D Power Chords back and forth to build the muscles. Try alternating between fingers ( 1 finger for each fret ) 1st and 2nd fingers than 1st and 3rd and 1st and 4th, practice in reverse too. You can space a fret between fingers as well to widen your reach, like 1st finger and 2nd finger spaced over 3 frets. A video would probably be more useful, kind of hard for me to show you through words

 

[Andrew Chung]

Take breaks and do stretches with your hand and forearm muscles during your practice. Not sure if it's the action on your guitar is making you want to press harder or not. I still get some pain in my fretting hand if I make power chords the entire time. Guitar players are pretty strong, bass probably even stronger. If you want to train the fingers alone, you can do chromatic Drop D Power Chords back and forth to build the muscles. Try alternating between fingers ( 1 finger for each fret ) 1st and 2nd fingers than 1st and 3rd and 1st and 4th, practice in reverse too. You can space a fret between fingers as well to widen your reach, like 1st finger and 2nd finger spaced over 3 frets. A video would probably be more useful, kind of hard for me to show you through words

Holy shit, this helped a lot. I hadn't even realized how much force I was putting down. I guess it was a case of one of those things that just slips through the cracks. Just being conscious of that again helped a ton. As for the stretching exercises, I'll give those a shot!

 

[William B.]

Holy shit, this helped a lot. I hadn't even realized how much force I was putting down. I guess it was a case of one of those things that just slips through the cracks. Just being conscious of that again helped a ton. As for the stretching exercises, I'll give those a shot!

Cool, I'm glad I was able to help some. I've been having some pains too, noticed I press hard, a lot! Feeling it by my thumbs mostly, that muscle that grips. Feels like it would spasm probably every 5-10 minutes have a break and do your muscle relaxer routine, would be a good idea. Been trying to do it more often, I worry I got bad habits from mostly learning alone. Take care!