👇🏼 HOW I CAN HELP YOU 🎸 If you feel stuck with your progress, get in touch! tomjohnsguitar... Here's a short video breaking down some techniques that Tim Henson uses to play really fast! He's great!
Interestingly enough, Tim does not actually have big hands. I've met him in person and shook his hand, and they felt tiny. He is just very flexible and dexterous, probably because of playing guitar/violin from a VERY young age in combination with actually practicing a ton. His fingers are mad skinny, which I think gives that illusion. Scott actually does have big hands though
100% this. If you watch their play through of chimera (amazing song btw) you'll quickly see how small tims hands are compared to scott. That dude has some massive hands
You don’t need to meet Tim in person. Watching Tim’s tutorials I can see the neck of his guitar and Tim’s fretting hand. Tims hands wrap the neck, like (fretting more than bass note with his thumb. Tim hensons finger length is NOT average. Tim has Long fingers. You must understand many people can play guitar with average short finger. Advanced levels they either buy guitars (closer fretting space) because they cannot play solos like buried alive lemon drop. Although there is way to play the stretched notes re arranged. For that part, re arranging the notes does work. Arranging notes on fretboard, doesn’t always make fingerings easierto play either. I was lucky drop it works. Tim was meant to play guitar (Tim’s dad was good guitarist) Tim said both of our dads shred on guitar. Referring to Scott’s dad also. Average person can learn many things on guitar but struggle with polyphia.. They can learn gun roses slashes’ entire discography. They get stuck on polyphia. Long long time. It changes the way they feel about playing guitar. Not the same person No expression
He studied violin for years as a child. If you look at Tim's technique, he first developed on violin, and then he carried this discipline over to guitar. Some say Tim is this century version of Paganini, who was also a violinist and guitarist in his day also.
@@phunkyjunkee not overrated. Hes properly rated. Wanna talk underrated? Look at jimi Hendrix the grandfather of modern guitar playing. Innovation and absolute mad skills. Man did all that and never learned any proper Lessons in playing guitar from any books nor any teachers. Hes hated because he was so incorrect to classical guitar but nowadays we call that a skill
The three keys I have found essential to playing wide intervals: 1. Thumb well below the top of the neck (as stated in the video); 2. Guitar positioned to the fret hand side of your body; and 3. Changing the position of fret hand elbow. Bringing it closer to the neck for wider stretches. Elbow position is often well overlooked by instructors.
The thumb rule doesnt work for me. Im double jointed in my thumbs which causes my thumb to pop up from the back of the neck. Lol. My thumbs literally fold back 90°. Ive played guitar now for 30 years with crazy thumbs.
Great stuff. Tim is so freaking good. I love the video where one of his friends asked him how he got so good and he said “practice.” Then he asked how much do you practice? Tim says “I don’t know about 12 hours a day?”
@@woofcity6307 Nope. No such thing as talent - and you can see early videos of Tim playing and he's not very good at all. Now he's brilliant. Music is a skill and you learn it by practising it.
@@woofcity6307 It's not just sitting and playing the guitar you have to actually practise with a goal to an end. Look for example the process by which Tim learned Tosin's thumb technique - it took him months of dedicated practise including a few lessons from Tosin. If you can't do that it's not talent it's because you've sat and noodled stuff you can already play most of the time. If you sit and strum 3 chord for 40 years you'll be really good at strumming 3 chords. To play better you have to spend the time stretching your ability. It's not talent. There's no such thing. It's a skill. And Tim has created videos showing exactly how he uses a DAW to create his riffs. There's no mystery "woowoo" magic creative force" to any of this. In fact the people who expect to be hit by some kind of divine inspiration when they step into a studio are the ones who are going to struggle to come up with ideas. See, for example, Dave Lee Roth explaining how he came up with lyrics - he wrote everything down filled books - he didn't just listen to Eddie's riff and stand there waiting for God. Tim's created videos showing how Playing God was created using an omnichord and that parts of the piece were added by Wes Hauch - and Wes got one of those parts from a guitar teacher. No magic lightning bolts involved - and Tim, in particular, because of social media has documented what he does - literally sitting in front of a camera telling you what he does. The trick is to listen and stop thinking you can't do it. You can but it's more than just sitting for a bit struggling to play one of his riffs and giving up because he must be more talented than you - look at Tim's early doors guitar playing as a kid with a band - the playing is not some kind of wunderkind at all. Nor is simply learning a couple of his riffs enough - you can see how he creates - learn to do that and practise doing that, add other ideas - take something you create on a DAW and transfer it to guitar - and then sit and try to play. Clearly Tim, rather than just playing a melody where it would fall under the fingers plays notes all over the neck on different strings using open strings and harmonics where they fit - it creates something that appears complex and that, unlike a riff that falls into a box shape takes time to learn "How did anyone ever think of playing this riff?" - well he tells you how - you just have to watch and listen to his youtube channel. And these days we can see how significant numbers of people can learn to play the guitar to a high standard because of social media. There are a plethora of people playing Tim's music equally or even better than he can and most of them add some creative twist to it - the band have sat and watched a load of them.
I love this video so much man. No bullcrap, no long explanations to simple things, no blatant plugs. You've earned a subscriber. Keep up the great work.
I hope you find it useful. Sorry for the very long time between videos, I got extremely sick over Easter, was hospitalised for months, and have spent months afterwards recovering. Also, I drew the wrong conclusion that Tim has big hands! From his videos I saw he had around the same size hands as me, and I thought I had big hands, but it turns out that I have average size hands (7.6 inches from wrist to tip of middle finger). So I learnt that I am not as special as I thought 🙂 As the comments pointed out, small hands can be overcome with practice anyway, I touched on that in the video, but its important to re-stress that.
Ive never had a problem with harmonics as i have played with them since young, But the speed! Its almost incredible what some of the New-Age guitarists can do. As much as i am an old soul, Theirs a lot of respect for people who are currently challenging how musicians feel about their play. I went from blues and classic rock to heavy(ish) metal and had to learn alot. These guys are doing the same. Re-Imagining the music around us creates unique and inspiring pieces for others. I am amazed and inspired by the next generation and am in hope the future ones carry the same weight that players like Tim Henson do. I cant play it, but i respect it.
he also does this thing with his thumb that you can see at 3:33 where it looks like he uses his thumb to alternate pick instead of pronating his wrist. You have to hold the pick close to the thumb joint and make a wave motion with it. It's strange at first but it feels like you have more control.
This is called circular picking. My understanding is it came from jazz with guys like Django, but I think a lot of people who get their picking to high level end up doing this instinctually out of necessity.
Dude what a breakdown! The best thing on RU-vid is when smart, talented, creative people break down the actions of other smart, talented creative people! Sometimes the people doing the impossible aren’t the best at explaining how they do it
Dang this video was rly helpful. Gave me a lot of insight to what i've been doing wrong while learning this song and what i should work on. Thanks a lot!
Thank you. This video highlights some crucial points on technique. I'm sure the people who are genuinely interested in learning will find tutorials to support the techniques you've highlighted.
My son I witnessed from the age of his 10th birthday til he was 18 , he practiced no less than 8 hours a day plus. I taught him basic chords and today he's 29 and is one hell of a musician. He doesn't play as much now but he plays gigs still and holds his family and job well too. I remember how hard that was and I am proud of him. This Tim H young man is playing a lot of what I heard in 2010 by son was creating. I have tons of him on sd cards playing variations of tapping and percussive stuff insanely technical. Anyway. I see alot of this now.
Put them up, i want to see how he sounded like tim henson before tim henson came up with his own style? I dont doubt your son is good but saying your son did did what tim did before he even came out, i want to see this because i honestly doubt that.
@@danielmcgregor1 I get it. Why would you believe me? That's the gift of comments I guess. I can make the claim and you can deny it. All good. At least you commented without complete doubt and I appreciate that. Perhaps I should have said , Not identical like his actual songs but , the stuff he does with the slapping tapping and technical crazy insane abilities. I do have the stuff on some SD cards it's old and I will need to find them and see if the quality is up to standard. I would much rather email it to you as I don't know how my son will feel about that as he thinks it sucks. Lmao. He was young then and was borrowing my old droid phone and I found them going through SD cards few years ago. Hahah. I did post one to Facebook I think? But yeah I totally would like to share these with you. Since you asked. Perhaps I'll even put them on RU-vid if my son doesn't think it's a bad idea. I'm not saying he is Tim Henson. I am saying Tim and my Son are pretty similar in how long they have been playing. My son was a major Pertucci fan and Born of Osiris with one of the guitarists that left. He actually knew him and I can't think of his name now. Dude I'm an old drummer and while I do love to brag about my son I know it's a bad taste and I shouldn't as that is definately biased approach. He is amazing. He was playing drums at 5 and keys , like classical pieces pretty well at 12. He's a dad now and was in his band Disarayen in FL ...His name is Corey Clark. There are some small clips on my channel of him and it will say in title My son on those videos. However they are more recent and he's usually playing heavy stuff. As technical as he is he is into that really interesting heavy brutal stuff and solos like crazy over them. Not the style I'm speaking of here. But by hearing him perhaps at least you'll get the idea that he is pretty good. I hate to even mention those as the best he can do isn't on my channel. He isn't really into RU-vid and I have to beg him to show a few moments here and there. Heheh. Btw. Nice to meet you and hope this helps some as I don't want to make a claim and then dip out. Lol
@@robertclarkguitar understandable mate, as I said no disrespect to your son I more so just found the topic interesting having a precurse to the style we see come from tim nowadays, hopefully one day you can put them up I'd genuinely like to see them, cheers mate!
@@TheLunablackheart I'm not exaggerating either. Lol. He would come home from school and go right to his guitar. He would play til early in morning. Of course when he wasn't home he would be out with his friends whom also played. I'm sure they did other things and I don't think he skipped many days. He just loves guitar. He's still at it at 29 but he's a dad and doesn't have 8 hours lol. He sometimes skips a couple days now I'm sure. He is amazing. He claims he is out of practice. But the man is insane good. Thanks btw for the comment. He is in a couple of videos but none are him at his best. Most are recent or live gigs ...He won't use effects live much. I told him to grab a delay and reverb for those leads. Hahah. He doesn't like them. Hahah. But he does on occasion use them on his demos. Happy New Year to ya.
he says he doesn’t have big hands, actually he says he has small hands compared to someone like scott, but his fingers are slender and is palm is small compared to his actuall finger length, this gives the impression that they are longer
Good vid, really nailed it with the classical fretting hand position. That, along with consciously minimizing tension in my hands/wrists during practice helped me a lot.
Pat Metheny is one of the fastest jazz players out there and you will regularly see his thumb. While I absolutely agree it's important to reflect or be aware of left hand shape and positioning it's not the key to speed. Speed is in the brain. If you can't hear it fast you can't play it fast. I've got huge hands, and can make long stretches but I wouldn't count myself as a fast (or capable being one) player. It's an attitude and synching brain and music.
Tim doesn't have big hands, dude. He even says that he has small hands. They're not particularly small. But definitely not big. His hands are about the same size as mine, and I do not have big hands or long fingers. I was initially worried about that stretch at the beginning of the 'Playing God' riff. But I can easily nail it now and it's one of the easier components of the riff. Ultimately, Tim can play like that because he practises more than anyone else, and he practises with correct technique. I've practised that opening riff for over 60 hours at this point, and I can almost play it like he does. But even he struggles with it when he's practising. I don't think that Tim's fingers remain that close to the fretboard in that clip. Tim's percussive style often requires his fingers to come out more so that he can do left-handed tapping, for example. At the beginning of the run that comes in after the main riff, the fourth note, which is a D on the B-string, is tapped in. This is why he needs to come away from the fretboard to get the necessary velocity to sound that note. It takes some serious force. He even taps high notes with the little finger of his left hand during the arpeggio section.
This is really helpful! Tip 2 about the thumb is great because you can learn so much from classical guitarists. I took classical lessons for about 6 months but I am still relearning some techniques. I recommend to everyone who feels stuck with thier playing to ask a teacher to check thier picking hand technique ( it's very common that we move our hands more than we need to ) as you can see with Tim Henson, he keeps his fingers closely together. Also make sure you are not pressing down with too much force as this can make playing anything much harder . Don't forget to make sure your action is set up to a comfortable height and find the guitar pick that is right for you! :)
Can you please do a review on Paolo Gans? He’s an underrated fingerstyle guitarist who has a different style of playing and almost does every part of a song and it’s amazing.
This is a great video and I really appreciate the look it takes at what he is doing. As a non musician but with great musical appreciation I was just enchanted by what Tim (and Scott) are able to do with their guitars. I'm a lifelong tradesman/crafts person with heaps of hand skills and I long, long ago realized that to learn new skills I was watching the hands of other tradesman even if they were just performing a gross motor skill task like troweling plaster or concrete and that was what led to the secrets. The truly talented make it look effortless and Tim certainly does here. I concluded that the sound he produces from what seems to be the lightest of pressure drifting over the strings could only be pinpoint precision applied with the most invisible of Shaolin strength level hidden pressure. When I first saw one of his POV play throughs with a head cam on it then all made sense. He simply plays so much that the callouses on his fingers behave like the hammers in a piano and the X Y Z axes of the rest of him puts everything where it belongs with uncommon exactness. I hope you can take a look at one of his POV's and maybe consider doing a video about it. I'm sure I missed plenty and would love to hear your take.
Keeping your thumb behind the fretboard is also an essential thing for bassists. It's actually one of the main ways how I distinguish guitar players playing bass.
I suspect that even though Tim Henson hated playing the violin, starting at 3 years old plus the technique learned on the violin was a very good grounding for when he switched to guitar.
The thumb thing should be standard practice. I see so many people have their thumb hanging out to dry and it limits their mobility. Thankfully when I started, I was taught not to. While I may have lost that over the years, I’m trying to start again and it’s easier than it was when I started.
And Jimmy Hendrix used his thumb to press the bass string in chords; that's why I don't play Hendrix because I was always taught to hide the thumb behind the neck.
@@harrisontownsend910 it can but it definitely slows you down. Using the thumb when learning bends for the first time can help, but it’s a bad habit. Its better to learn the right way later on.
A lot of people complain about not having big hands, but big hands are not the panacea that those people think. The issue with big hands is that it can be much harder to control your fingers precisely and it takes more effort to exert a similar force to someone with smaller fingers. You've also got the issue that in some situations you have to curl your fingers more, which can cause more strain and fatigue. As as an example, how many people who play football (soccer) professionally have large feet? You'd think it would give an advantage, but it often translates to less control.
Halfway through watching this Video I paused it long enough to hit LIKE and SUBSCRIBE . I like everything about this Video . Now I'm going to work my way backwards through your Lessons to explore what I've missed from you . I have no doubt that I'll be finding treasures among your Videos . Hope you're doing well . 🎸🎤🎸
Tim Henson is a one-in-400-years kind of musician. There's never been anybody, and may never be anybody who can play like him, but it is good to learn what he is doing; I myself am going to try to learn a few of his furiously fast riffs. Genius.
@@spaghettisauce445 If you want to make it in music, you have to reinvent the wheel. I said that because Tim has reinvented the wheel. You're right, 400 is like Beethoven or The Beatles, but I think Tim has invented a new thing that nobody would have thought of. I guess time will tell if his talent goes unmatched.
@@ricktheexplorer yeah he has proved to be a very important guitarist for his generation so far but i would say since he proved that you can play this stuff everyone is gonna be able to play this good its like how in the 60’s blues was hard and now we look at blues as being simple. Eventually we will all play like in like 30 years
those who dont want to listen to all the yapping. tim henson has mastered fast alternate picking, fast hybrid picking and fast sweep picking and he combines them together to make some really cool melodies which are easy for him to play but hard for us because it takes a lifetime to learn these techniques, and another to master them
Having certain types of long fingers does help. I have tiny, tiny hands and i hate it, so much so that i use a 7/8 size guitar. It's not an excuse or cop out, but it does help. There's also the incredible talent and determination thing as well, that helps a tad.
I think the fact that Tim Henson’s mother forced him to play violin from a very early age, and even when he started playing guitar, his parents wouldn’t let him stop practising has a lot to do with his guitar playing style.
"Everyone in the guitar community..." WRONG. I literally hate his "music". Being fast and composing music others can enjoy are two different things. He can be even faster than light, but as long as he isn't making anything that sticks to my ears, his work is wothout any value to me. PS. 0:36 I have small hands and such "stretch" is nothing hard to do. Message in the bottle has harder stretches, as it starts more toward the head of the guitar and not body, where frets are narrower.
1. Being able to hear what you're doing wrong 2. Hearing what you can do better 3. Being obsessive Tim got as good as he is because of hard work, yes. But I'd also say his dedication was probably extremely unhealthy. In his case, it worked out. You can't get on to people for not being this way. For most people, it's just simply not possible. I know this because I was this way once. I'm glad I'm not anymore. Been guitar-free for 10+ years and getting much more out of life.
Your thumb position %1, your hand size %1, guitar position %1, your knowledge about scales %1. Practice adds %96 to the table. When we are talking about speed, the only thing that matters is practice, practice and practice more. There are lots of great guitarists with different styles of guitar handling yet they shred with incredible speed and some even play with their tongues.
I've got big hands too and ngl it helps alot. Especially covering Tim himself. Tim loves his 4-5 fret spanning chords and 3nps scale shapes really do accelerate your playing once your comfortable with them.
Thing a lot people dont understand is classical musicians will of course have the best technique which will allow them of course to play better easier and faster. I think everyone should start with classical training and then after some years take that knowledge and build whatever you want. A classical musician can become a rock one in some months a rock musician can become a classical in years of practice.
I guess we can say that Tim is kinda of a "classically trained fretboard player" - he was a violin player for most of his infancy/childhood. So yeah, dude definitely know all the intrinsic things of the fretboard-hand posture, and uses it 24/7 to play at such high level. Also: Tim actually has "tiny hands", like, for such a high level guitarist that reach all those stretches, I would say.
He also has full fingertips. As someone who has lacking tips of fingers, I literally can’t pinch the strings or even clay when doing pottery. To do pottery I have to use special tools and finger caps lol. It seems like a very small thing, but to be true, it plays a huge role and I have never seen people with fingers like mine play instruments. Maybe it’s also not the reason but the outcome and I could improve my fingers, but not enough to be using them as easily. It’s easier for me to scratch though lol.
You can also see his crazy picking technique in the last clip, where he's not even really moving his wrist, just his thumb and index to pick quickly on certain parts.
I've not even reached one minute of the video and you are already wrong. Tim DO NOT have big hands at all, man, just look at his hands, they're very small compared to the rest of the body, he is 5′7, so his hands are very small compared to the regular guy. I have almost exact hands and height as he does, and I can easily wear woman gloves medium size, for you to better understand. And this stretch at 0:44 is about the DAMN STRATCH not about hand size. With practicing stretches enough, you can easily do these kind of parts with whatever hand size you have. Okay, next one is about harmonics. The ones used in this song are the easiest out of all techniques of getting harmonics, any guitar player can get them consistently in a month of playing and hybrid picking have nothing to do with consistently getting them, it's just for sound purposes Okaaay, next one is about 3:39. The index finger here is not "waiting in the couple milimiters above fretboard for his turn". Tim uses his index to mute high 3 strings (this is actually very clever and requiers A LOT of micro-control, BEcause he uses part of a finger somewhere closer to the joint to press note on the first string while still muting 2nd and 3rd strings with it. Now that is pretty mind-blowing) Please, if you doing these kind of educational videos, do not confuse newbies with wrong information.
His secret lock yourself in a room and play slow. Then with proper technique increase speed, then come out of your room as guitar god. Time spent Locked in room years
yeah for sure this style benefits from an application of over saturated compression that is totally inappropriate for other genres generally. it makes harmonics pop and sustain as well as evening out the articulations during the machine gun 16th note runs making them sound extremely even and controlled. of course theres still a lot of practice involved as well
Can confirm having long thin fingers gives an advantage. On top of having double jointed finger tips so my tips can bend at 90° angle when i apply enough pressure. ( for example: this allows me to play an A chord on the 2nd fret with 1 finger and do other weird chord rolls with 1 finger tip) I have really long fingers I can do the reach in Playing God with ease....one of my friends has a little hard time cuz they have kinda short fingers
Yup I noticed the thumb when trying to learn a lot of their songs along with CHON stuff. Its a thing all these super fast modern guys do that im bummed to say feels extremely awkward for me to stay disciplined with for entire songs outside of fast riffs I would naturally throw the thumb on the middle of the neck for. Had a old shred lord guitar teacher that taught me playing with my index finger knuckle glued to the bottom of the neck helps me stay locked in - it does but and just cant get away from it now without feeling lost :')
Tim Henson is immensely talented! He plays great guitar; but he also invented Kermit, Miss Piggy, Fozzie, Beaker, Animal, Bert and Ernie and on and on. What an amazing talent!
Hi mate! I am a drummer and I have thick and wide, short fingers. I think I won't and don't need to be the the greatest solo guitarist. But ... a few nice rock, metal riffs for the people who are like.... "Dude, you got three guitars, and one bass here, please play a song for us!" I bought them so test some amp sims :-) and for decoration of my mens cave. So, a few power chords ok. Already sound great for through AmpliTube 5. But where can I find voicings for my types of fingers to play real chords without buzzing?
I tried learning to play Euphoria and I'm stuck just the first part cuz I have trouble reaching and changing the notes with my fingers 💀 the stretches were too much, even on my guitar that's on the smaller side
Practice can make you great, if done properly, but natural ability is just that. My favorite guitarist who can shred from Santana to Malmsteen, to Rhodes to Gary Moore and a thousand greats in between practiced for 10s of hours a day. When i showed this great to my guitar teacher who has played with record label bands he said shit if i had time to practice 10 hours a day, but i saw this great play after 3 years if starting and he wad playing like 25 year musicians...talent does play a part, for an amazing treat check out my fav guitarist.....panos arvanitis....simply incredible.
Modern technical wizards all have the the thumb IP joint articulation thing going along with the hybrid picking with the middle finger. They make it look effortless.
he can have all the technique he wants but it does not make him a musical performer/musician. It's just neurotic stuff he learned off of and arpeggiator and the glued it together. called it a song.
You didn't need to make a video I could of just told you, he's not human, or at least not some mere mortal. He's like a unicorn, a majestic nimble fingered unicorn.
Beginning aspiring guitarists don't use the optimized position for their hand size and finger length - ever. The secret is to just play the way that feels best not the way that looks right. So yeah I agree the thumb trick is true, but I still always play acoustic with that thumb on the low E for blues riffs because thats what feels best and makes the most sense for me.
It's because he played the violin. The devil's instrument. If you can play the violin, learning any other string instrument comes very quickly for most
Decent advice, though I'd keep in mind that our hands aren't all built the same. And yes, I get the large hands argument, that's not all that's going on. Use to get very annoyed at my teachers telling me to keep my thumb on the back of the neck, though I get the argument for most people. For me, that's the loss of another playing finger. Even if it's my thumb. Anyway, I'd boil this down to something else entirely: It's just practice, practice, practice.
I've been playing guitar for over 40 years, having played in many metal cover bands throughout the 80's and 90's. I'm 6'1" tall, yet I have FREAKISHLY short fingers AND toes. At first glance most people would never even notice it until I showed them, but they are short. In fact, my little fingers are so short they look like they only have two joint along their length, instead of three joints, like normal people's fingers. I do have three joints, but you can't tell by looking. In fact, my little fingers are so short, I only have one joint crease along the finger on the palm side of my hand. Weird, right? Yet I've still managed to become a pretty decent guitarist. I can't say it hasn't been somewhat of a handicap, because I'm quite certain a lot of things would have come much easier had I had the reach most people's hands have, but I've seen guys with only two or three fingers play most impressively.
