Best way to build speed?

Playing Technique
#1

The Problem:
I’m age 41, and I still can’t play the stuff that got me interested in guitar, way back when, in my teens. I’m talking Ozzy, Metallica, etc.
When I improvise, the stuff I hear in my head s fast… sax line type things. My technique does not support being able to play the shit I hear.

What is the state-of-the-art thinking, if any, on building speed? Over the years, I’ve heard things like the following, some of it contradictory:

  • Start very slow and gradually speed up.

  • Find your limit - where you can play something without mistakes, and go a bit past it, then back the metronome off to about 95% of your maximum. (Petrucci: Rock Discipline)

  • Your technique when playing faster should be the same as your technique when playing slower.

  • Your technique when playing fast is not at all like your technique when playing slow.

Lately, in the fitness world, people are all excited about high-intensity interval training… going all out for short bursts, and resting in between. Does this apply to building fast twitch fibers in our hands/forearms for guitar?

I realize there are no shortcuts here. In fact, I wish more of the great players we look up to would be honest about how many years of grinding practice it took to develop their chops. I might have worked at this more when I was in my teens/twenties, had someone told me realistically what it actually takes.

But, while there are no shortcuts, we do know more about exercise physiology and neuroscience than we did even a few years ago. There are no shortcuts, but I’m not sixteen either. I don’t have 10,000 hours to put in.

Yes, I’ve read lots about “deliberate practice”, the best times of day to practice, randomizing, etc. My question is specifically about how to best build speed. Long sessions with breaks? Short high-intensity all-out bursts? Go slow? Go fast but slow down when you mess up?

Thanks for any tips!

Oh, and I’d love to know people’s thoughts on Frank Gambale’s Chop Builder video/dvd. Production values aside, what do you think of his use of the mantra “no pain no gain?” Is that outdated and possibly dangerous advice? I know that when he says “reeelaaaax” during an exercise, I want to go through the screen and strangle him. :slight_smile:
Seriously though, there are some great exercises in it, but I’m not sure the punishing amount of repitition without breaks is a good thing… or is it?

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Dr Brad try’s to pick faster
#2

BG trust me- you and I and if not most struggle with the SAME thing… Sans some genetic freak guitarist who can magically play whatever on the spot. I’m in my 30’s, starting off I had the classic old man jazz teacher who was trying to show me sheet music when I just wanted to jam Master of Puppets lol. I clearly lost interest and ventured out to learn tabs etc. A good teacher is PARAMOUNT. Use the forum to the max. Lots of incredibly kind people here. From my experience FWIW I use a blend of stuff to practice. For rhythm, I use the limit technique, let’s say Damage Inc. or Disposable Heroes down picking. That is just a matter of good pick control and pushing yourself hard without hurting your arm. Little by little the rhythm stuff kinda comes with the muscle memory. Lead stuff I found isolating the parts that are giving you a problem and seeing WHY you can’t play it. Is it just speed, is it technique? Is it economy picking needed or legato or alternate or a combo? @Troy did a brilliant video covering the famous lick from Crossroads. Without that video I would have NEVER figured out HOW Vai actually played it. Does that make sense? For me I can jam most Metallica with ease, it’s the Zakk brutal alternate picking which is an issue. I never knew I had an issue with it and so I’m trying to correct my crappy AP technique. Until I nail that down, speed don’t matter! Post a bunch of a videos on the Critique section and you will be amazed at the help you’ll get. GOOD LUCK message anytime if you need. Alex.

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#3

Hi Chris!

I think the issue here is what you mean by “speed”. It’s a vague term at best. Here’s my checklist:

  1. Can you move the pick back and forth at a particular rate of speed, on a single string. What is that rate of speed?

  2. Can you synchronize the hand with the picking movement, on a single string, at that rate of speed? No? What is the maximum synchronized rate of speed?

  3. Can you do 1 and 2 while playing lines that move across the strings? If so which kinds? Even numbers of notes per string? Odd? Mixed?

  4. Can you do 1 through 3 while accessing musical vocabulary at various places on the neck? That’s another kind of “speed”.

And so on. These things are all related, and probably affect each other, so I’m painting in broad strokes here. But we have to pull these things apart or we will never solve any problems at all.

The physical speed problem is checklist item number 1. It is athletic in nature and it is the problem that the “Petrucci” method tries to solve. Again, broad strokes, but on Rock Discipline John seems to be emphasizing the athletic aspect when he talks about metronome usage, pushing past limits, and so on. All this stuff you hear about high-intensity training, burst training, and so forth — same thing. It is trying to solve checklist item 1, whether or not the people who espouse these things realize it or even think of it that way.

Checklist 2 is hand synchronization and that is a cognitive process. It is largely solved through chunking, as we’ve talked about in various lessons and features. Physical accents is one way to foster this - that’s what worked for me. We talk about this in the Volcano seminar a bit.

1& 2 are solved on a single string, generally. Or at least, in one approach, eliminating the complexity of switching strings is a big help in simplifying the process.

Once you introduce string switching, you are now into pickslanting or crosspicking territory, and it is a good idea to have hand speed and synchronization already coming together somewhat. A good portion of the time we have spent trying to break down why “picking” is hard, and why “fast” is hard, and why some phrases work differently than others, has been spent here on checklist item 3.

Checklist 4, the oft-repeated sentiment about making “the music I hear in my head”. I will admit this is a phrase I don’t love because it’s so vague about how these things actually get done. Getting around the neck, building vocabulary, there is a strong mechanical component to this, not just picking mechanics but also fretboard mapping as we’ve begun to approach in conversations like the one with Martin Miller about playing through the changes, and the new Mike Stern conversation. Some kind of system is necessary for mapping out ideas on the neck and accessing them in real-time as you’re playing, at least when it comes to improvisation. That’s another kind of “speed”.

Anyway, checklist. Figure out where you are on it first, then figure out which approach you want to use to solve that checklist item. If it’s checklist item number 1, various speedy Johns like Petrucci and @milehighshred have thoughts on the matter which are more detailed than my own.

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Pathetic speed and technique after many years of practicing. Can you help me?
#4

I recommend checking out the following thread as well, for some substantive discussion of these sorts of questions!

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#5

One of the big guiding principles to emerge from Cracking the Code re: string switching, is that virtually all of the stuff we think of as “textbook shred” is not arbitrary, but fits into one system or another, and some systems work better for some licks than others. Taking Yngwie as a classic example (and a primary figure in CTC), we see that lots of stuff we thought of as “strictly” alternate picked actually isn’t, and things we thought of as completely free and arbitrary are actually more emergent from a certain systematic way of doing things, even if the player who came up with them wasn’t thinking of them in that way. That is, most “shred” stuff is, on some level or other, “worked out” to fit a system, even if the player was being intuitive rather than systematic when he worked on it.

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#6

Since I, too, have had the same questions, here is my thought on this. I really never worked on lead playing until about 9 years ago. I was a member of the George Lynch Dojo and the forum of that site as well. I still have friends from those days that I communicate with often. I began to learn the ins and outs of cool licks and riffs and I also was recording demos and adding leads in appropriate places in my songs. You can hear in this example that in no means was I “fast” as the speeds we hear in players like Yngwie or Petrucci, etc:

(Solo section is at 2:35 ish)

I was proud of this solo because there were no preconceived notions that I would put a blistering, light speed onslaught of notes just to try to impress anyone. Instead, I took it 4 bars at a time and tried to concentrate on phrasing, and then move on to the next 4 bars, and so on. This particular song changed my mind set in that I had the stinkin’ thinkin’ that I would never be a good lead guitar player. I realized when I recorded this song in 2008, being 47 at the time, there are no limits, no boudaries to what can be achieved if I want it bad enough.

Lately, I have been working on the Eric Johnson portion of CTC. I’m mainly a pentatonic player and a huge fan of EJ, and Troy does an awesome job taking on the blistering speed and phrasing of EJ. I have been working on the 5 and 6 note pentatonic cascades for quite some time but lately something has clicked in me and “speed” is coming at a rapid pace. I haven’t achieved the “speed” of EJ or Troy just yet, but I’m getting very close.

But then I stumbled on the intro lick to Cliffs of Dover - I think it is the Cliffhopping video that Troy does. It is lock a tongue twister with all of the string hopping. But, tongue twisters are meant to be conquered. So I am getting faster at other licks, and boom, I am challenged by another!

So what I’m getting at is even Eric Johnson or Yngwie Malmstein more than likely built upon 100s of techniques and licks through the last 40 to 50 years. Somewhere in time, they started with one, conquered it, and moved on to the next. That’s the approach I’m taking these days. This last week, as I stated, I worked on the 5 and 6 note cascades. I’m taking this at an athletic approach, but making sure technique is honored! I get warmed up first! I make sure my picking and fretting is somewhat in sync.

I realize I’m rambling here, so I make this short. I’m of the mindset of conquering one thing at a time. I think if I try to conquer to many things at one time, my mind will explode. I do agree with John Petrucci’s “relax” approach. One thing that helps me is when I am learning something new, I do work at first at slower speed and I attack each note with some force. I want those nerves and muscles to learn to “fire” like a piston with authority, accuracy and clarity. Gradually, as I pick up the speed, I have the foundation in place and concentrate on relaxing, breathing, etc. When I start to tense up, that tells me I’ve reach a certain barrier where my hands can’t keep up with my mind. At that point, I put the guitar down, do some stretching, drink some water and then go back for another round. With this, I can practice all day long without hurting myself. Yesterday, I think I played for 5 or 6 hours, watching the EJ series and picking up things I may have missed from the last time.

I think you will have to find your own logic in what it will take for YOU to achieve the speed you desire. Am I there? No! But I have noticed lately that I’m getting much faster and cleaner that the day before. I was doing a simple three note per string exercise just on one string, changing the finger combinations…example
1,2,4 or 1,3,4 doing 3 notes per beat. I start off at 120 bpm and work my way up in 5 bpm increments. A week ago, my fastest speed was 150 bpm where I could do it cleanly. That’s important. Yesterday, I could do it with consistence at 180 bpm moving around two strings, up and down the fret board.

So, find things that work for you. Choose one thing to conquer! A year from now, you will have conquered a multitude! Things that once dominated you, you now dominate!

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#7

Thanks for those, guys. Especially that last one! :slight_smile:

Lately I’ve been working on the Poptarts lick, but after several repititions, I’m sooooooo bored. so, I’ve started shifting it around, applying it to other scales beyond harmonic minor, etc.

onward and upward…