Do we actually even KNOW how to get faster?

Playing Technique
#1

just thinking out loud here. As a guitar community (not just CTC, the WHOLE world community lol):

Do we actually KNOW how to practice and/or train to play faster? (not talking about beginner level either)

I can go right now and find programs to become stronger at powerlifting or weightlifting. I plug in my current max and I follow the program and in general, boom, 6-10 weeks later I have added 5-7% on my max.

I can find programs for sprinters, throwers etc. Why not guitarists? Its so odd since we all want to be faster. I understand getting “strong” and getting “fast” is slightly different but still.

What about for piano or violin since they gave been practiced at high levels for hundreds of years?? Are there actual, say, 6-10 week or longer programs to increase speed and/or skill??

Seems instead of actual programs we just have friendly advice and good intentions and anecdotes

or to state the issue another way, NO ONE KNOWS EXACTLY HOW TO PRACTICE!!! lol. Im being dead serious.

We seem to still be at sort of caveman level even to the point to where one can receive diametrically OPPOSING advice such as “play slowly and perfectly clean and gradually build it up” and the next guy says “just wail out as fast as u can and then clean it up later”

At the end of the day, is the best we have to offer the sad “keep working at it, you’ll get there eventually”…?

Lord willing, I will be able to continue to put in dozens of hours of focused practice going forward but its unsettling to know I wont even have a decent roadmap

What about the science of sport in other areas? Surely there are studies and such on increasing speed of coordination type movements that arent directly strength related? (like I said, violin and piano do come to mind)

Any ideas?

Peace, JJ

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#2

I think it’s a matter of identifying what your weaknesses are that are slowing you down, and drilling on those.

In my particular case, I’m learning that my string switching mechanics are actually pretty good, but 1) my pickstroke itself isn’t especially fast or even (180-ish bpm is about as fast as I can do controlled trem picking), and 2) my fretting hand coordination is actually fairly weak.

So, for ME, the prescription seems to be fast single string drills - just blasting patterns like 3-5-7-3-5-7 either bursted with no metronome as fast as I possibly can (to build top-line speed), or in time against a metronome (to build coordination and, in the CtC parlance, really burn the “chunk” into my mind such that I’m consistently landing cleanly on the downbeat.

I’m guessing I should be able to make relatively rapid practice by focusing on this, and anecdotally, with maybe a week or so of it under my belt, it seems to be helping.

Following your sports metaphor, and based on my own experience as a cyclist, I’m looking at this as kind of like high-intensity interval training. Do relatively small amounts of extremely high intensity speed work, coupled with appropriate rest/recovery time.

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#3

Focus on rhythmic rudiments using correct motions. I use Konnakol to internalize rhythmic groupings.

When chunking, always end on the one. Super important for rhythmic entrainment. Always tap your foot. (If you want a longer theoretical discussion of why you should “aim for the one”, look into Hal Galpert’s “Forward Motion”)

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#4

I’ve asked this question multiple times right here on this forum. Lots of answers about metronomes and starting slow, which I’ve permitted while remaining skeptical. But I have now come out of the closet. I actually do not think we “get faster”, or “work up to speed”, or any of the ways people have loosely characterized guitar playing practice over the years. I think what is more likely is that we learn to do guitar motions at the speed we already have.

Just as a simple example, probably almost everyone on this forum can tap on a table at 160bpm eighth notes with some kind or wrist or arm motion. That would be equivalent to alternate picking 160bpm sixteenths. Now how many of those people can alternate pick a one-note-per-string arpeggio at 160 sixteenths using the same or similar wrist motions? If not, why not? Are they not “fast” enough?

When it comes to movements like crosspicking, I think people get that there is some kind of mechanical trick there that they don’t know how to do, and that’s why they can’t do it fast. But I think that’s actually the same with all motions. It’s just less obvious with other motions because they seem simple on the surface, so how can they require coordination?

If there is some degree to which our speed actually can be shown to change, I think that it will turn out to be small compared to the speed you can already move but not actually execute smooth, consistent guitar picking motions.

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#5

well for the sake of discussion lets assume “get faster” isnt the proper terminology…all that does is change the question to “do we even know how to achieve maximum coordination?” lol.

It sort of falls under the overarching question of how to design an effective training regimen or developmental program etc

Im interested in the way that some players seem more “physical” with larger movements etc and it starts too look more athletic. For example you, Troy, perhaps in some of the cascade pent licks where the movement isnt some tiny thing. I wouldnt swear to it but maybe Rusty Cooley and Mike Orlando fall into that camp

But on the other hand the Yngwies and MABS make it all seem very effortless

Seems their “training” or development programs or ideas would be quite different. One more physical and the other more towards perfecting the coordination

Behind all of these questions is my desire to become faster on descending pent stuff using dwps lol. I might say im “fast enough” on single string stuff to say that im not a sluggard or non athletic type…but one cant just flap the fingers really fast and somehow luck into a fast descending pent lick lol.

How does single string right hand speed relate to the “speed” needed to get the left and right hands to quickly track across a fast pent scale?

#6

I hear what you are saying, and sorry if that came off as semantic. To clarify, what I meant is that as best I can tell, lots of people think that building up hand speed over time is the goal of practice, and that this ‘building up’ of speed works the way gym exercise works. Five bpm at this tempo, then five bpm more, and so on. So I don’t think it’s purely terminology. It’s more like a fundamental misunderstanding of what you are trying to achieve, and how best to go about that.

In your case if you’re already thinking that you just want to learn the coordination of an unfamiliar activity, and how do you best spend your time to do that, then you’re already ahead of the game in your thought process.

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#7

It depends on whom you’re referring to as “we.” Clearly there are many guitarists who do know how and the proof is in their playing. There isn’t only one way to get faster and there are proponents of various methods of doing so, each method with its own success stories.

If you’re asking if anyone who posts here knows how, yes there are, and one player who posts here has exactly what you are looking for - a detailed method of exactly how to go about gaining speed. His name is John Taylor “Mile High Shred.” Do you know of him?

John Taylor has a complete system for achieving just what you’re looking for and I suggest you contact him if you’re interested in his method. I don’t recall enough details of it to write a description of it that would do it justice, but basically it involves using a metronome and gradually increasing the settings on the metronome during each practice session. I recall he had one or two detractors here who claimed they had superior methods for gaining speed and he simply asked them if they could give him an example of someone who had achieved speed equal to or greater than his by using their supposedly superior methods. That shut them up real quick!

Look for him on YouTube. I believe he actually has videos of lessons which utilize the method he innovated uploaded there. John is a real good guy, and despite his success is very humble and easy to talk to. Tell him I sent you.

#8

A problem I encountered with this approach, especially when the increments are small, is that by the time I get close to my speed barrier I am nearly exhausted, so it sort of defeats the purpose. So when I work on this approach I do very few reps at each speed and bump up the metronome by quite large increments.

Also in sport I don’t think this super-gradual approach would work: I can’t imagine Usain Bolt training for the 100m by doing a thousand progressively faster 100m reps! One typically has precious few “dashes” available per practice session before the quality drops.

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#9

Comparisons to athletic training only go so far. The physiological demands a 100 meter dash imposes upon the system are so much greater than playing guitar fast that they aren’t comparable. Sprinting is high intensity work, physiologically, and you’ll notice that sprinters have heavily muscled thighs. Marathon runners don’t because it’s low intensity work of a long duration. If playing fast were of a comparable intensity to sprinting all the fastest players would have heavily muscled forearms and it’s just not so.

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#10

The coordination between left and right hand is the most important thing for getting things up to speed. I still believe starting slow and gradually building up speed is the best way to perfect the coordination between left and right hand.
Getting the picking motion itself up to speed is a different thing.
You can practice that on one open string, and it’s about finding the right motion which works for you to get the best speed going on.

Max speed is not the same for everyone, some people just can move there muscles fater then others.
I once did a test with the bassplayer of my band.
We had this old drumcomputer and we competeted with pushing the bassdrum button as fast as we could and he could do it much faster then me!
How hard i tried and practiced i never came close to his natural ultra fast motion.

I had classical piano and guitar lessons for a while, and and that world it’s very common to practice things slow and gradually build up to speed. That’s why classical players have great technique.

So, my view on this: We all have a max speed muscle movement, once you find the sepcific motion that works best for you, you only can improve on speed very little with practicing. But, with that max motion you have you can practice to sync this with the left hand fingerings by practice things slow and gradully building up to your max speed.

I always wonder how much the brain plays a part in this.
Some people can just think faster maybe they therefore also can trigger there muscles faster? A good example is Shawn Lane. He himself in an interview said that he had the feeling he was thinking and speaking faster then most people and therefore the ultra fast playing was very natural thing for him.

#11

It may be because strength is less of a factor in shred guitar, and what is important is the ability to alternate quickly between opposing muscle groups. To me at least, picking at my fastest speed feels both physically and mentally exhausting.

#12

I think the brain and central nervous system play a huge part! The muscles can only move when they receive the signal from the brain through the CNS telling them to move a certain way… Shawn Lane was the guitar equivalent of what ins sports you might hear called “a genetic freak.” Tell me of you’ve ever heard this about Shawn Lane:

He was with some friends and someone needed information to get in contact with him. So one of is friends told him “Show him that trick you do!” Shawn was saying, “oh come on, I don’t want to do that” because he was a humble man. But all his friends kept urging him to do “the trick” and Shawn finally relented. He took two pieces of paper and two pencils. Shawn wrote his phone number on one piece of paper with his left hand and simultaneously, on the other paper he wrote his name with his right hand!

It shows he had complete control and focus over what each hand was doing to the point he could write two different things at the same time with each hand! I’ve never heard of anyone else being ale to do that, have you?

I learned of this story from the Michael Angelo Batio forum back when it was active and Michael posted there regularly. Several of the core posters there confirmed this story about Shawn Lane is true,

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#13

As for the physical part, are you keeping your muscles relaxed when you play or are they tense? If they’re relaxed you can play fast for a lot longer without getting physically tired.

It’s mentally exhausting to you because it’s relatively new to you. Eventually, playing will be less mentally exhausting because you won’t have to think as much about what you’re doing since everything will be so ingrained in you that you could almost do it in your sleep. -

#14

I have a question about this for you: When you played classical piano you knew the correct motion, right? I mean there isn’t “a code to crack” for piano as in alternate picking guitar is there? So if we all have a max speed for muscle movement and can only improve it very little with practice, could you already run scales on the piano at say, presto tempo within just a couple months of playing, and if not, why not? You knew the correct motion within a couple months so what held you back from playing scales at presto tempo?

#15

Of course you will first have to learn scales and how to finger them, how to play chords etc…etc…
I am talking pure about muscle speed here not about fingerings etc.
I am also not talking about those who play the guitar with a plectrum for the first time. You must of course have the basics down first.

Let’s take the piano.
Let’s say you already know how to place you fingers correct on the keyboard and now how to use the right motion for pressing the keys down.
Now take for instance two notes at the piano, let’s say a C and D, and play those alternating between index and middle finger as fast as you can; that is your muscle speed. It could well be that for instance a child, which had much less practice then you still can do this faster.

Now you have to learn on the piano how to use that speed with the right fingerings for playing scales, melodies, chords etc… That you practice with starting slow and gradulaly building it up.

I hope it is clear now what i mean.

#16

Thank you. So it’s learning the fingerings and how well you learn them on piano that determine whether you can run scales in 16th at 150BPM compared to 180 or 200BPM.

The test of pure muscle speed is a trill. OK.

#17

What i also would like to point out is that not everyone can learn equaly fast.
What takes someone a month to master may take someone else 6 months.

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#18

Not exactely. If your natural muscle speed is higher you can learn to play scales etc faster (with enough practice) then someone with a less higher muscle speed.
It all comes down to practice the right way and how determined you are to use your natural muscle speed to play things at that max speed.

What i mean is, that although your natural max muscle speed maybe higher then someone elses, if that person hast more determination and a better practice routine he can stiil outplay you on speed.

And this is al my personal view based on my personal experience. I am not saying i am right.

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#19

Your personal view makes a lot of sense to me. Thanks for explaining it.

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#20

nice replies and fascinating subject

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