In this video, Martin Miller and one of his students discuss this topic and Martin seems to be a fan of incorporating bursts in the exercises touched upon in the conversation, at least to some extent. The overall procedure of the method seems to be to find and live in the speed limit area where you occasionally experience difficulties, but is still able to perform the motions the majority of the time. Doing bursts can be a variation to help you on the way.
That’s a lot of what I’m thinking. So much of it’s mental, and also the fact that if I don’t ever play at 190 (because I can’t), how will I ever get there. I can play at that speed for short time though, and it feels ok if it’s bursts where I can recover. The speed is high enough (and I’m intentionally changing strings on these) that I am pretty sure string hopping can’t creep back in. If nothing else, it could give me the confidence to think ‘Wow, I actually can do this’.
Anyway, thanks for the cool MM video!
It sounds like you have a solution and you’re looking for a problem that fits it. I don’t know if that’s particularly useful. Is there a problem you’re trying to solve and what is it?
Martin has talked about something involving playing shorter things fast as @AndreasNasman points out. But I haven’t watched the video so I can’t comment on what kind of problem he is saying is addressed by this. Martin is a very smart dude so whatever he’s saying works I’m sure there is some kernel of something useful there. It’s more a question of what is the specific problem he is talking about and can you verify the approach actually addresses the problem?
When we see clips in “Technique Critique” of players doing “bursting” who have a stringhopping problem, it doesn’t appear to do anything. Their slow speed is stringhopping. Then they “burst” for a short amount of notes, maybe four or six, but it’s still stringhopping. In the one recent example I’m thinking of, the player said something like, “it’s working” but it was clear from the video that it was not working and the motion had not changed.
So that’s the other problem, is you can’t take anyone’s typed-out text explanation of something as accurate. You really have to look at video to see what is actually happening. If someone says they “got faster” that’s actually a super vague statement that needs to be interrogated. Could they physically not move faster before and now they can? Could they move faster just not for a long period of time and now they can do it for longer? Did they take an inefficient motion and do that inefficient motion a little faster and call it a success? Ask the hard questions!
It is more like I discovered that it really doesn’t work for me as a speed building tool, but at the same time, a lot of people seem to get something from it in that regard. Now I can’t just discard all of these peoples experiences, just because they don’t match my own, right?
It definitely sparks some curiousity what it’s all about
Not suggesting you discard anything, just asking why you’re asking about uses for something if there’s no problem at hand.
But I understand, people talk about a thing, you want to know what they’re talking about. So do I. But I’m always prepared to discover that the answer is they’re not super clear on what they’re talking about or what it even means.
I guess to expand a little on my initial theory, if speed is really a neuromuscular thing, wouldn’t speed bursts be effective at training the nervous system to fire faster? Also, given the fact that I can play in bursts fairly accurately, I won’t need to then go back and clean up the slop, because I’ll have already programmed it in. Especially if I approach it with the forward chaining approach mentioned earlier by @induction, where my bursts would get progressively longer.
I moved this over to this thread - you can delete your other comment about the misplaced post if you like, since nobody will know what you’re talking about!
I don’t know. Are you talking about maximum motion speed? If you can move at speed A enough to “burst” that speed, then you can already move at that speed, right? So it sounds like you’re talking about duration more so than speed. Or are you saying that by trying to go as fast as you can, you come back tomorrow and your maximum speed is faster than it was today?
What makes a thing a “burst” versus just trying to go fast? On the forum here when I’ve seen clips of “bursting”, people seem to be intentionally playing a much smaller number of notes than they can play at a given speed. Like, one repetition of a pattern as opposed to two or four. Is this better than playing two or four? I have no idea.
Again, I only know what I’ve seen. For stringhoping problems, it does not appear to “untrain” the stringhopping motion. Over a tiny distance like four or six notes, players seem to have no idea what motion they’re actually making or whether it’s changing.
This sounds like hand synchronization, not speed. This is a totally different problem. This is another area where we have seen posts in Technique Critique of players doing this. And what I’ve seen is that over a tiny distance of four or six notes, players can’t seem to tell if they’re synchronized or not. They may think they are, but in the examples of this that I’ve seen, they were not, even though they thought they were.
Again, I can only guess, but I think chunking works by anticipating an intial accent or initial motion, like a downstroke at the beginning of a phrase. I think it uses specific motor system circuitry to do the anticipation, like what is used for timekeeping. If there is only one repetition of something, there is no anticipation. That’s my impression of how chunking works to promote synchronization.
Again, it’s a matter of what specific issue we’re talking about. As to the stringhopping issue, I’m fairly comfortable with “does not work for that”. As to the chunking thing, I would also lean toward “does not work” based on what I’ve seen, but we might need more data.
As to the “getting physically faster by playing short numbers of notes” question, I really don’t know because I haven’t seen it and can’t quantify. We may need more data on that to know if this really changes anything, and if short numbers of notes works better than long, and so on.
Taking Troy’s point, and noticing that I wasn’t super clear about this earlier:
I use forward chaining to get longer licks memorized and comfortable at speed.
I use bursting to increase the speed at which I can play a given chunk cleanly (or equivalently, to improve the accuracy and articulation of a given chunk at full speed).
I use neither of them to increase the absolute speed limit of my picking hand.
Sorry if I misinterpreted your question.
This was the heart of my post. I can play x bpm and I’d like to play x+y bpm. Can I play in bursts, or chunks with small pauses so that I can recover, at the fastest speed I can move my hands to effectively push myself to increase my overall speed. I probably should’ve posted a clip showing my proposed burst strategy to get faster at the Petrucci exercise I mentioned. I’ll work on getting that together.
Thanks a lot for the thorough responses Troy, I really appreciate it!
No problem at all. Yeah my end goal here is to get my hands moving faster tomorrow (or next year haha) than they do today.
I noticed the other day that if I played in these bursts/chunks repeated with small pauses for recovery, I could handle a faster speed than if I were trying to go through the whole exercise. I thought “cool, I’m exposing myself to a faster speed than I’ve played before (~190bpm). I wonder if this will help me gradually increase my top speed as opposed to just playing the whole thing at my current comfortable but challenging speed (~180bpm) speed (which is lower than what I can handle in the bursts) and hoping I can gradually get that faster”.
If you can do the burst at the speed you want (e.g. 16ths at 190bpm) then forward chain the burst…so four fast notes becomes eight fast notes and so on. It’s also one of many strategies to use in each practise session. I’ve come to think of bursts as playing melodically (8ths or triplets) then ‘giv’er’ as many as you can. I hear Al DiMeola do this kind of thing in his compositions.
I’m still not really following! I’m a little slow, so apologies in advance. Are you saying you can already play at the faster speed, just only for short amount of time? Or are you saying you can’t play at the higher speed at all?
If you can’t play at the higher speed yet at all, then what is the “burst” actually doing to help you get to the higher speed? Are you saying that your plan is to “burst” at your current speed a certain number of times, like reps at the gym? And is the plan that, by doing that, when you come back the next day, you might be able to suddenly go faster than you were able to go today?
Or… are you saying you can already play at the higher speed, but through bursting you’re trying to increase the length of time you can play at that speed, not the actual speed itself.
On a separate note, I do think you should post a clip of your picking motion, but not because of the bursting thing. Because maybe you should be at the higher speed already and you’re not because you’re just not doing the motion correctly.
Is the picking motion you’re using not the one that you’re fastest at? Or are there other motions you can do that are faster but you don’t like them as much for some reason?
Yes. At 190 I can play small, separated portions of the Petrucci exercise. If I were to attempt to sustain this for the duration of the exercise, it would fall apart. I can play the exercise with acceptable control at 180, all the way through. So let’s call 190 the “faster” speed, and 180 the “current” speed.
My plan is to play the small chunks at 190, the “faster” speed, not the “current” speed. I think if I wasted time playing small chunks of a speed I can already handle (180) it would do nothing for me. I plan on doing the bursts with forward chaining and gradually adding more of the chunks together so that I’m playing at 190 for longer periods of time. Like reps at the gym, totally. I am not expecting to increase each day. I don’t even plan on doing this each day lol! Just over time, exposing myself to the maximum speed I can move my hands, which is 190 right now…just for very short bursts.
Agreed. I’m probably being confusing describing what I’m going for when a clip would clear it up. I’ll get one together.I think I’m using the same motion in all cases, but we’ve all seen enough posts to know what people think isn’t always reality 
A clip would be helpful for sure. I’ll see if I have some time tomorrow.
Sort of covered above but as far I’m aware of, whether I’m playing the whole exercise at 180 or the small broken chunks at 190, the picking motion is the same. That is my intent anyway.
Thanks again for your interest in my question though it means a lot to me that you’ve taken the time for all the responses you’ve given. Same to everyone whose commented. The community here is just the best!
So just to be totally clear, you can actually already play at the speed you want to play. When you say you can’t “handle it” all the way through with “control”, what does that mean? Are you saying you start to slow down? Or does something else happen?
I swear I’m not being willfully obtuse here! I just want to point out how confusing these conversations can be. The subject of your thread literally says “getting faster” right in the title, but that doesn’t actually appear to be what you’re really asking about.
Anyway sure thing let’s take a look at the motion and see if there’s anything there. But there might not be. If you can already play at the speed you want, then it’s probably working. I mean, 190 is pretty fast. Give us a couple takes of this, one at a speed where you have no trouble. Then one at the 190 speed so we can see what happens when you say you can’t “handle” it.
I definitely see how bursts can help with control and the ability to switch gears from a speed where stringhopping can cope into a more efficient motion for the higher speeds, but I haven’t found much increase in speed overall. I see bursts as more of a solidifying tool, its a good test of your timing and hand sync when playing to a pulse where you switch between subdivisions. For speed, I have had good results from ‘revving’ (like an engine). Starting at a moderate speed and doing a smooth revving up to top speed and back. This is done without a metronome. I found that it avoids the fatigue of hardcore repetitions high speed, but gives you the opportunity to feel your way through to higher speeds (hopefully beyond the current), thus maintaining an efficient motion.
Hey thanks for your reply. Good points.
It had been a while since I watched Rock Discipline all the way through but I feel like I remember Petrucci demonstrating this. Pretty sure he just did it with a fragment and not a phrase that moved around at all. I would imagine a moving phrase would be difficult to rev.
I guess with no metronome I wouldn’t know how fast the top is but maybe that wouldn’t matter as long as it’s truly my max speed. My whole thread is really about overload and spending time at the max speed I can move my hands to encourage gradual speed increase, and I suppose duration/control at that speed too.
I’m glad you never attended my Physics lectures Troy. Because you’d ask the kind of questions that will make me realise I actually don’t know Physics!
Back on topic, the question of genuine speed increase is actually a difficult one in sports science (or sport sciences?). What seems to be happening a lot in technique critique threads is that people find a new movement, or a variation on an old movement, that unlocks new speed possibilities almost instantly. Then there is of course the long tail of cleaning things up and so on. So I think we are for the most part addressing coordination challenges in here (oversimplifying I know).
But taking an existing movement that works and increasing its top speed - I don’t have many examples in mind of people that did that on this forum! Not saying it’s not possible of course, I just have no idea how one would go about this.
I do this all the time Joe, but only when I need to perform a song at a certain tempo with a tempo map or similar, or a song that was recorded to a click. I’d rather not “notch” up BPM by BPM. I just start at the speed and play as many notes as I can with good sound quality and the ability to mentally process what I’ve just played. Then I add another note.
If you want 200 BPM for that Petrucci/Rock Discipline exercise, start with one or two notes and keep adding on. You’ll be there before you know it.
W/r/t building speed: Probably better thought of as building coordination, but even still… You’re still building speed because even a newly-discovered efficient motion can be smoothed out. Once it is more smooth, you are gaining more speed. You are building a more efficient technique… Which builds higher speed thresholds…
Agreed. I have not read much about it here or anywhere. I swear this is my intent lol! I truly think I am using the same movment at 180 where I am controlled as I am at 190 where I can’t hang on as long. Hence the hypothesis of wondering if the short bursts at 190 would help me live in that top speed a little. I would really ultimately love to play the whole exercise at 200, by my definition of good. Clean, no string noise, even etc. Progressive overload seems the only way to get there. Is bursting an effective way to supply this overload and foster this growth? I dunno. Seems reasonable to me but the responses have been divided and leaning more towards a ‘probably not’ outcome.
Later today I will get together a video that shows 180, 190 as well as how I was practicing the bursts. I really had not intended this turn into a technique critique but I get Troy’s point and talking about stuff is harder than seeing stuff and then talking about it. A video would help.
This made me lol about being willfully obtuse haha! I know you’re not, and I get where you’re coming from. All that said, I really truly think I am asking about how to get faster lol! Sure, coordination and endurance will be involved. What if I said I could lift 180 pounds for 15 repetitions. What if I could also lift 190 pounds for one rep, quite controlled, but 2 reps felt really hard and rep 3 would not happen. Suppose I asked if a good strategy to get to lifting 190 pounds for 15 repetitions would be lifting 190 for 2 reps for a couple weeks, multiple sets, fully recovered with enough rest between sets that I could always get my 2 reps in. After this, 3 reps would probably be possible. They’d be difficult, but possible. 2 Weeks prior to this they would not have been. If I continued this strategy and always added one more rep, I’d expect that in a year I could lift 190 pounds for many more repetitions that I could at the beginning of the routine. Maybe it wouldn’t be 15 times, because maybe my body’s limits are hit. Maybe I could do 20 times. Who knows. If I put this hypothesis on a fitness forum and titled it “Getting stronger - are gradual repetitions with a weight I can now lift only 2 times effective”? Would I not be asking about getting stronger because I’m also asking about increasing endurance? Someone who can lift 190 pounds 15 times is stronger that someone who can only do it once. Someone who can play the Johh Petrucci exercise in it’s entirety multiple times at 190 is faster than someone who can play only portions of it at that speed. They also have more coordination and endurance. Those are of course my definitions of ‘stronger’ and ‘faster’ haha But that’s the point I’m trying to get across. I want to gradually get faster.
But anyway I’ve beaten this dead horse enough. I’ll see how the day goes and try getting a video up so at least we’re all on the same page with what I’m doing. Thanks again for all the responses everyone, much appreciated and every single post here contains info I find extremely useful. I’m determined to make something good come of this!
@joebegly I think the problem with the weightlifting analogy is that faster guitar picking does not require more strength in the involved muscles. Instead, it requires you to fire opposing sets of muscles in a quicker succession - I think?
PS: I can lift all the pounds in this image:
