Hello from the sunny UK!

Introduce Yourself
#1

Hi folks - just sayin’ hello, found troys vids a fair while ago - but never got the time to setup a account till today!

Totally love this site and all of troy’s amazing work - it’s like nerdy guitar heaven.

I’ve been playing for 36 years - mainly shred , thrash and speed stuff, I could always play fast >12nps after my first year - but only this year have I figured out the perfect picking technique that covers all the bases for me - hopefully i’ll post a vid of it sooonish!

My fave guitarists are (in no particular order):

Yngwie Malmsteen, Paul Gilbert, Gary Moore and Robert Fripp.

My goal is to play 3 note per string runs across the 6 strings in one second - ala 18nps - I know unless I channel Shawn lane it’s gonna be difficult :stuck_out_tongue: - I can currently reach about 15nps ascending and 13 descending with my novel DWPS technique. I can also play Paul Gilberts trade mark swiping lick (sneaky huh!!) without swiping at 15nps. And it’s only taken me 36 years - hah :slight_smile:

Shabby!

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#2

Welcome! Wow it sounds like you are very fast already!
May I ask you why you have chosen the 18nps scale as an objective? Is it needed for some music you’d like to play, or is it a sort of athletic goal? Just curious :slight_smile:

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#3

Hiya Tommo - thanks for the warm welcome!

why have I chosen 18np/s as a goal - good question! with a number of reasons:

  1. I don’t play with a metronome - I just use the wall clock second hand to time my speed (hey! because I’m lazy!) so I can time 1 sec and see how many notes I’ve played and calculate the NPS speed - because it’s fast I can’t judge individual notes really accurately - just the number of strings played 1,2,3,4,5 or 6 when doing a scalar run - so it’s either 3,6,12,15 or 18nps per second!

  2. You don’t hear 18nps scalar runs very often - if at all - the closest I think I’ve heard so far is the fast ascending and descending run in Fuzz Universe - Paul Gilbert - tho that’s around 14nps I think. You don’t hear it very often because it’s damn tricky without solo momentum (meaning it’s usually part of a fast piece and not a start and stop on a dime thing that I’m after).

  3. I stumbled into economy picking about 10 years ago, it was a accident playing a mates acoustic whilst getting drunk thing - and I developed it for a few weeks. I totally loved it - start and stop on a dime, super high speed 16nps+, super clean and next to no “setup” or “momentum” needed, so it’s awesome for single player work with complex rhythms . Buuuut it has 2 major downfalls - i) no string skipping ii) That HORRIBLE triplet type feel it has - that’s impossible to get rid of. So I ditched that picking style along time ago, but I crave that simplicity, usability and speed that it has, so yeah 18nps it is!!

Shabby

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