Help me get started!

Technique Critique
#35

This is good. I feel like you’re going for it here and pushing it, and we can hear that some things are ever so slightly off, but we don’t know what they are. That’s great. If you spend your entire time in the polite zone you’ll never see these things, and you will have no idea what to work on or fix. If you film yourself from a more down the strings angle, in slow motion, you will be able to take a vague statement like “loses clarity” and attach specifics to it. Do that. Figure out what precisely is happening here that you don’t like, and correct it.

Also, I don’t love the short bursty phrases where you play the one string and then a single note on another string. From what I’ve seen here on the forum, when players practice tiny snippets like this, they often change the movement to something other than the one they’re trying to practice. That’s counterproductive and not helping you learn to make the correct movement habitual. Again, the camera is your friend. Film those takes and the longer ones and you may see that they look different. For now, I’d simply say stick with the slightly longer phrases, they look and sound smoother.

You can’t “neglect a pickslant”. Pickslanting is your picking movement. If it changes, it’s because you are changing it. Think about it. If you use a supinated arm, then to have “no pickslant” you would actually need a diagonal movement of your wrist - just a different one. If you find yourself doing this, this means that out of 360 degrees of possible motion choices, you are actively switching your picking movement the one diagonal wrist movement that happens to line up with the strings. This is not an accident, and it’s not any easier than choosing some other angled motion path like downward pickslanting. They are all just various angled wrist movements. The point of all this practice is to choose one of those paths and make it habitual.

1 Like
#36

I am back to give this chop building another go :slight_smile: i have brought back the tempo a bit because of my long break in speed practice… i really want to get the single string licks to 125-130bpm comfortably…

My goal is to play Fire and Ice by yngwie, which is why i have also included the 3 string sweep here. Funnily enough, this seems a little easier than the 6 note pattern to me

Sorry about the pulloffs with the 6 note pattern… the help me to ‘get it going’ I guess. Id eventually lile to eliminate this requirement and go from 0 to 100mph at the drop of a hat ala Vai in the Crossroads performance but for npw they are helpful.

1 Like
#38

Not the cleanest… but trying to embrace the MAB/Troy suggestion of just going for it at speeds outide the comfort zone :slight_smile: all in the name of practice right

1 Like
#39
1 Like
#40

yeah, Fire and Ice is about 120 bpm so those sextuplets end up at 12notes per second. Thats interesting because I remember about a year or two ago, thinking about that opening line as something I wanted to learn. I SHOULD be able to do it now because I have worked that 6 note pattern quite a bit and can get it up to 13nps or maybe a tad faster. of course “should be able” doesnt always work out lol.

I like this advice by Kiko L on building speed.

Pushing to play as fast as possible, or slightly out of your comfort zone is ONE aspect of getting faster.

Notice how its the THIRD thing he mentions. Not the first. The first word out of his mouth is “play very slowly” lol.

Joe Stump also advocates that “aerobic” type of practice where u play at a comfortable speed. Not slow enough so u fall asleep, but not so fast that u are straining and making mistakes. Eventually the technique becomes smoother and speeds can gradually increase

I think the main point being that the fast guys have things really grooved and its pretty much tension free. This is where the slower practice and the “comfortable” practice comes into play. You learn to gradually play faster while remaining relaxed and not making mistakes

The “push it faster even if you make some mistakes” is good for experimenting to try to find ways to increase efficiency and try different methods, but personally I wouldnt overdo that method. If u continually practice mistakes then u get good at …making mistakes.

On this Yngwie 6 note pattern, id definitely finish my practice with the cleanest, smoothest, most relaxed version you have for about 5-10 minutes or whatever (150-200ish reps).

The next day it should feel that much cleaner and smoother. Dont finish off the practice session by straining and busting a gut trying to “play fast” at all costs. You dont want to groove a high tension method or technique.

Notice how Kiko says that after a certain amount of time at a smooth comfortable speed, that when u do increase back up to max speed that it will feel different. I think he is basically saying that as you groove a smooth relaxed technique you open the door for higher top speeds.

Im pretty sure some good clean reps will also help u get rid of that nervous habit of “getting going” with those pulloffs lol.

#41

Great, thanks for the advice man.

I do practice these types of thing at nore comfortable speeds also, they just haven’t been recorded for a while

Also, how cool and zen is Kiko :sunglasses:

1 Like
#42
1 Like