How much time do you need to get back up to speed?

Playing Technique
#1

Hi all,

I recently took a step back in my practice habits and decided to focus on single string patterns (which I rarely did). This was in part based on the Technique Critique section of this forum (the feedback on other players has been so helpful to me so far). I realized that I was rushing to play complex multi string licks while I still didn’t have the required speed on a single string.

With some metronome work and the “burst” technique, I could already see good progress after only two days. I saw that after a “proper” warm up (I’ll come to that later), I could reach 180bpm, even 200bpm with some easier patterns.

My problem is, when I wake up the day after, I pick up my guitar and I realize that I have lost all that speed. After that, I require some intensive metronome work to get back up to speed again.

Is it normal that it is taking me so long to reach my (current) top speed? Or will this time decrease if I keep practicing on a single string before going to the multi string stuff?

In general, do you guys think that fast players spend time warming up behind the stage or do you think that they have their top speed available on demand?

Is anybody experiencing something similar? And for those who experienced it and overcame it, what do you recommend?

Thanks in advance! \m/

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My 3 week review
Does Warmup Time Decrease with Experience
#2

I think you’ll find its far more common than you think. I believe the vast majority of top players do a significant warmup backstage before playing a show. In Rock Discipline, Petrucci talks about how a good warmup should be an essential part of your practice routine every day.

If you check out my vid in this thread, My picking technique - UWPS with a downward slant? - I certainly can’t just wake up, pick up the guitar and play like that. I need to stretch and massage my hands and fingers, and build up to it over ~20 mins or so. (I sometimes even need to do some cardio exercises to get the blood flowing…)

I was in the same position as you a couple of years ago, i decided to work on single string speed. One thing that helped me improve consistency was to not just practice short bursts at speed, but also sort of stamina exercises where I’ll try and pick consistently cleanly for a full minute or so, and also try to raise the speed I can do this with the metronome. (actually setting certain thrash songs as goals helped me with this - like trying to play Metallica’s Fight Fire with Fire all the way through, which was a b*tch). This can really help make sure you have a relaxed technique too, because it will be impossible to maintain for such a long time otherwise.
I really started seeing improvement when I started practicing both the burst method and stamina method together. But I will always do a proper warm up before playing, I don’t think that’s ever going to change.

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#3

I’ve heard many guitarists say that they warm up for about an hour before every show. I mostly have to warm up to get my fretting hand and two hand synchronization in shape, the picking alone seems to be much faster to get up to speed.

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#4

I wondered the same as you, and it seems that warming up is inevitable.
My personnal warm up (which is still going on improvement with time) is: ten minutes on left hand legato all over the neck (especially down, for big stretches) hammers-on and pulls-off. the goal is to find the good balance, get every note audible whitout putting too much tension with your fingers and getting hurt. then ten minutes on strumming, single string picking, and then synchronize both hands and rise speed progressively.

I’ve seen somewhere that Matias Kupiainen (guitarist of Stratovarius) was training himself three times before a show. 20 minutes each time practicing, then a break (maybe 5-10 minutes, I should verify) and so on.

For those who don’t know him, He is an extra multi-skilled musician. Great composer and shred killer (go check out NEMESIS Album. Worth it.)

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#5

Good to know I’m not the only one :slight_smile:

Things that require most warmup for me are twps and timing in economy/sweep picking. One way pickslanting (without sweeping) seems to require less warmup.

I wonder what @Troy does to warmup before recording his ripping stuff!

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#6

In the fretting hand, or the picking hand, or in terms of coordination between the hands? I think warming up the fretting hand is the main thing, particularly for the purpose of injury prevention. As for the picking hand, I’m a forearm rotation dwps guy, and I can tremolo pick pretty much at my max speed cold and not feel any ill effects the next day. I think my coordination for simple six-note-per-string stuff is pretty close to my max cold, but I’d be concerned about developing some kind of RSI in my fretting hand/arm over time if I didn’t warm up.

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#7

I think warming up is the proper and smart thing to do for the reasons you guys are mentioning.

As long as I don’t go a while without playing I have no problem picking the guitar up and going full throttle. Everybody’s different. I’ve heard Yngwie Malmsteen say he never warms up. Full throttle, man. Turn it to 11. Lol.

Just do enough warm up to limber your hand muscles up and burn :bear:

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#8

For me it’s something like (depressingly) two hours with a metronome before I can even pick a single note cleanly at 160 16ths (even though i can trem pick right out of the gate at 220+, that seems to be a different mechanic).

Admittedly, I’ve only been back at the axe for a month, but my hammer/pull slurred lines are already at “don’t care, I can play as fast as I want” speed and I never, ever practice those. Picking is my bane.

So don’t worry, you’re not the only one that needs to warm up. :wink:

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#9

Definitely the fretting hand. The picking hand is doing fine since the beginning of the session, and it only gets better as I warm up.

Thank you all for the answers. I realize that this is a more common problem than I thought. I am not even sure that I can call it a problem anymore.

I have been watching thousands of videos over the years and I was always thinking that most good players can simply pick up a guitar and start shredding instantly. Maybe this is not the case after all. I should accept warming up as an essential part of guitar playing.

#10

My favorite quote from The Practice of practice is ‘Talent is practice in disguise’ : )

Pros make it look easy… but they don’t show you all the work they had to do first to make it easy…

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#11

Joe Satriani talks about soaking his forearms in hot water as part of his pre-show warmup.

#12

Can you go hit your 1 rep max on dead lifts with zero warm up? Probably not.

Can you play your max speeds on guitar with zero warm up? Probably not.

Does the amount of time it takes for you to get warmed up to your higher speeds diminish over time? With consistent practice, yes.

We all have off days too. Some days I can play better than others. Happens to everyone.

All the shred heroes people look up to are still people themselves. They’ve put in insane amounts of work to do what they do, and will still make mistakes and have off days. And, of course, they still practice.

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#13

Dude, explore the “that seems to be a different mechanic” part of your statement.

As far as I’m concerned, “fast” one-way pickslant alternate picking is tremolo picking. THERE IS NO SPOON! :upside_down_face: :upside_down_face: :upside_down_face:

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#14

I did for a while. I got to the point where I could play Rusty Cooley-style sevens and fives at a pretty fast clip, with decent string changing (I think it was DWPS hyperspeed picking?).

Issue is, it’s a bit tense and I have never been able to make that mechanic work at speeds lower than about 180bpm – I’d much rather have a unified picking mechanic that goes up to 200bpm than have a gaping hole where a lot of thrash songs sit. :wink:

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#15

I don’t do anything specific for warmup, and frankly the whole subject has always been a bit of a mystery to me. Some days you pick up the guitar and everything feels fine immediately. Other days you play for an hour before things feel loose, and other days it never gets there. And everything in between. Because I have no attention span for anything academic, especially when there’s no guarantee of results, I just play whatever it is I picked up the guitar to play, until it feels loose.

We would love to know more about what is actually happening on the physical level that causes some days to feel different than others. And following this, we’d like to know if there are some warmup ‘routines’ that reliably produce better results than others.

One data point: of all the interviews we’ve done, I can’t recall any player who appeared to use a warmup routine other than what you might call “improvising for a little bit”. Some of these players may have done some playing beforehand, so we can’t know for sure. But in some cases, like the recent Batio interview, we know he didn’t because this was something we actually discussed. It was also 30 degrees F that day in NYC, and I helped him carry his stuff in from outside. He just sat down and was ready to go.

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#16

To the point of the original question, and on the subject of ‘developing speed’ in general, ‘loss of speed’ is not something I’ve experienced. I feel like my maximum speed, whatever it may be, and however we might measure it, hasn’t changed much in a long time. I may be closer or farther from it on various days based on factors that are not clear. But this is not something I pay too much attention to, because almost nothing we do for our stuff here depends on hitting certain metronome markings.

If what you’re really saying is you appear to need varying degrees of warmup on certain days, totally - this is common. Human performance is highly variable for sometimes inexplicable reasons. Athletes in Olympic-style sports which depend almost entirely on physical conditioning, and who do everything right under highly controlled conditions, can still have dramatically off days. Clearly there is some set of factors that even the most regimented routines don’t yet control for.

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#17

It’s funny you mention this, Troy: After complaining that I need two hours of warmup to feel loose earlier in this thread, I sat down this morning and instantly had it all. I even had hyperspeed picking stuff ready to go that I haven’t practiced in over a year. Very strange.

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#18

For me there’s a mental/physical component to it, if I go to the gym early in the day and do some cardio I tend to feel more awake and alert when I pick up my guitar and find I play better than on mornings I didn’t make it to the gym. Some warm up is involved either way (I tend to do it anyway as I had wrist problems a few years back I’m keen to avoid) but it always seems to go faster on gym days.

#19

I think it’s interesting how speed on an instrument isn’t QUITE like a max effort lift.

For example, no one can deadlift 600 pounds but NOT lift 400 pounds, but I think people fairly often find themselves in the situation Eric describes where they have a technique that works at higher speeds, and are ok at lower speeds, but there’s a big hole in the middle.

I certainly have the same thing with double kick drumming, there’s a technique that works for 16ths over about 190/200 ish, and the basic sort of thing anyone would do if they just sat down at a pair of pedals (i.e. mashing your legs up and down fast) works up to about 140/150, but there’s this nasty range in between that is an absolute nightmare, in which you somehow have to work out how to move your legs but also not move your legs at the same time.

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#20

I agree on that. Its the same for me with techniques in a certain tempo. It is easier for me to do tremolo picking at 140 bpm than lower, and so on for different pattern.

What I feel is that work metronome to improve speed seems to not be the only way to progress. It’s more about learning a very specific skill by repetition, you’ll be able to do it as you learned it, but not systematically faster or slower.

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