How to easily measure peak picking speed

Playing Technique
#1

I was wondering, “how can I easily measure my peak picking speed?” It turns out to be extremely easy, and here is the trick (that I have likely rediscovered):

  1. Turn the metronome on your iPhone (or somewhere else) to 60bpm, with a loud click that will be heard in your recording.
  2. Set the camera to record in slow motion, and hold it in your left hand near the pick
  3. Using your right hand, pick as fast as you can, etc.
  4. Turn off the camera and the metronome.

Then, when you review the video footage, you’ll hear the metronome click (in slow motion), and you can easily count the number of notes until the next click. I guess hitting 13 or more is what one would want in terms of “make the hand rapidly flip back-and-forth.”

3 Likes
#2

Great tip!

Honestly, much slower than that is where I think the real bottleneck is. If you test people on raw hand speed with something simple like tapping on a table, most people can move their hands over 200bpm sixteenths no problem. It’s only when you put a guitar in their hands that they “can’t play fast”. And when that happens, the limit we’ve seen in “Technique Critique” posts drops super low, like 130bpm.

In general, when you’re learning a new motion, if you can’t do it at least 150-160bpm right away, even for only a few seconds, then our working assumption is that the player doesn’t have a “speed” problem, per se, they’re just not doing it right.