How to get faster, when you are not slow anymore

Playing Technique
#34

Let’s start the day cranking up the metronome to 140 bpm without warming up to try descending 6s. It equals to playing 16th notes on 210 bpm. It’s a swipefest but I think it sounds okay. I can do a few reps of this. Position shift with the fretting hand is the next challenge, I want to get that sorted.

I really hope that will happen what you are saying, at least some improvement so I’ll be closer to play consistently near 200 bpm. I give it 2 years, but of course it’s impossible to estimate this kind of things.

Edit: I also tried playing 6 string 3nps scales on this tempo. Well, it’s sloppy, but (maybe I have a lucky day) I don’t feel any tension at all in my picking hand.

Newbie - concrete boots
#35

That’s part of your experimentation. Play the whole thing and stop. Or cycle small chunks of it in one long loop.

To me, @tommo ‘s advice makes sense for beginners: when you start in bursts, it can easily be a different picking motion than you would in a longer stream of notes. It’s a completely different signal in your nervous system. I’ve been doing bursts and have noticed a specific set of conditions I need to set up to have them work, which would be a lot to take on for a real beginner. For more advanced players who have achieved speed, they’re good.

Isn’t it lucky for us that you’re no longer a beginner? :slight_smile:

Did you say “picked up in October”? Am I reading this right, you’ve been playing less than a year? If so, and based on some other prior comments, here is some actual advice, which I would like you to thoughtfully consider:

You are playing better than most players, at least technically. It is far too early to judge anything. You need to be constant and disciplined and loose and attentive in your approach, proud of what you’ve done, humble in what you know still remains to do, happy to keep hacking at it! Perfect is great, but perfectionism is not — at least for me, perfectionism was my weak ego trying to shore itself up, showing everyone that I could do something, look at how good I am, etc. The most important thing for this kind of practice: just keep showing up. Tied for first place with that: pay attention to what is going on, and keep evolving your process. Not “I can’t”, but “I haven’t quite found it yet.”

“I’m 34.” Sheesh. I’m 48, and have made big technical strides in the last few months.

Cheers! jz

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#36

Those 6s sound great, swipe or not they will sound great in a mix.

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#37

@jzohrab I’ve played about 1.5 years when I was 15 and stopped for 8-9 years completely. I played roughly an other year again and put down the instrument again due to lack of progress and personal stuff. I couldn’t ever pass through the 110 bpm barrier despite practicing hours and hours and trying to increase my speed 1 notch at a time. My playing was also full of tension. I got really frustrated. I picked up the guitar again last October to give it an other try. So in total, it’s around 3 years now with two gaps lasting almost a decade each :joy:

I’m happy with my progress and I feel motivated nowadays. I pick up the guitar every day (I have roughly 1 cheating day/month though) but my practice routine got very different since February when my rapid progress happened. I don’t warm up for hours or anything, just start cracking on with stuff, playing licks I want to master and alternate between them, and I rarely play a single thing for a long time. I put down the guitar, pick it up again during the day, and so on. It works better than what I’ve done before February… Sitting 5-6 hours, without any real progress and struggling on slow tempos.

#38

Ah super, great you came back as I bet you have a lot to offer.

Totally off topic, but WTH: I have a similar trajectory, time spans different: I played when I was 15 or so and knew enough to impress non-musicians. Then went on into my late teens when I just piled on the tension to hit moderate speeds for some flashy licks. But it was all musically empty and I couldn’t get past the limited technique, so I pretty much stopped played. I picked up piano again in mid-30’s, and had some problems with that: lots of tension (LOTS), limited technique. Hacked at it. Quit. Picked piano up again later and stumbled into some relaxation/technique gurus, made some good progress – not great but a good start. Learned a bunch of practice techniques. Then started picking up guitar again, trying to break through technical barriers, play different things … found CtC and other great players, tried to do technique work, still stuck! Finally thought of applying the piano relaxation methods to guitar and it worked really well, documented in this thread. And here we are! Cheers! jz

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#39

So I’m not the only one who could never really get rid of the desire to learn to play the instrument above the beginner level. Yes, it’s been haunting me since I’ve picked up the guitar the first time. I remember my first year, I was using my elbow and everyone told me not to do so, but on top of that, I tried to move my wrist at the same time and I couldn’t do it so my entire arm got super tense and it really looked like butchering the instrument :smiley: It was slow as well.

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#40

Exactly. Partly to satisfy a craving, partly to get a sense of closure or completion for an unsolved problem, partly to somehow get past an Imposter Syndrome. I tried to build a lot of identity around guitar and in some ways succeeded, but it was never solid. I also read somewhere — paraphrasing — “if you like X so much, you have a responsibility for it.” I kind of feel that way, but it’s a nice responsibility. All way off topic! Z

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#41

In the meantime, new post in my thread This dying soul final unison practice diary

Maybe I’m just hallucinating, but I can feel some improvement in my picking, it feels loose and doesn’t become tense at this speed.

Paying attention to my thumb tension in the last week is a definite game changer, my picking feels so much more relaxed now.

#42

I am also 34, I think you’re fine. That being said, I’ve had to take it easy for the past few weeks because I injured my picking hand from pushing myself way too fast, way too soon. I’m not at the level you are, but I was determined to get my raw tremolo speed to 16ths at 210 and that did me in because like you, I saw some huge gains in a short period of time once I started using CtC. I can do 180-190 for raw tremolo picking on one string and I had to tell myself that was enough, for now.

To backup my point - I do believe it was in the pop tarts lick intro video where Troy was talking about making that break through that he was very likely playing it slower than he is able to at his current level, but that he was just happy to have made that leap. The increase in speed over time for him may have been gradual and not this automatic jump to where he is now speed wise.

With everything I’ve watched of your stuff it’s really good dude. I think it’s great that you want to push yourself, but maybe ask yourself if these last 10-20 bpm is something that will come in time and to just keep at it.

I personally stopped with the metronome and practice the stuff on my level as fast as is comfortable, with sprint intervals. I get a little more tight / accurate / comfortable everyday. I’ll revisit the metronome every few weeks as it relates to this kind of practice just to see where I’m at, but I’m just happy I’m able to play at the level I’m at now. It’s better than I was before, that’s for sure.

This may be obvious, but try changing your playing situation. Meaning, play standing up, play unplugged so you can really hear every mistake, stuff like that. I’ll be practicing ascending 6s plugged in and if I don’t want to stop playing, I’ll put my guitar strap on and go out to my living room and practice unplugged.

I have no doubts you’re going to get to those speeds you desire, but consider letting your new abilities incubate for a minute.

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#43

Sorry to hear about your injury. I’ve seen your thread about recovering, good to hear you are okay now.

I also rarely use the metronome nowadays and spend most of my time rather picking up the guitar randomly, playing some songs I’ve been only dreaming about before and doing them relatively effortlessly, all standing up (which was my other breakthrough in March after realising I can’t even pick a single string with confidence after standing up, even I could play scales, licks at 180-190 after February but only while sitting). I just enjoy doing this so much, giving a concert to myself and to the neighbours (through the window of course :joy:) in my living room. I also invite friends/neighbors on weekends to perform these songs to them, and I can do this now without messing up everything constantly.

Answering the question whether I need that 20 bpm extra jump I can confidently say: yes, I do. How I’m tackling this is that I do intervals of a few licks I want to play above 200+, for short periods, without warming up and just putting down the instrument for a few hours between these intervals.

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#44

I know what you mean about really enjoying it. Personally, I was in a bit of a rut for a year and some change and didn’t play much. I did some touring and recording and it just burned me out. When EVH passed it snapped me out of it, which is odd considering I’m not a huge Van Halen fan. I dig their stuff, I just don’t have them on regularly. More than that, I respect the player he is and the dude just always looked like he was having a great time playing. Anyways, I admitted to myself that I’d like to be able to shred and here I am.

It sounds like you have a good routine for pushing your limits, so considering how quickly you’ve become really good with playing fast stuff I’d be surprised if you weren’t at those levels within a month. I’ve mainly be lurking during the healing process, but your videos and back story are really motivating for me, especially since we are around the same age. Keep it up!

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#45

@jzohrab @gabrielthorn @joebegly @PickingApprentice sorry I’m a bit late to the party :sweat_smile::sweat_smile:

In any case our current best advice for increasing speed is discussed in the thread below. Basically it’s about finding a way to translate your best table tapping performance into a picking motion. Troy followed the idea and was suddenly able to do a 250bpm tremolo, without going through any particular training routine:

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#46

Oh no, I could never translate any of those motions to the guitar :sweat_smile: The question is more about how to sustain those higher speeds.

#47

Funny you mention practicing quietly because I’ve made some of my best progress playing an unplugged electric just sitting in front of my TV and watching a movie. So is it true that it actually helps train your nervous system better to practice quietly?

#48

To be clear, I think that thread turned out to be not what I thought it was. I don’t think this method is how you “translate” table tapping speed to the guitar. Attempting to do so just accidentally helped us figure out that there are certain wrist motions, closer to flextension, that are super fast compared to the others.

i.e. The “translation” wasn’t really happening. This is just a tutorial for doing 1:00 (approximately) wrist motion on a guitar and getting really fast speeds. It probably only works for that motion.

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#49

I don’t have any special genetics for wrist motion or speed, and I can do it just fine. Anatomically speaking, I don’t see any reason why everyone couldn’t do this. You just have to be willing to use the right pick grip and try. Of course if you don’t try, I can guarantee, you’ll certainly “never” be able.

#50

I know there aren’t any special genetics involved here, I just have a little hard time understanding the terminology / small details sometimes, like different pick grips, the clock thing and which motion is 1:00, 3:00 and so on. There are some things I tried to imagine or understand so hard and still couldn’t do that. I keep re-watching those videos often and I hope one day I’ll have that “a-ha” moment.

Today I could sustain my tremolo for more than 2 bars, I call this a happy day.

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#51

(I don’t think this is off-topic, so adding to the thread)

Yes, I believe it is, but you’ll have to try it out for yourself and see how it goes.

First, you have to get the “idea of the motion” correct, if that makes sense. You can only get this through fast playing like CtC recommends, because fast playing is completely different than slow playing.

Once you have the idea, though, I think that trying different volumes is a great idea. Picking is a complex process involving tensing (excitation) and relaxing (inhibition) of muscles at precise times. (You can’t get that consciously, it’s too complicated, so you have to delegate that to the unconscious/reflexes.) When you first start playing, most people can get the “excitation” part quickly, because it’s easy and obvious, but the instantaneous relaxation is harder. By playing quietly, you’re actually regulating the amount of “excitation impulse” in your nerves, getting things more under control, and staying closer to a relaxed state. The regulation is the important thing.

Andy Wood talks about this a bit … he recommends playing with volume control. Play it loud, then back it off to quiet (pianissimo). They’re the same muscles, essentially, but different impulse strengths.

A great quote from Kochevitsky (https://www.amazon.ca/Art-Piano-Playing-Scientific-Approach-ebook/dp/B017O7R4SC):

Regulating the timing of successive movements of the pianist’s playing apparatus is one of the main problems in piano technique. Another is the regulation of tone volume. This ability must also be developed, and again the process of inhibition plays the main role in this regulation. We are familiar with the common occurrence of a student’s playing in recital much louder than he intended. Because of weakening of the inhibitory process as a consequence of nervous excitement, he loses his ability to regulate dynamics in his playing.

For strengthening the inhibitory process, I recommend practicing pianissimo, extremely evenly, in slow as well as in faster tempos. The student should also be able to regulate both sudden and gradual increase or decrease in volume in any section of the composition and in any conceivable tempo, The ability to do this, plus the ability to slow down and to stop at any given moment, is the best proof of proper balance between excitatory and inhibitory processes.

I feel those translate very well to guitar, once you have the basic ideas for a motion down.

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#52

I think that’s very interesting and I would love to hear more about it. Like you said it’s easy to know when you activate the Excitatory part of a motion, but how do you know when you’ve relaxed it or inhibitied it? I know I read somewhere on this exact thread or maybe some other thread on this forum that in order to stay relaxed when playing fast, it’s a combo of protagonistic muscles working/relaxing and antagonistic muscles working/relaxing. It would be cool to be able to identify this in my playing.

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#53

(Wherever you found that note in whatever thread, that’s correct, in my opinion.)

yeah, that’s a tougher problem than you’d think, I believe! (Terminology note: maybe “inhibition” isn’t a good term, b/c I don’t want to give the impression that another muscles “reins in” the first one … it’s simply the cessation of contraction … wonder if that’s a better phrase). A few ideas come to mind:

  • IMO the best place to start: you need to have a very clear understanding of what absolute relaxation feels like in your muscles everywhere. That can be tough, depending on lifestyle etc. (side note: I had tons of tension for years, and it took a while to understand it. I adapted some drills from piano relaxation gurus which have been great for me, check them out at http://youtube.com/watch?v=0w0Snc40ejY&t=1m47s – there’s a google doc in that video too, and I’d be super stoked if that was useful for you)
  • Just paying attention to your tension levels can be effective! But one trick to try is self-measuring and adjusting. Quoting from the google doc, during your practicing: “rate your tension in any body part on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is completely relaxed, and then see if you can let it go and drop to a lower number. For example, “I have some tension in my left shoulder, I’d say it’s about a 4, I’ll see if I can make it a 2.” This sounds very simple, but the idea of measuring it somehow makes it more tractable.”

Accumulated tension is pernicious and it’s important to get rid of it. “Relaxation” when playing is, to me, kind of a myth – Paul Gilbert doesn’t look relaxed, Guthrie G doesn’t look relaxed: they’re finely tuned and regulated machines – but it’s a handy term encapsulating things.

Also, re relaxation, mental relaxation is, to me, also very important. When you’re playing fast, your mind should be free and easy. Mental tension easily becomes physical tension. (Actually it might always be a precursor, I haven’t thought about that though.) You can track and rate your mental tension too. And you can even try mental practicing, and see how your mental tension goes.

Cheers! z