I'm FINALLY able to increase speed and accuracy! At least I think so

Technique Critique
#1

Hi guys,

I have been using a new way to practice lately and it has been quite fruitful. I warm up and then do speed bursts. I followed the advice I saw on a Martin Miller video in which he said something about needing to “play fast to stimulate your brain to figure it out”. Troy has mentioned the same thing here too. I have also incorporated chunking AND I played the piece in different ways (4 notes a beat, started with upstrokes instead of downstrokes). I wasted a couple years going really slowly thinking that I would somehow miraculously/magically speed up.

My original goal was to hit 6 notes/beat (is that 16ths?) at 110 bpm like Troy did in the Eric Johnson cascade fashion. I just hit 180 bpm at 4 notes a beat which translates to 118 bpm if we are playing six notes a beat.

My question:

  1. Can anyone see any problems with my technique? Does it look like my hand is tracking correctly?

ANY suggestions on my technique would be appreciated.

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#2

My thoughts, perhaps not in the most useful order but we’ll see:

Can you just do the picking against deadened strings? I’m asking because it isn’t sounding great but I can’t tell whether it’s a picking hand issue, a fretting hand issue, a hand sync issue, or simply an “unplugged electric guitar sounding like unplugged electric guitar” issue.

Try 90 click instead of 180 click, it’s better for your heart rate (this sounds like a joke but it isn’t really a joke, it’s definitely easier to “entrain” to a 90 click and you’ll feel more musical doing so).

Your left hand fingers look a bit flappy, i.e. they’re coming as far away from the fretboard in your fast attempts as they are in your slow attempts - there are some pretty good players out there who also can look a bit flappy on occasion so don’t get too hung up on it, but these two guys, for example:

have pretty economical left hands.

It shouldn’t take a lot more than thinking “I will not move my left hand fingers further away from the strings than I need to”. You can try playing as staccato as possible even at the slow speed, just through your fretting fingers, to get them used to arriving and departing a string at speed.

I think the double time jump in this case maybe isn’t too helpful, the slow part is too slow to require decent technique and then the fast part is a touch too fast, so maybe go for a slightly higher base tempo but then jump to time-and-a-half instead of double time.

Hope some of that is helpful.

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