Well, here is the obligatory intro message. I’m nothing really special to speak of. My music education is through Berklee, but that is a while ago (I’m 47 now). I have always enjoyed Eric Johnson’s playing which is my main reason for joining the site. I can’t claim him as an influence because I’m largely a 3NPS guy. So, I started into the adventure of increasing my speed on two note per string scales. It is painful (mentally and to my ego) to only be able to muster 16th at 120bpm. Long long way to go. Anyone who has gone this path that may want to offer encouragement, fire away. Better yet, if you are in central Ohio area, maybe we can catch up.
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Hello Inducing Panic, nice to meet you. We’re similar in age as I’m 49 years old. It seems you were fortunate enough to have at least caught the tail end of what was our society’s golden age for hard rock and heavy metal. Most good sized cities had at least one club that specialized in featuring bands that specialized in state of the art guitar playing and in the hot spots of our country such as Tampa, FL which is where I was living then, we had a music scene that hasn’t been rivaled in any city in the world ever since then. Guitar virtuosity i rock hit a high point and then the grunge craze swept the nation bringing forth a new generation of guitarists - a generation in which you were lucky if the guitarist or guitarists in a band even played lead guitar at all. As Zakk Wylde commented to “Dimebag Darrell” backstage at one of the Ozzfest tours of the late 90s: “I think you and I are the only two guys on this tour capable of making it from to fist fret to the 22nd fret and back again without getting lost.”
You’re very lucky to have found this forum as it’s the best forum on the internet I’ve ever come across and that includes forums of all kinds - not just guitar forums. Troy Grady and Brendan Schlagel run this place and do a good job of it. You’ll find you can discuss almost anything guitar related without any interference from moderators as long as you’re respectful to others, treat others in a civil manner and if you find yourself in a debate remember to attack the argument and not the person making the argument.
You say you went to Berklee and it’s painful to only be able to muster 16th notes at 120 BPM so that leads me to my first question: Is that the fastest you’ve ever been able to play (even in your Berklee days) or is that simply the fastest speed you can currently muster despite having been able to play faster when you were at Berklee? I ask because if that’s only your current fastest speed but you could play, for example. 16th at 160 in your Berklee days then your prognosis is good. The principle of muscle memory dictates that it is much easier and much faster to regain speed you once had than to build speed you never had before. Were you aware of that principle?
What is your goal for, say, 6 months from now? At what speed would you like to be able to play 16th notes and approximately how many hours per week of practice time do you expect to have over the next six months?
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InducingPanic, welcome. Daniel, aged 49 years here. I second what Acecrusher has said here and I look forward to hearing your responses to his questions. Cheers.
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When I first discovered CtC, I watched “Cracking the Code -The Series”. I was blown away and wanted to apply everything I had just seen. I learned of the new concepts in the order they appear in the series, which means I learned about DWPS first. UWPS and TWPS came later.
Since I was already overwhelmed by DWPS, I decided to ignore everything else, at least for a while, and that was a very bad move. The reason is that DWPS in the Yngwie and Eric Johnson Style was not a good fit for what I had already been doing. While I did make some progress with things like the 6 note patternmy overall playing became worse. I just couldn’t play the stuff I used to anymore. And I am actually a professional guitar player, so that was really bad news. It took me quite a while until I noticed that I’m on the wrong track.
Also, it’s important not to get hung up on “DWPS vs. UWPS vs. TWPS”. I don’t know if you do, but if you mainly watch the Eric Johnson stuff, that I guess that could happen. What is more important, is to understand the different elements in guitar picking and how they interact. Then you can look at how you do it and go from there. You might find that your way of playing is not so bad for two note per string stuff, even though it might look very different from how Eric Johnson plays.
Anyway, my advice to you is to watch the video on picking motion and mechanics:
https://troygrady.com/channels/talking-the-code/introduction-to-picking-motion/
See you around!
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Welcome aboard Mark!
As already suggested the pickslanting primer is a great place to start.
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Hey there. No sir, I can play 3nps scales pretty quick. But I never really worked pentatonics for speed. I think it’s actually a little faster than 120 , but not much. They are an entirely inefficient way of playing fast, but I’m all in to figure this EJ sound out. I’ll set out to answer all those questions when I catch a break.
Since music doesn’t pay, I actually went to nursing school and work as an RN now. So I’m catching up between patients.
Ok, catching a break here. Firstly, thank you so much for all the great responses. I’m anxious to see what this forum has to offer in the months to come.
I would guess, though have not measured lately, that my 3nps scales are at 170 bpm…Ish. I was never, ever, the fastest guy around, but I managed. As I said above, I just never worked box scales for all out speed.
6 months, I would like to see 150bpm. I would guess I would dedicate (with my full time job) investing about 10 -12 hours a week on technique.
At present, I have it broke down to 16ths between two notes on a string. Then 16ths going to the outside of the b and e string. Targeting the basic element and the hardest movement. If you can’t do those two things fast, the rest doesn’t matter.
Thoughts as always appreciated. I’m back to work.
Welcome to the forum chief!!
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