Minimum speed to for "fast" practice

Playing Technique
#1

I’m learning a mandolin bluegrass-y solo with a target speed of 154 BPM (all picked sixteen notes with double escaping). I can play it very sloppily at the target speed. I wonder how much I can reduce the speed while being in “fast” mode so I can polish the mistakes while keeping the same motion and not switching to a different one.

I remember @Troy mentioning something like 130 BPM as the barrier for string-hopping technique. Is that a safe bet?

Edit: I’m finding that at 135-140 BPM the movements all feel different even for the left hand. I think I need to stay really close to the target in this case. I’m also attempting it at 160 BPM and it’s not a lot more sloppy than 154 BPM.

I’m still interested in your thoughts about this though!

#2

I recall @Troy typically referring to 150bpm sixteenths as the starting point for fast playing.

Conversely, I don’t see a lot of DBX playing happening at much above 150bpm - 160bpm sixteenths. Even the song considered by many to be a benchmark of DBX playing, Steve Morse’ Tumeni Notes, is approximately 200bpm playing eighth note triplets, which is equivalent to 150bpm sixteenths.

I’m not sure if maybe there is a different standard for DBX playing as opposed to single escape playing? I’m very interested to hear Troy’s thoughts as well.

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#4

Thanks. I’m talking about playing a melody with different notes across adjacent strings (no string skipping). Like most bluegrass playing, it can’t be adapted to a single escaped technique. Maybe some parts of it, but not the harder parts.

The slower tempo where I can play perfectly it’s definitely a different motion on both hands. If I learnt one thing thanks to CTC is that you can’t learn how to run by walking.

That’s why I’m trying to find the slowest “fast” motion and take it from there. And I remembered there were some rough figures been thrown around.

#5

That’s a question I had too, I’m glad you asked it and it’s getting some views. I’ve been curious myself how much crosspicking or string skipping would influence what’s considered ‘fast’ when it comes to sussing out an efficient motion for that style of playing.

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#7
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#8

I don’t know, I never tried. I know that I’ve spent 30 years trying to learn how to run by walking (on guitar practice) and I could never even THINK of playing 150 BPM 16-notes. Cracking the Code fixed that for me!

#12

I interpreted what Andy said in the video a little bit differently than you did. I took it that he only slows it down long enough to get a motion that feels smooth, then he floors it again to see if it works at speed. I didn’t get the impression that he is slowing it down and then bumping up the metronome until it’s at the speed he needs.

There isn’t any need to be passive-aggressive. We’re all here to learn from the materials on the site and from each other. @stormymondays not being interested in shred doesn’t necessarily mean that he hasn’t used the method that he proposed or benefited from the information. A large portion of the materials on this site are not shred oriented.

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#13

Thanks @MyAudioDNA - that’s the video where Troy mentiones the ballpark figure to “start with speed”: 150 - 160 BPM.

I also remember he has mentioned a few times in the forum that there really is a BPM barrier for inefficient motion (string hopping). That’s the other ballpark figure I’m interested in knowing, if it exists!

#14

The start with speed video–while generally applicable-- was made in the context of linear runs / tremolo picking. It’s trivial to get 150 bpm going there, so that’s a good aim.

You can test the actual limit yourself: put on a metronome and tap 4 times per beat on the table top. How fast can you go? That’s your limit for ‘stringhopping’. For me that’s about 110 bpm. At that speed I start to tire pretty quickly and the sync will suffer.

There’s nothing special about the muscles / nerves we use for picking motions so this limit is basically ‘how fast can you re-use the same muscle’. In stringhopping the limiting factor is precisely this re-use of one muscle (even though more than one muscle might be involved, this is the bottleneck).

People are different so there might be slight variations on this limit, which is why you see someone saying aim for 130 bpm or more. I’ve done that a lot myself, but that’s often in the context of DBX motions where the lines are much harder to execute. It would be just as viable to aim for 150 bpm on these lines, but I personally find it more enjoyable to work on something I can almost do than something that’s the right motion but sounds really bad. The important thing in all this is to force an efficient motion!

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#16

Oh, and a side topic: Is anybody else into “cross-training” (as Troy called it) or motor learning transfer (which I think is the technical term)? It seems to be working for me between mandolin and guitar (which is my main instrument). Although I’m still in that “I can almost ride a bike” phase with my double escape bluegrass picking.

#19

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#21

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#22

It’s only “trivial” if you’ve found a technique that works.

But that search for the technique…finding it and getting it to work…that’s not a trivial thing. :smile:

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#23

I’m genuinely interested in @Troy’s take on the subject at hand, so I hope we can get this thread back on track and he will chime in. We have two differing opinions and that’s fine. I’m interested in whether or not there is different minimum fast speed for DBX as opposed to the single escape motions.

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#24

Nobody knows! Nobody has lab-tested numbers for this, myself included. So what’s important to keep in mind here is the concept. When you’re trying to figure out how to do a physical skill you don’t yet possess, you have no idea if you’re doing it correctly, even if you have good instructions. So the only way to know you’re on the right track is if you can at least do a sloppy version of the target activity in a range of speed where someone who has the skill would typically use it. So that’s really it! That’s all we know.

So in practical terms, what’s the phrase? What tempo do experts typically play it at? That’s the tempo. Molly Tuttle’s “White Freightliner” is like mid 140s. So that’s a good ballpark. Single escape lines most people can easily do faster than that. It’s not that it’s a minimum, it’s just a common range where people would do the skill. Not a world-record attempt, just something representative where using the correct form would be more obvious because you wouldn’t be able to do it otherwise.

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#25

Thanks! That’s a great bit of advice. I’m working in White Freightliner too and trying the “Beaumont roll” on the mandolin as well :slight_smile:

#26

Also, guys, including @Insanefury, I’ve interacted with both of you here and you have shown yourselves to be reasonable people. But I’ll be honest I don’t like the turn this thread has taken with the name calling (e.g. “childish”). I know we’re all human and I can’t ask you all to suddenly become robots when you’re commenting here, but you do always have the choice to disengage / not respond / de-escalate. I’d appreciate if you go that route in the future!

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#27

I think I might as well delete the topic, if that’s alright with everyone.

#28

I think that the technical part of the discussion you started has value!

But of course I agree with @Troy that we are not fans of personal attacks and name calling, and we are always for de-escalation (which I know can be frustrating when one feels attacked). We have quite clear guidelines on how to “keep it civil”:

We have not deleted any of the posts above, but if anyone feels like deleting posts that are not helpful to the discussion, please go ahead :slight_smile:

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#29

Yeah similar. This was a good conversation before it went aggro.

@insanefury, I think @stormymondays he was being pretty plain about not quite being there yet. And dismissing him / others as self-proclaimed experts in an echo chamber was uncalled for. That’s kind of where this went off the rails.

If it’s too annoying to weed out the bickering that’s fine, we can delete the thread. This topic will arise again as it always does.

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