Stumbled across this while on YouTube, haven’t watched it all yet but this part really jumped out at me, so I had to share it here:
When discussing how Yngwie built his technique they get to a point at 12:31 where the interviewer (or possibly a Steeler member) asks this:
Interviewer: “Practice slow, you feel like- practicing slow and building up?”
Yngwie: “And build up? I never did that.”
He built his speed because of the tape player speeding up the tape on accident from the one in the studio, and the one in his house.
He did build it up, but he didn’t know he was doing it.
Great conversation. Don’t have time to listen to all this right now, but there’s a ton of stuff in here that suggests a much more experimental and diverse range of stuff than the slow, methodical, “exercises” mentality we grew up with. He’s basically commenting on interleaved / random practice, which is a thing that science has tested quite a bit but that musicians have been slow to adopt. Which is weird considering that you had people like Yngwie actually telling you to do it in 1983, and his abilities were considered practically magical at the time. Why wouldn’t players and educators have listened to him, or at least investigated further?
Technique in this clip is off the charts and sounds amazing. That bit around 14:40 or so. He would been an awesome slow-motion interview in 1983 for sure.
Couldn’t agree more!
A couple of others things that really stood out to me was him showcasing that he knows he doesn’t pick everything, saying that he doesn’t play “right”… I get what he means but WHAT! 
Also it’s the first time I’ve ever heard him name Uli Jon Roth and Al Di Meola as his two biggest influences which I feel gives his playing a lot more context. Before, I didn’t understand how a player as distinctive as Yngwie could seemingly just emerge out of nowhere but now he makes perfect sense
I believe his perfect pitch is what helped him get faster, because in the interview I linked he was building up speed on top of speed utilizing a method. But he didn’t realize it, however if you have perfect pitch, you already know how to speak music very clearly, so speeding it up over and over even if micro adjustments that wouldn’t be much harder. But nevertheless he did build it up, unlike what he had stated in 1983.
I think random to an extent, he still randomly pieces together fragments, and phrases or he does it on purpose from his minds imagination. Truly random in my mind would be synesthesia territory. And even using the term random might be the wrong way to think about it because in his mind it might not be random, he knows where he wants to go unless he is trying to be random. But even still if he is hitting the right notes how can that be random?
I’m not referring to improvisation, I’m referring to practice. Randomized or interleaved practice is when you don’t just practice one exercise until you master it. It’s when you play a wide variety of things and jump around between them, as Yngwie is describing in the clip. There is a lot of neuro research that suggests that random or interleaved approaches work well for learning physical skills.
Plus practicing one thing to perfection is boring.
The only instance I can find of him discussing perfect pitch is from this interview:
And although he says he has perfect pitch he then goes on to describe relative pitch 
"IC: People have been wondering – do you have perfect pitch?
YM: I do. It’s funny because my tennis teacher sometimes hits the tennis racket and goes ‘what note is this?’ and I joke around and say ‘it must be an F#.’ I’d say that I do, but it’s kind of a weird thing at the same time. Relative pitch I have for sure – 1 million percent. Basically, what I do when I sit around watching the TV or something (and I also have the Marshall and my guitars here) and if a commercial comes on or whatever I’ll just pick my guitar up and play what I hear from one time. That’s pretty much the same thing as perfect pitch. But if I was to stand in front of a piano and you hit the note, I might or might not say the right note. What I’m saying is, if you sing a melody, I can play it back at the same time."
I can agree with that as this is something that would crop up from time to time in the gym, we called it muscle confusion. I believe Arnold utilized this sort of concept as do alot of weightlifters or powerlifters. Because in that realm that I probably have had more years in after a period of time the normal routines just start plateauing, and you got to start adding or switching things up. But this is why in that realm you need to keep very meticulous records of food intake, and routines so you can reflect what has been working and what doesnt.
This is not the same thing. You’re not trying to “learn” bench press, you already know how to do bench press. Yes, there are variations in form and some people have better form. But people don’t go to the gym for years and years so that one day they will learn to successfully perform the bench press. They’re trying to get the muscles to grow.
The idea of the interleaving is to help you figure out really complicated movements that you don’t know how to do. It takes large amounts of trial and error across a wide variety of phrases to do this. That’s why the advice is to mix up lots of different phrases.
Have you ever done research on how auctioneers develop their speed, or if they do?
I would assume it is probably something passed down. Like the micromachine guy, or really fast rappers.
I am not sure what you mean here I don’t see picking a guitar string with a pick any more complicated than performing a proper clean and press. Or heck even varying the fingers in different positions, but maybe we aren’t seeing things the same, and the words aren’t lining up cause they are just words. But I don’t mean they are the same thing weightlifting an music, I just mean the concept to start doing random things to get a different muscle striation hit to grow the muscle better.
By this I mean say I am trying to get faster at this USX stuff well gypsy sorta uses this concept so if I go and learn some of the phrases over here, maybe if I come back I might develop my picking with the USX electric realm a bit better. Switching it up. But yes interleaving these phrases with each other helps between the gypsy jazz realm and the electric usx phrasing helps, this can definitely help technique. I see it everyday.
Furthermore no amount of interleaving is going to get you faster like how he did it through microadjusting the speed. He listened, audiated, and played at the same tempo whether if it was .005 percent faster, he was still building it up in microadjustments whether he realized it or not in the moment. Otherwise he would be as fast if not faster than some of the really faster players. And maybe you are partly right, maybe it takes interleaving as well as microspeed adjustments to actually build up the bodies ability to go at that speed naturally.
So whoever the relative was we owe him a great deal of respect for him helping Lars Lannerback get better secretively. I mean they probably knew what they were doing helping him get better. You can change speed in DAWs in microadjustments. So the question remains was there a way to microadjust speeds with older recording equipment or was it really just a fluke.
This is a great find. I’m not surprised that Malmsteen developed this way. He’s said in countless interviews, that he never “practiced”… he just “played”.
The fact that he says he never deliberated played one figure, lick, etc. over and over also is incredibly intuitive. Sure he may not have repeatedly played ONE picking sequence, or one legato sequence over and over, but he played all different kinds of figures incorporating those techniques.
The brain learns and keeps developing, but never becomes bored or stale. It almost ensures continual progress.
The playing at 14:40 is truly amazing. To get an idea of just how good Yngwie was at that age, don’t just listen to how fast it is (answer = very fast), slow it down to 25% and listen to how cleanly he executes the runs.
The ease with which he plays at that speed as well is quite rare in my view.
I learned awhile ago that the phrase “Jack of all trades master of none” was acually used in a positive context. Meaning you have a wide skillset and are a handy man.
But over time it picked up a negitive connotation?
Does he have perfect pitch? I didn’t know
“A jack of all trades and master of none, is many times better than a master of one.”