Questions on how to practice using chunking

Playing Technique
#1

So I’ve been reading around the forum here about chunking and I’ve been having some trouble understanding exactly how to practice it and apply it to long fast licks to make them more manageable. I understand the basic concept of landmark pickstrokes and using those landmarks to keep the hands synchronized, but I was wondering on how exactly I should work on practicing with this concept.

Is it best to practice individual chunks of a lick separately up to speed (not slow)? Or would it be better to practice the lick as a whole, but pause in between chunks to ensure you hit the landmark pickstrokes correctly (still keeping the chunks up to speed and not slow)? Or would it just be best to practice the entire lick slowly but work on emphasizing the landmark pickstrokes and trying to mentally separate it into chunks? I’ve put many hours into practicing entire licks slowly, but not separating them into chunks, and it seems like that hasn’t given me much progress in terms of being able to play stuff consistently well. I also have spent many hours figuratively bashing my head against a wall trying over and over again to play entire licks up to speed, but that certainly has not seemed to help anything.

Thanks for reading and thanks for all the work you guys do for this.

#2

Hi there! I think it depends on what you’re aiming for, as each practice strategy can have a different purpose. For me at least, there is a difference between chunking for practicing, and chunking for performance. I’ll go into chunking for practicing here:

Suppose I have a 4-beat-all-sixteenth note lick:

1 e & a 2 e & a 3 e & a 4 e & a

For performance, say I want to slightly stress the beats (1, 2, 3, 4), because that fits the music. Each beat will likely become a chunk, because that’s what I want to bring out, and it keeps things clear in my head.

For practicing

I believe this is slightly different from the concept of “chunking” as covered by Troy and some others, but it’s still a great concept and addresses your question. :slight_smile:

During initial practice, I feel it’s best to break a lick into chunks, and practice them all separately, both slowly and and speed. So, if your chunk is just each group of four notes, you’d practice “1 . . .” until it’s even, then “2 . . .”, etc etc. Alternate fast and slow practice for each individual chunk: slow to understand what you’re doing, and fast to ensure that what you’re doing actually works.

When you’re practicing, adjust your chunks to keep your brain involved and happy. For example, I hate practicing just “1 e & a” sixteenths, b/c my brain really wants the extra beat … so I’ll play, eg “1 e & a 2”, adding the extra note.

Chunking also lets you focus on problems. In the above lick, everything might be super easy, except for the “& a” of “3 e & a”. So you can spend more time on just that chunk. Practice the hard stuff.

If you practice each chunk separately like this, you will likely run into problems when you start joining the chunks together, for a few reasons: you may accumulate tension during playing, you may have slightly different hand positions, etc. For this reason, it’s good to consider at least a few notes before and after each chunk, and sometimes play them, to get the “physical context” of each chunk. e.g., instead of just “1 e & a 2”, it might be good to play “1 e & a 2 e &”, to ensure that you’re practicing chunk 2 in the same way that you’re really going to play it.

When the individual chunks are working well (fast, clear, and easy), join them together, one by one, and practice the slightly longer chunks if needed. E.g, you might start joining 1 and 2, and separately practice 3 and 4:

1 e & a 2 e & a 3

3 e & a 4 e & a

This may introduce some new problems, so again do slow and fast practice.

Then join everything together – new problems, same solutions. :slight_smile:

That won’t work, because it’s not focused enough. It’s good to do, but only once you’ve achieved speed. Similarly, practicing a whole lick quickly might not work, because you could be glossing over problems, and not addressing them. Chunking for practice often lets you find and solve individual problems.

Hope this helps, jz

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#3

Thank you for the detailed response! In regards to a couple specific things you mentioned,

So you’re saying that once I’ve gotten a lick separated into chunks and I’ve gotten comfortable combining those chunks at high speeds that I should work on maintaining the lick by running it all the way through at slower speeds? Is there a specific way to make sure I don’t confuse my brain into “un-chunking” the lick (grouping it as one big thing) when doing this?

Also, another question I had relates to how you group chunks for a given lick. You mentioned for a 4-beat-all-sixteenth note lick you would group each beat into a chunk. What about for stuff like the Eric Johnson-style fast pentatonic runs? From my understanding those aren’t really able to be grouped into “beats” like other fast licks, they seem to mostly be played in free time. Does it matter how you group these into chunks?

#4

Hi there, everything above are ideas, not orders, so weigh it with your own experience and feeling, and let me know if something works or doesn’t. :slight_smile:

It’s a hard call, I think that you should potentially do both fast and slow, for maintenance. Fast speed is obviously good, b/c that’s how you play it, but slow is good because you can be more conscious of the full speed motions, and ensure you’re actually playing it how you want. It’s sometimes easy to get into a “high speed rut” where you’re flying on automatic pilot, and it’s good to stay aware. When playing slowly, you should try to use the same motions as you do at slow speed, and definitely keep the same phrasing (stresses, etc). You might also find something new in the lick.

Grouping for performance – yeah good question. I think it’s up to you! Sometimes the chunking will be obvious, eg simple groups of sixes. For EJ, sometimes I think he does “descending groups” - eg 6-note patterns superimposed – you’ll likely be able to group them in those groups. Don’t sweat it too much, try different things out and see what works. For performance, the chunks are, as you mention, “focal points” or “things to aim at”.

(For practicing, your chunks can actually be any size you want – across beats, uneven size, etc.)

Depends on the lick, and what is a logical for the music, and/or what facilitates its easy mental grouping. Grouping = less stuff to stress over = smoother playing.

#5

All of trhe above. Video is worth 1000 words. Here’s me doing it:

This picking motion I’m using here is not one I have really used outside of strumming, and I recently discovered — as a result of our table tapping tests in the Primer, of all things — that it goes extremely fast and can be used for single-note playing.

So rather than just playing a single note on a single string, I’m also attempting this fretboard pattern which I’m already familiar with fretting-wise, but unfamiliar with motion-wise. The goal here is to go fast and kind of get things to line up, without worrying too much about accuracy. You can see that some of these attempts are more in time than others. Both in terms of the picking hand linking up with the fretting hand, and also the external click. There’s one in there that really sticks the landing. That’s what I’m looking for. This is why I like to be in the “hit or miss” zone, where I sometimes get one kinda right. That’s how I know I’m learning

If I slow this down to where I get every note right, and everything is “pefect”, I can guarantee you that I’m not actually doing it right. This motion, because it is new / unfamiliar, needs to be done at a realistic speed where the hit rate is not perfect, to start to feel when it is working and not working.

As to duration, this clip is about 4 minutes in total. Prior to this I had filmed two others about 2 minutes each. Then I got up and shut off the camera. Because this technique is new to me, this small batch of clips was actually tiring, so that’s all I did today. However, because I actually got close-ish with a couple of these, and have never done that before, I know I learned something. Now I’ll just try to sleep on it.

Let me know if that helps.

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Gabrielthorn progress thread
#6

Is the player trying to learn a new skill, one they cannot yet currently do? Like a new picking motion? Or are they simply memorizing a sequence of motions they already know how to do, like fretting? If simply memorizing using an existing and essentially perfect skill, then slow is fine.

However for acquiring a new / unfamiliar skill, where you don’t actually know how to do it correctly yet, very slow doesn’t work. If you’re going slow, you are not using or becoming aware of “full speed” motions, since fast motions only occur when fast. If you slow down to a speed where you are conscious of individual picking motions, there is no guarantee that what you are doing at that speed has any correlation at all to what you do when you speed back up. We have seen this in tons of clips right here on the forum. Player does one motion slow, completely different motion fast.

This is why when it comes to learning a completely new / unfamiliar skill — again, one you cannot actually do yet — we recommend starting fast and only slowing down a tiny amount, however much is necessary, to gain some semblance of increased accuracy. Filming the faster stuff once in a while can also help, to point out what you’re actually doing when playing fast.

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#7

Thank you guys both for the great responses. I should have clarified, my questions refer to practicing in a way to develop accuracy and consistency while playing fast stuff, not raw speed or new motions. I think I’ve developed a motion which allows for as much speed as I need for the stuff I want to play, my biggest issue now is just developing the ability to play the stuff consistently well.

Just to clarify with @Troy, I know you talk a lot about not practicing things slowly when developing new motions, but if the goal is developing accuracy and consistency, is it better to practice things more slowly and make sure that everything is as clean as possible, or would you still try and just play something up to speed until you get it right?

#8

Completely agree. I meant that, to some degree, playing slow after I’m able to play fast lets me check things out … but only sometimes. Re “playing it how you want”, sometimes playing slow helps remind me of the overall picture/tone/shaping I’m going for, so I’m staying on course.

I’m not Troy :stuck_out_tongue: but some thoughts come to mind (coming from a piano background):

  • for stuff that you perform at a given tempo, try practicing it above that tempo – that way, when you take the pedal off the gas, it will feel easier.
  • try playing it with a different rhythm. If it’s straight 16ths, swing it or use dotted rhythms. The changes will result in some parts being even faster than normal. This is a super practice technique.
  • possible idea: practice away from the instrument :slight_smile: Go over what you’re playing in your head, away from the guitar, at speed if possible. I did this w/ piano all the time, but haven’t tried it w/ guitar. At least it should help with fretting hand.
  • for piano performance, at least, slow practice is essential for accuracy … but only once you can really play fast, and stay loose.
  • I think, but don’t know yet, that for real accuracy on guitar at high speeds you need to stay as relaxed and focused as possible. I don’t like the term “relaxation”, it’s too enveloping … but perhaps you can keep chasing that, keep an eye on your tension and see if you can do anything to make it easier and looser.
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#9

Why is the thing not accurate? Presumably some aspect of the picking or fretting motions are unfamiliar to you. If they were familiar, it would be accurate simply as a result of memorizing the notes.

It’s easiest to define the two extremes. Are you learning a new piece with motions that are already perfectly learned? If so that is a memorization issue and slow is fine. At the other extreme you are learning motions which are unfamiliar to you. You have to play at realistic speeds to figure them out.

Somewhere in the middle? Then bounce around at speeds from fast to slightly slower until you figure out the unfamiliar motions.

#10

hmm that’s looks very similar to my strumming form of choice yet I can’t get it over about 200-210, I have to switch to a locked wrist and I guess bring in more movement from the elbow when I want extra speed.

Do you find yourself involving different muscles to take this faster or is it the same accross a fairly wide tempo range?

(I’ve not gone through the new material yet and tried all the different tests, maybe the answers I seek are within - just waiting for the kids to go back to school and then I might not feel so mentally wiped out all the time).

#11

It’s more of a case of it not being consistently accurate. I’ve been working on several licks from Cliffs of Dover (studio and live versions) for months now and I still have trouble executing them consistently. When I am able to get it right it sounds great, but it seems like that only happens 40-50% of the time. I really want to improve consistency enough to get to the point where I can perform this stuff live, at my current level that just seems a bit out of my reach. The general inconsistencies seem to be hands becoming un-synchronized to the point where the lick just falls apart, and sometimes I have issues with my right hand simply freezing up in the middle of a lick (this typically happens in the middle of a sweep in EJ-style stuff, although lately as I’ve been focusing on slow/accurate practice this seems to have been happening a bit less often).

I can say just from the past couple days of incorporating chunking into my practice to break up these large licks, it seems to have greatly improved things so far (though this could just be an example of confirmation bias). I just want to make sure that I practice correctly moving forward, since it seems like I’ve wasted many months of practice running through entire licks slowly with seemingly no benefits being gained from these repetitions.

#12

Nice Troy, I just started trying to incorporate this motion! It feels so smooth but it is hard to get clean and not make as much string noise with some higher gain rigs

#13

No idea where you are, @cthom02, developmentally. So this may not apply to you. But I’d add that Troy has a left hand and a right hand that can each handle 240bpm. The ingredients were all on the table; he just needed to mix them and bake the cake, so to speak.

But… If your left isn’t there yet, then ‘forcing speed’ is not going to help. At least as I currently understand things. You can’t cook without ingredients. Again, this may not apply to you, but where I’m at developmentally, I think it’s very important to understand that the starting point for a skilled player learning a new motion is not my starting point.

Still struggling with this. Well, back to the Tommo 6s etude now…:wink:

#14

Hey Yaakov! Glad you like my etude so much - but I hope you are trying other things as well. Variety is key - ask me how I know :wink:

This may be going a bit off topic (we can split later if needed) - but why do you think you don’t have enough speed in the left hand?

We discussed in some other thread, I think @PickingApprentice brought it up, that most people probably have all the speed they need to being with, for both hands.

E.g. if you take your left hand and tap your fingers on a table in this order:

pinky - ring - middle - index,

trying to achieve a 16th note feel, how fast can you go? I bet it’s pretty fast! (Don’t worry if the rhythm is a bit imprecise, it’s more of a big picture thing)

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#15

Sounds like this video is for you:

If you have further questions on this topic, feel free to post in another thread, i.e. just to keep this on topic.

#16

Hope this is relevant to the OP (think so…) I think I do, in fact. Maybe the better way to say it is that I lack coordination in the left. That’s my point: if you’re not yet capable of fretting at shred speed, then despite the fact that you have a healthy left hand that can pass table-top tests, you lack the coordination necessary in the left to ‘start-with-speed.’

We’ve been talking about chunking on the forum lately as an issue of landmark notes. That’s certainly true, and helpful. But another aspect of chunking is what happens between those landmark notes. I’m getting to where I can reel-off your Sixes thing, left-hand only, at around 90bpm - not fast enough for my goal, but I think it’s improving. But it’s been a lot of work to get it there. That’s the part of chunking that’s a long, slow grind.

As always, open to disagreement. But that’s how I see things today. Hope @cthom02 is getting something from this and I’m not hijacking the thread. But since the OP seems to be about chunking as something you practice (which I’ve posted on elsewhere myself), it seems to me germane.

#17

Out of interest, is this all ascending or descending? One thing to think about when getting the fretting hand ready for picking is that when picking, you don’t need pull-offs. Pull-offs require that extra effort to ‘twang’ the string so are more difficult than hammer-ons. If you stick to chunks that exclusively use hammer-ons for legato, I imagine that you will stand a better chance at getting them up to speed more quickly abd then adding the picking.

#18

Great points from Yaakov and PickingApprentice for @cthom02 – make sure you chunk practice your left hand as well. And if you’re working on consistency, practicing hands separately can be useful – do fretting only, no picking, up to and even far past your target tempo. “Far past” is good, b/c when you combine the hands, you’re doing more complex brain-work and nervous-system-work, so it stands that each hand should be able to go faster when working on its own. Give this a shot, see if it feels fun and productive! z

Re hammers-only: yes, I’d recommend working on hammers only, both descending and ascending. Descending hammers is tough but it’s vital, especially when you start really going fast.

#19

The etude is strict econ picking - no HOs/POS. Of course as I practice it left-hand only, there’s a bit of PO effect. Truth is, tough, I’m not doing proper pull-offs - more like ‘lift-offs’ (i.e. the way you’re not supposed to pull-off). That’s deliberate, and for the reason you mention, @PickingApprentice .

It’s not like I can’t run the pattern at all. I’m just not able to do it fast enough. I know we’re all past the idea of massive repetition for developing the right hand (because with the right, it’s not a reps issue, it’s a mechanical issue - i.e. learn how to single-escape). But for the left hand, w/plain, straight-up fretting, it seems to me that massive rep is the only way.

Again, this is my theory; I’m glad to hear other views. I just think it’s critical to make the distinction between needing to learn a technique and needing to do something a gillion times. If you mix and match, you’re in trouble… @cthom02 - is this in fact relevant to your situation?

#20

@Yaakov I believe this is definitely relevant, since it relates to one of my fundamental questions about whether or not you can develop consistency by repeating something over and over again. It seems like the answer lies in how you practice the repetition, running through a complete lick at slow speeds over and over again without any attempt to chunk it doesn’t seem to help in my experience. You guys have all been providing great input even if it doesn’t directly relate to my question.

@jzohrab thanks for the suggestion about practicing each hand separately! I’ll definitely try that as well and see if it helps me out.

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