I actually just got his Ingenium course but haven’t checked it out yet. I’m kinda slow to get through things right now because I’m taking the tact of working on only one type of lick each week (like only one alternate picking lick, one arpeggio, one legato lick, etc.) to really drill them down (inspired by another thread on here where someone (Troy maybe?) suggested that modern guys jump from one lick to another without truly mastering them, the way guys like MAB drilled down on one lick and played it a billion times, which translated mastery to other licks as well). It’s a bit tiresome to play the same licks, and only the same licks, ad nauseum for a full week. But at the end I should have them down cold, and I don’t just mean memorized. I’ll have to check out the Razor course though, thanks!
Claus’ ideas are consistent with what you’re saying here and in his ingenium course.
drill basic shape until you have complete mastery.
Currently I am doing that with my picking regimen and also with my left hand.
you reminded me of how great trills are for finger independence. I also believe my LH is undermining my picking progress. I just don’t have enough control of it.
but im going to fix that!!
Claus’ material is fantastic. excellent teacher
all the best
Honestly, the whole point of that section is not at all clear to me. What is he trying to teach? He can already play fast, so he doesn’t need to go fast to learn what a non-stringhopping motion feels like when done correctly.
So is he trying to say this is how an advanced, already-fast player increases the speed at which their hands can move, like doing a gym lift with a heavier weight for fewer reps to build power?
Or is he saying this is how you learn complicated fingering, you go fast and it’s all gibberish, but you pull it together and clean it up?
I mean, I think it’s not the third option. But is it the second option? Because really, that’s like a “first world problem” for guitar players. We’re really trying to help the people who can’t play at all, and are stuck with a stringhopping motion they can’t do. Or who are good players in one technique but trying to learn a whole new one, like a rock player learning bluegrass or something.
I apologize if I’ve been unclear on this, but the main point of “starting with speed”, when I talk about it, is to help a person learn what a foreign/unknown picking motion feels like when done sort of correctly. Reason being, we get a lot of players here who claim they can’t play fast, and are stuck at very low tempos like 100bpm sixteenth notes, but have no issues doing fast everyday activities like knocking on a door, drumming on a tabletop, etc. That’s the giveaway that they aren’t really speed-limited as far as their hands, they just haven’t stumbled across the correct way to do motion XYZ on a guitar. So the name of the game for them is to continue trying different ways of doing the motion until they get something that feels fast and smooth in the picking hand.
If you can already move quickly with a particular motion, then there is much less point in continuing to play fast and sloppy. For that matter, if you’ve filmed yourself and your motion looks good, picking technique might not even be an issue at all. A certain percentage of Technique Critique posts we get are actually this - a person who has great picking motion, but no hand sync, or is applying the wrong motion to the wrong phrase, etc.
In short, the fast/sloppy thing is for acquiring a new skill, one you don’t yet possess and aren’t even sure if you’ve ever done correctly. The “fast” part is how you test if it’s in the ballpark of correct. Once you have that, you’re on to the next phase of the process which is trying it at a range of different slightly slower and faster speeds to try and make it more accurate.
Is this how you understood our messaging on the subject, or did you get something else from it?
I was about to be like, what’s 24fretsandme, some kind of online questionnaire? I’m getting a little slow in my old age, if not in the picking hand, then the humor department.
I don’t know if the 120 is a real number but if it is, have you ever done the metrone / table tap test? Get a metronone and set it to 120 and tap eighth notes, twice per click. If you can do it, raise it some amount and try again. How high can you go where you can tap at least two bars?
We don’t have good data on what range of speeds an average sampling of people can move, but I would think something like 120 is low enough that if that were the maximum a person could move their hands, it would start to show up as a limitation in everyday activities. We were just brainstorming here in the house to think of a relevant activity, and of course this will make us look like alcholics, but shaking a cocktail in a shaker is something we would both habitually do way faster than a 120bpm eighth note tapping motion.
So, that’s what I’m getting at, can you shake it like a Polaroid Picture™ faster than the 120bpm tapping motion? If so, then I have to believe there is some guitar motion you can do at that faster speed too. Unless your guitar is made of kryptonite.
I think something that confused me in the beginning about the ‘table tap test’ or (‘door knock’ has also been used I believe) is that I would be making a string hopping motion (as opposed to something that is more side to side wrist deviation). The Polaroid picture example (lol, ‘TM’) clears it up a bit…sort of more forearm motion.
Hahaha Troy, I was just kidding around. I’m not at all stuck at 120 BPM 16th notes. I realize there are lots of posters here, but I’ve posted numerous videos of my playing, some of which you’ve watched and analyzed lol.
I was just kidding about the Polaroid Picture thing! The truth is, when we’re talking about potentially having very low speed limits that affect guitar playing, it doesn’t matter which motion we’re testing — any motion at all that can move fast is fine. We’re just looking to test whether an individual really has a speed limit, and what if anything that is.
Apologies for the confusion re: the flexion-extension motion of door knocking. I know it seems like we’ve demonized it, but flexion-extension itself is not stringhopping. For example, Steve Morse and EVH have a picking motion that looks like door knocking. The difference is that those guys play a note on each direction of the knock, on the “down knock” and the “up knock”. That’s because they have a supinated arm position, so that flexion extension actually moves side to side instead of up and down.
In a stringhopping situation, if a player has a pronated arm position, then flexion-extension moves up and down relative to the strings. So each time the player plays a note, they make a complete “down-up knock” motion. So every note requires twice the motion, and every note uses the same repetitive down-up motion. i.e. Instead of the the downstroke using the down-knock and the upstroke using the up-knock.
To further confuse you, for someone like EVH or Steve Morse, because they have a supinated arm position, the stringhopping motions would actually be the deviation motion. That’s because their arm is rotated (I’m simplifiying) 90 degrees to the usual. So what is up and down for them would be side to side for someone like McLaughlin, for example.
Let me know if this makes any sense!
It does! I never thought of the Steve Morse/EVH set-up. Makes me think I’d like to try some of those motions…they feel soooo weird (when I’ve played around with it) but maybe giving it a little time. I do have one motion down currently - it would be neat to add another.
I’m a big fan of the three finger type grip and supinated position as a way of breaking out of a rut or just learning something new. It feels different enough from other ways of playing that sometimes you can play lines that way that for whatever reason you can’t get in whatever way you normally play, maybe because you have no “baggage” in this newer (to you) form.
Lmao. I took your comment seriously and didn’t realize I was getting reverse-trolled. Only took me a few hours hahahaha
I actually wasn’t trolling. I really just meant for Polaroid Picture to be a cutesy stand-in for “some humdrum activity that requires fast motion” and not forearm motion specifically. Of course not realizing the layers of sarcasm and mechanics nerdery we’re dealing in here, this sent things further spiraling off course!