Is this relevant?
Interesting thing is he says playing piano helped, the piano has a totally different angle of force than guitar. I think theres something to those different angles.
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Man there is always a few days out of the year I revisit that Gray Piano’s Flying song named by his daughter just to listen to him. He is such a upfront humble guy right of the bat gives away his speed secret saying full well it is genetic and his freakish nervous system. However I think his piano practice of Chopin probably helped him as I found out recently Chopin had a system of using specific strong fingers during runs on the piano.
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That Chopin video is awesome, never seen it.
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now if only i had a korg sv-1 88 keys. 
i could try my hand at some of these chopin phrases just to see how nightmarish they are
i think this is marshall harrisons secret he practiced chopin just like shawn lane did
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This is great! The more the merrier. Thanks!!
It’s very relevant! Thank you. I think it’s kind of how I went about it back in the 90s. I basically tried to play a lick as fast as I possibly could until it caught up with actual thing. I guess that came from playing along with Slayer and then eventually death METAL!! songs. The speed part was taken care before I tried to learn non-METAL!! licks and songs. My fingers had to work hard to catch up, but when you’re 15 and reclusive, it’s ain’t hard to find the time, lol.
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That Chopin video was super cool!
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For whatever it’s worth, I don’t believe Shawn Lane had a freakish nervous system, nor do I believe that his speed was primarily genetic in origin.
I’ll write a longer response in topic later.
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Why is it so hard for you to believe we are all unique?
I understand Shawn’s mechanics, fretboard organisation and line construction, and the synergies between them. I understand how these facilitate playing at exceptional speed.
I have learned how to imitate Shawn’s form and apply his methods to develop similarly fast vocabulary. This developed in my thirties, and there are students of mine here on this forum who can attest to what I can do.
Every student I have taken on has demonstrated untrained speeds in tests which exceeds what is generally considered “fast” on a guitar, and many are comparable to the movement speeds seen in Shawn’s playing.
I absolutely accept that we’re all different, and that we have different potentials. However, I see nothing in Shawn Lane’s playing which I believe to be demonstrative of an abnormal nervous system or exceptional genetic potential.
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That’s not what he said.
He said he didn’t think he had a freakish nervous system. That’s it.
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Would you say there is genetic potential?
Yes, I would imagine there is some genetic component in speed.
However, I think the mean genetic potential is far greater than most people believe (well above what most people would consider exceptional speed), and that the variance is much smaller.
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What about the left hand?
Hand size and joint mobility matter for some things, and there are genetic factors at play there. While flexibility can be developed, there are limits and an attempt to push beyond that could lead to injury.
I don’t see any evidence that genetics play a major role in fretting hand speed.
You would have to show me the evidence that you are referencing.
I cannot show you an absence of evidence. This is impossible in any context. Moreover, the burden of proof does not lie with me. I am not making a positive claim.
Anybody who is claiming that genetics are a major factor in guitar speed is making the positive claim and the burden of proof lies with them.
When mechanics, fretboard organisations and line construction methods are accounted for, Shawn Lane’s playing shows no evidence of exceptional genetic potential or an abnormal nervous system.
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Believing genetics has something to do with one’s ability to play fast would make a wonderful excuse. “I can’t do it…my genetics won’t let me.”
CtC is all the evidence you’d ever need to debunk that. Too many people play at extreme velocities to think genetics plays enough of a role to matter.
The only person I’ve ever heard suggesting their nervous system (or genetics) plays a part is Shawn Lane in a video from 1993. Two decades before Troy released his first video on YouTube.
At the time, Shawn was trying to explain something he didn’t understand himself. All he knew was he could do it like few others could.
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Shawn seems to have gotten the “unusual nervous system” line from stories about Simon Barere, a Russian pianist who was known for playing very fast renditions of pieces, and who inspired Shawn to play fast.
See here at the 25 minute mark
I would imagine that Shawn probably started using this line because he didn’t completely understand why he could play the way he did, or couldn’t articulate quickly it to others. A prepared response to deflect a difficult discussion where he couldn’t give a satisfactory explanation in the time available.
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I can’t even play 180 bpm quarter notes, my body just wont do it. I have no control at all at high speeds and my body starts to fly appart like a motor going to too fast. I’ve tried and tried and tried everything suggested and I just decided screw it I can’t do it, and I never will be able to.
Not everyone is capable of it. It freed me up to just play what I can play and have fun with again rather than trying to believe what people say that anyone can do it, when they clearly cannot! I’m glad you and other can do these things, good for you. But stop trying to tell people that can’t do it that they can. I’ve spent 40 years trying to do it, it starts to become insulting.