Yeah, I addressed it to you. That’s you playin’ right?
Not me, it’s Igor Paspalj. If I could play that fast I’d become a total narcissist and post videos like that all over the place, then I’d get banned from here for self promotion lol
Thanks for posting it anyway though.
No problem! and sorry for any confusion. I was just trying to show that there’s “someone” out there who can play at an extreme speed for ~1 minute. To me, he doesn’t look tense and I think that’s the key. He’s got a motion going that’s either fast because it’s relaxed (or possibly relaxed because it’s fast) and able to get much more than just a few bars. He’s in control, and is able to still apply accents in places. He’s definitely an inspiration. He’s also got a softer side which is sometimes rare among these speed demons.
1 Like
Also, I found this:
Troy mentions a “20 second tremolo test” in that one. I think in general “hard numbers” can be problematic but that is substantially lower than the 1 minute mark we’ve been kicking around.
1 Like
In this thread or in the forum? I don’t think I’ve heard it before, but it’s rather arbitrary. If you’re picking at your absolute fastest, then maybe a few seconds? I personally don’t think endurance relates well to technique viability.
In this thread. I don’t know that we’re talking absolute. The topic just says “fast”. I take this to mean “the upper limits of usable playing speeds” but that definition is my own. Based on some of the recent Troy videos I’ve linked, I don’t think in these speeds, we should tolerate “a few seconds”.
That’s a different opinion than Troy’s, which is fine of course 
It’s a public forum after all. I’ve been doing some tests with this and sure enough, I can’t keep this up for anywhere near a minute even at 190. It starts fine, but after like 10 - 15 seconds, something happens to my focus and the motions doesn’t want to continue. It’s not fatigue, it’s like…confusion. Then I think I “do something” to try to salvage it, I feel the tension immediately and it’s game over.
Unless there’s some specific musical situation where you’d need to pick for that long, I’d say something like a minute is overkill. 16ths @ 200 for 16 measures straight is a little under 20 seconds - if you can do that and don’t feel strained by the end, I’d say you have enough endurance for just about anything and there’s no reason to test further (again, unless there’s some piece of music where you need to do so). You’d be better off pushing higher speeds for shorter periods, and preferably not as “tremolo” but with some sort of synchronized pattern.
laughs in power/black metal band
Question - I’m asking out of ignorance: are they typically doing “measured” tremolo for these durations? Or just picking as fast as possible and hoping for the best?
This is what I noticed as well when I did it last night. It’s not something I really do anymore and if it’s not maintained, it slips. And I think that is also a sign of inefficient technique. It should just kinda… be there whenever, right? I can keep picking fast for longer periods of time, but it doesn’t stay in tempo after a bit. I can sometimes get it back but there are other times where brain just says F’it and that’s all she wrote lol
Yeah, thinking about this after stepping back, it’s nothing I’ve ever really practiced. I fully value the CtC tremolo as vital. But to be honest, in a musical context, I HATE tremolo lol! I know I’m in the minority and the problem is probably me and not the tremolo. I’ve just always hated hearing it in actual music. Like, if it happens in the middle of a solo I hear, I usually think to myself “whelp…guess they didn’t know what else to do there” lol. It’s always struck me as lazy, not as cool. Again, I’m wrong. Everyone else loves it, I’m weird.
So with that as a back drop, it makes sense that I’ve never ever ever tried practicing a tremolo for even 30 seconds without stopping. So maybe if we can’t do that, its doesn’t necessarily mean our technique is inefficient. Especially given that I don’t feel a gradual burn, but rather an immediate “Oh god I’m losing it” (mental/focus) followed by the correction/tension/game-over thing. Variety never hurts, so I’ll every once in a while give it a go and see what happens.
I think a better value, similar to what @Riffdiculous mentioned, would be doing some Yngwie 6’s or Tom Gilroy EDC synced pattern and see how long we can sustain that.
I lost a ton of speed when I started playing again and looking back, I’d say that almost all of it was for METAL!! rhythm playing, never soloing. I had a teacher in level 2 at MI that told me I phrased like a saxophonist, and I loved that he told me that.
But digging deeper, I think that was because my improv muscle weren’t developed enough to do those kind of lines on the fly. I mentioned it in another thread but I was a guitar player, not a musician, for my first 11 years. As many solos as I learned, I’ve honestly never written a solo in my life.
I think my approach back then was with more of an athletic mindset. I grew up on Rocky flicks “No pain!! No pain!!” and since hockey was my sport… those dudes would do whatever it took to keep playing. Whatever I was doing coming up might’ve been fast but it wasn’t efficient, and probably not even proper.
Now that sites like this and unlimited videos are out there, efficiency and proper (SAFE) technique can even be stumbled upon by accident, not just sought out. Seeing more and more players who can blow minds is proof of that. There were like…. 37 in my day. Now there’s like…. 37,000 lol
1 Like
Even this, I have to wonder “what’s the point?” lol Endurance is more a byproduct of efficient technique, and efficient technique is best developed through training speed.
This is conjecture on my part perhaps, but let’s say you have 2 players currently able to get 3 measures of 16ths @ 200bpm. Player 1 just stays at 200bpm and bangs away, trying to do it longer, but player 2 tries to train @ 240bpm with a goal of an accurate 3 measures. At the end of 4 weeks, maybe player 1 has eked out a couple of extra measures for their endurance test, but player 2 had to really streamline their technique to make the 240 happen, and now 200 feels almost simple for any length of time, and without directly training it.
I think Troy’s RDT adventures generally support what I’m saying.
That’s a pretty great point. I feel like it would go down exactly like that. I didn’t use a metronome to learn licks back in the day. I just tried to play them as fast as I could at any given time. Once you have a handful under you hands, it’s not that difficult to keep adding to it. I busted my ass to learn the long fast picking Metropolis Pt1 section so learning the one in Erotomania a couple of years later didn’t take very long at all. It took longer to remember than it took to get it up to speed.
1 Like
I think there was about 5 seconds of actual 240 bpm 16th note picking in that: The first 3 measures and a couple seconds (ascending chromatic run) near the end. The rest is mainly “septuplet stuff” where he’s picking ~14 notes/meas. and skipping or slurring a lot of notes. (The real line is also sequenced in the backing track, which probably hides a bit of sloppiness.)
Hmmm interesting. I never noticed, but you’re definitely more than qualified to make a claim like that. I’ll give it another listen
Edit: one thing that always bugged me about this is based on what we know only single escape (controlled) playing is possible at these speeds, and the main theme is not single escape friendly
There was more of a focus on strength rather than dexterity.
I just spent the evening playing along with all of the rhythm parts of the Master of Puppets album and, ummm holy cow is that a workout - I alternate pick the Hetfield stuff (sorry to the purists, but I am old and frail…)
Ummm so maybe 3 to 6 minutes at a time for certain metal styles?
1 Like
How’d Disposable Heroes treat you? That open E riff is mother f****r!! It’s up there with Chemical Warfare by Slayer lol
2 Likes