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
I won’t lie, I was begging for mercy and happy to get to the parts where there’s a sustained powerchord. Metallica is ‘effin’ metal!!
1 Like
The pre-chorus on the A string is the hardest part. The rhythm on the open E riff is what makes it hard not the speed. That A string riff in Dyer’s Eve and the Fight Fire With Fire main riff are killers.
1 Like
Here’s my attempt, it’s 134bpm 16th note triplets which is the same as 201bpm 16th notes:
Found this really hard (though I haven’t practiced this kinda thing in a while), this definitely feels like the upper limit of my motion, I don’t think it’s perfectly in time and I don’t think it has conviction so it fails on those fronts but it’s kinda close-ish? 
For my motion, stuff under 185bpm I can do almost endlessly. Speeds above this I can do for around 10-15 seconds at a time comfortably, anything beyond that it’s hard to stay synced. I wonder if I learnt a motion more closely aligned with the DT or RDT path with a middle finger/trailing edge grip if 200bpm would then become the speed I could do indefinitely?
3 Likes
That was awesome!!!
1 Like
Thanks! 
I found I had to stop accenting the first note so hard because it would throw me off but then in turn that makes it harder to stick to the click. Definitely an interesting experiment, it’s made me re-think my grip setup a little bit.
I noticed a lot of these USX guys anchor with their ring instead of the middle e.g. Emil Werstler, Igor Paspalj and Yngwie, I’ve done that in the past but I’m gonna give it another go, also switching to an index finger grip seemed a little easier then open trigger but that would throw me off as I’m not used to holding the pick like that, definitely some stuff to try out - makes me feel like I should switch to this motion again 
2 Likes
That’s where you probably need to get out the Venn diagram. Not to pick on the motion you’re using but it looks like it might only do single escape (again, nothing wrong with that at all). I think the DSX motion you’ve worked up might be more versatile though in terms of mixed escape and even DBX capability. You’ve already mentioned you can’t really see a practical use to play this long. So if the DSX motion gets you the speed you want, has more escape options and has all the stamina you need…to me that’s the winner. All hypothetical of course cuz I don’t know the exact criteria you have (I sort of just listed all of mine lol).
Deciding between multiple robust motions that you can do very well is a very good problem to have
1 Like