What is speed building to me

Playing Technique
#1
  1. The left hand needs slow practice to memorize the notes and the correct moves, which are the same at low speed and high speed (just done faster)
  1. The right hand needs fast practice because the correct high speed moves are different than low speed moves (like the difference between walking and running)
  1. If I can’t play something because of my left hand, then I have to practice the proper left hand moves at low speed and increase the speed slowly. Fast practice would be ineffective.
  1. If I can’t play something because of my right hand, then I have to practice the proper right hand moves at high speed. Slow practice would be ineffective.
  1. If I’m learning something new, I have to practice slowly until the notes and left hand moves are memorized, then switch to fast practice to get my right hand moves correct as well.

This is how I understand speed building on guitar and how I explain the huge differences between practice strategies that guitar players (and especially great guitar players) mention as being effective.

For example, I remember Troy said that slow practice and drilling is not what helped him to improve his guitar playing. This could maybe be explained by the fact that he had right hand problems, and not left hand problems (lack of finger independance for example) ?

On the opposide side of the spectrum, I’m nowhere as good as Troy but my right hand is much more skilled than my left hand. I had much more difficulties to move my pinky independently than doing 2WPS, and slow practice is actually what helps me to get better. I’m sure we can find better examples of great guitar players which promote slow practice as the sole key to speed.

All this could totally be 100% wrong but I’d love to know your opinion about it, and learn if it is the case !

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#2

This is an eye opener for me, for sure. As amazing as it is, I’ve never thought of it. Not the brightest one when it comes to guitar playing strategies and practicing.

Thank you, I’ll start practicing that way, slow and fast sessions for different parts of guitar technique.

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#3

This is exactly what I think is the case, and I’ve written this on the forum multiple times before. Slow practice is for memorizing sequences of existing skills / known motions. It’s a memorization solution.

Fast motion speeds are used for searching for the correctness of an unknown / unlearned motion. However it’s not just “fast”. It’s a process that involves an ever-widening range of speeds moving down from fast.

In short, yes. Nice summary!

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#4

Thank you!

Indeed Troy I read your opinion about it many times, which helped me a lot and made me think a lot :slight_smile:
The consequences for the right hand practice were crystal clear, but I struggled to understand what it means for the left hand practice and the global practice strategy.

I came to the conclusion that left hand and right hand must be practiced in different ways, not because of biological differences but instead of their role when playing guitar :

  • The left hand plays a huge diversity of notes when learning songs, so it is almost always in the “memorization” mode, while the right hand is like a drummer who will play the same patterns again and again over these notes
  • The left hand high speed and low speed moves are the same, while the right hand high speed and low speed moves are different (unless you are lucky enough to do randomly the good moves, or deliberately practice slowly a move you discovered at high speed)

These are the precise things that I didn’t get when reading guitar ressources. Of course I’m not sure they are correct, if it’s not the case I would gladly get some corrections :slight_smile:

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#5

I have been practing picking speed different for a while now and it works great for me and my students.
The thing which makes me think and do things different is that statement you make (and you will hear very often) that the movements at higher speeds are different then at lower speeds.

So, what is different and why?

Most important from my own experience is the small vs bigger motion.
At slower speeds we have more time to complete the movements we need to play a certain phrase, and therefore we have more relaxed muscles and tend to make the motions bigger.
At higher speeds the muscles tense up a bit and the motions are getting smaller as the speed increases.

So, why not try to make the motions more the same?

I went two ways:

1: Try to relaxe the muscles much more at higher speeds then i did before.
2: Make the motions at lower speeds as small as those at higher speeds

What i found out where 2 things
1: At lower speeds i needed to tense the muscles a bit more then i was used to to get the movements as small as those at higher speed.
2: I did not need to tense up the muscles that much as i used to do at higher speeds.

Both slow and high speed feel relaxed now and both have the same small movements.
This realy worked for me and my students.
Once you have it down you can practice things starting slow and gradually building up to speed with great result; it has the benefit that you don’t need seperate left and right hand practice.

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#6

Troy, had a major right hand breakthrough where I can now effortlessly play 16th and 16th note triplets at a very fast speed while being totally relaxed. However, moving to the first sixteenth note exercise, its my left hand that feels crippled. What is your advice on getting the left hand up to speed with the right hand? thank you for all the great info, after making the breakthrough with my right hand, it gave me some hope that after 30 years of tense stilted speed!

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#7

I can only speak for myself - but here’s my experience.

Left hand speed came relatively easily. Right hand picking technique the complete opposite!

Everything I have achieved with right hand picking has been done through an enormous amount of grunt repetition. The fine motor skill and hand precision required to play say the Paul Gilbert lick came for me only after borderline ludicrous amounts of repetition. Now this is for me.

There are still many many licks I am as yet unable to play even though I am a reasonably experienced at picking.

I practice slow - fast and everything in between - but this has been my experience. Be keen to hear how others have found the process - particularly around right hand high speed precision picking.

Great topic!

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#8

I used ‘forward chaining’ (I think it’s called that) to get my first motion - pick one note at a high velocity trying to keep a certain pick trajectory (thank-you primer), then two notes (down up and up down), then three notes etc…once I could get five notes in a row, I started trying to chunk 4 notes at a time (this is just on one note btw). Once I could chunk 3 times in a row (so 12 notes total) something clicked and I was able to tremolo at that speed. The I started working on hand sync…a whole other process.

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#9

thank you both for your input. I am slowly getting my left hand synced but I’m still very slow compared to how relaxed and fast I can tremolo. I’m a little faster than I was 3 days ago, hoping that something will eventually click. So I’m curious, do I stick to the Yngwie single string 16th triplet lick before moving on? thanks again

#10

I appreciate your thoughts, I’m in the same boat with the left hand and clarifying slow vs fast practice respective to left and right hand skill is what I needed to understand. thank you