hi, just a quick message to find out how everybody here goes about playing faster, lets say you have an exercise or lick that u want to get up to face frying speed. how do you go about it? play the same lick for 8 hours straight at a slow tempo untill you dont have to think about it, then hope u can play it fast. Spend 5 mins a day for 2 years on the same lick? gradually speeding it up? looking foward to hearing from you.
Posted: Mon May 05, 2008 4:08 pm Post subject: Re: Speedy fingers
joep36 wrote:
hi, just a quick message to find out how everybody here goes about playing faster, lets say you have an exercise or lick that u want to get up to face frying speed. how do you go about it? play the same lick for 8 hours straight at a slow tempo untill you dont have to think about it, then hope u can play it fast. Spend 5 mins a day for 2 years on the same lick? gradually speeding it up? looking foward to hearing from you.
I think the most important thing is to understand the movements involved that are required to play something fast. So there's a lot of analysing nessecary. Just mindlessly repeating a lick or scale without understanding what exactly CHANGES when playing it fast probably won't do much for you.
So understanding how the technique works and understanding what exactly goes wrong when you speed up is probably most important.
Example of a change in movement: When playing faster, the movements seem to get more compact then when playing slow.
I know that Guthrie said something similar in an interview on alloutguitar.com.
So, you could start by playing something slow and really master that, then for a moment play something fast and pay attention to see what movement(s) need training. Then when you know that, and this may take time, you can speed up slowly to reach the speed you want. Sometimes, when you've properly corrected the movement, you can perhaps also play fast immediately, depending on what needs to be played and your technical ability.
Also, being able to imagine what's it like to play something fast is also important so you have a clear goal of what you want to achieve. So you'd basicly imagine that you're already able to play fast and on top of that you do the analysing stuff I've mentioned above.
And paying attention to technique, posture and tension is essential when something isn't going well... I've pretty much rebuild my technique from scratch and this way solved my sweating hands problem, which seem to be caused by too much tension. I've read in a book that you can't do much about the sweating hands problem... Statements like this tell me that lot's of people still don't have a freaking clue about all this stuff, including book authors.
By posture I also mean the way you hold your pick, how your fingers are fretting the strings, if your shoulders are relaxed and normal/low hanging instead of all the way up to your ears, etc. Nerves come through the shoulders all the way up to your hands and fingers, so all these things matter.
However, I've also noticed that lot's of guitarists are too proud and stubborn to think their technique/posture is the problem. These people simply cannot be helped. I mean, you could ask yourself that if your technique/posture isn't the problem and you´re not able to play something, then what the hell could be the problem...
Joined: 22 Feb 2005 Posts: 570 Location: gothenburg, sweden
Posted: Tue May 06, 2008 7:31 am Post subject:
well, WHAT do you want to play fast? three note per string runs, sweep arpeggios? that's stuff made for blazing, if not for making music.
if you want to play fast beyond the muscle memory shredding, it's (as stated above) crucial to have a good ear. you'll only play as fast as you HEAR. that's pretty obvious if you analyze the playing of any real virtuoso. of course you can play faster than you hear, but that will be youtube-wanking -- which is fine i guess, if that's what you want to do, or if that's what's called for
otherwise, without being a virtuoso myself (but pretty damn fast), my two cents is,
do the metronome thing,
never practice at a faster speed than you can play RELAXED.
play to the metronome, not to your foot.
If you really want to play it correctly, you must start slow.
The most important this is as RD said the movement of your fingers, hand, picking hand, everything thats involved.
If you use the wrong muscle it might get harder.
Try playing it at a very slow speed (40-50 BPM, and that is damn hard for some exercises!), and than play it alot, not just memorizing, but knowing where is the problem and working on it.
I think RD mentioned most, if not all, of the factors that might cause problems.
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