Help improving speed and accuracy

[javert]

Hey Cliff!

Man, I can so relate to all the mind games you seem to be playing with yourself. And I am not in a good place when I start questioning myself like that and over-analyze everything! Anyways, I realized something similar about my own picking some time ago which is that the reasons my picking in some respects isn't up to par with the rest of my playing are 1) that I anchor my hand in a certain way and didn't move it much when switching strings. This caused my picking mechanics to be slightly different for each string; 2) different string tensions on different strings seem to cause me some problems in terms of getting an even picking movement. What I am trying to say is that I recently made a discovery similar to yours, namely that I need to move my hand more when changing strings to utilize the same picking motions.

[javert]

I have to say that this thread has given me alot of respect for certain people here. It's a very difficult thing to put your struggles out there for people to see. That takes a real man to do. I also have to say that it's fucking awesome to see all the help people here are stepping up and supplying. No insults (that I've seen) just alot of constructive criticism and good advice.

Agreed, it takes a lot of guts to put this kind of stuff out there. Some of the people I have the most respect for in my work (research) are people who keep asking questions. They don't give up until they have a satisfactory explanation, and it takes a lot of confidence to display what is potentially your own lack of insight like that. What I find is that the questions usually end up exposing the presenters instead.

[Cliff]

Hey Javert - glad it's not just me . Yep, over-analysis is definitely a dangerous thing. Sometimes the body just knows the right thing to do, and thinking about it screws it up. Hard to know when the body is right and when it's fallen into a bad habit that needs to be corrected. I just don't picture Van Halen, before the first album, tying himself up in mental knots trying to figure out how best to play. But who knows?
I find different string tensions is a problem too. I really notice it when playing ex 25, doing the tremolo picking on each string in turn. I also find controlling the depth of the pick into the strings difficult, so I get a varying amount of pick resistance, which makes it that much harder to keep a consistent rhythm.
Cowboy - yep, there's been some terrific advice from a whole bunch of people on this thread. Amazingly helpful. Speaking for myself, I've no problem with posting my less-than-brilliant clips. I know they're far from perfect, but on the other hand I'm pleased (on my good days) to show the progress I've made. And yep, noone's made any nasty comments. This forum rocks!

[blackhatch]

I have to be wary here, 'cause often I think I've found a new way of doing things and after a few days I realise it's no help

lol it happened to me a lot, still happening, i think everyone found a diff way to do things because their bodies are not similar, what i do to play fast or super fast is to not anchor my forearm, it fly and i put my hand like palm muting but over the floyd, i dont support my pinky, i could aways recommend to palm muting 1 2 3 strings if you are doing scales, it is easier to go fast while muting that strings, and my life changed when i started to use 1mm pick and i sand it!! i get more stability when picking fast, i dont speak perfect sorry

the movement is like this
sorry my paint work

u change strink with "a", you shake your hand to alternate picking with "b" elbow always in the same place, dont move it



i hope this helps you!! your practicing a lot like me, when i started to play i couldnt concentrate when i was playing, now i can do it

u all rock

[BenoA]

I had been a while since the last time I had read this thread. But guys, keep it alive!

I haven't been practicing much or even touching the guitar lately. My left hand injury is recovering very slowly, so I don't abuse it much!

Some interesting posts that I can relate to:

Man, I can so relate to all the mind games you seem to be playing with yourself. And I am not in a good place when I start questioning myself like that and over-analyze everything!

Agreed, it takes a lot of guts to put this kind of stuff out there. Some of the people I have the most respect for in my work (research) are people who keep asking questions. They don't give up until they have a satisfactory explanation, and it takes a lot of confidence to display what is potentially your own lack of insight like that. What I find is that the questions usually end up exposing the presenters instead.

I just don't picture Van Halen, before the first album, tying himself up in mental knots trying to figure out how best to play. But who knows?
... but on the other hand I'm pleased (on my good days) to show the progress I've made. And yep, noone's made any nasty comments. This forum rocks!

[ginsambo]

In terms of efficiency (Speed), what I've tryed doing recently is taping a splint to my left hand pinky to keep it straight and around the board when I'm playing, rather than have to drag it up from almost beneath the board when I need it. Keeping your pinky straight when playing is most unnatural, especially when you have a short one like me.

Another thing I found is trying to find your physical weaknesses - for me I found that I am not as strong as I thought I was with hammer on and pull offs and that slows things down and limits what I want to play. The problem is only really apparent when doing rapid, loud and clean hammer ons and pull offs with your hand at 90 degrees to the fretboard on low strings with your elbow in (ie playing properly) and changing between strings. Often I overlook it, because as with legato all over the strings or riffs, runs and trills on the high strings you use your pinky and third and don't really notice your weaknesses, but they definitely have an influence over what you play and your style.

Example:

A ------6-3-5-3-----
E ----------------6-3

Now I can do this reasonably fast and clean, and very fast and clean if picking, but to get it really loud, like so loud you don't need to pick at all is like starting to learn guitar all over again and I mean loud with a high action and no picking, proper style!

Also I found doing stuff like this with my hand perpendiculary to the fretboard wracks my left forearm muscles and agitates my tennis elbow. Is this normal or am I just overcompensating for my little pinky its inability to gain strong independence?

As for your exercises Cliff, I've found them to be fairly easy to an extent..maybe I am just lucky and co-ordinated....BUT I will say that I can only do them if I'm picking every note. For me at least I think the key is to to do them loud without picking. You should be able to, as for example the intro to VH's Hot for Teacher has no picking and that is Loud! Once you know that your left hand can do that strong and cleanly 300%, it isn't hardly a struggle to pick the notes I reckon. And more to the point, whilst I am all for efficinet styles etc, simple just picking the notes sometimes can hide other weaknesses.

You see, if you avoid them, these weaknesses will only creep up on you years later when you want to change the accents or introduce other sounds to the limitations of machine picking. Only then you'll notice that actually you are crap and have to learn it all over again.

Yeah so definately for me at least, the key to picking fast is all about training the left hand to be strong and independent without the need for picking at all, which is kind of ironic. I realised I am still stuck in the fairly common 'Can do four fingered pull offs, knarly blues riffs and 3 fingered ascending runs....but am crap at doing four fingered descending pull off runs and four fingered string changing riffs'

And once you start learning EVH stuff, you'll realise that actually its not very technically challenging, even the really fast stuff. He is more of a blues based player and his technical style has kind of evolved around that....he isn't one of these technical freaks with eleven fingers and thank the lord for that because he still has a feel for it, even if it is a bit too sloppy at times for the purists!

What EVH does play is strong with a lot of feeling and and a lot of conviction though, like other blues players, its quite the opposite style to that advocated by technical mentors who advise pulling the pick in, sweeping everywhere and playing at 10000000 notes per second and it ends up sounding like crap generated on a computer.

Now this may sound like bullshit to a lot of the new metal generation, but by just relying on picking everything, without getting your left hand strength really up compromises a lot of tone in my opinion especially when considering phrasing options, relative loudness and accents.

Many women players tend to be technically very proficient and efficient players its not that hard to do but they lack tone.

So what do you want to sound like Cliff? EVH...or a woman....lol.

[Cliff]

Well, I'm still trying different combinations of right-hand positioning, resting my forearm, raising it, anchoring my pinky, tucking it in, splaying it out....
I also recently switched picks. For the last 6 months or more, I'd been using Sik Piks. I liked tone, but the resistance against the strings seems to vary greatly depending on how deep into the strings it digs. For the time being at least, I'm finding keeping the pick at the same depth problematic, so this was a hindrance to even picking, and so throwing my rhythm off. About two weeks ago I switched to Jazz IIIs, which seem more forgiving in this respect. Also, the tone sounds much more metal . I watched some more Paul Gilbert videos, and I've been trying to copy the way he holds and rests his right hand. Still don't feel like I've nailed it yet.
Blackhatch - thanks for the diagram and advice. To be clear, though, aren't both a) and b) the same joint - the wrist? You mean you switch strings and pick with the wrist?

[Trem]

Hey Cliff, as Blackhatch posted is exactly what i was talking about somewhere above, been trying to un anchor my had a little more. What he means is the alternate picking motion is done with the wrist and the moving across the strings is by moving your hand up or down keeping more parallel to the string you are picking on. And as i stated up there somewhere, when i keep my hand too tightly anchored i end up not being parallel to the string i'm working on and coming at it from the middle towards up or out/down.

Like you said you are doing watch different people pick, like in the videos way back in this thread of EVH, and Al Dimeola i posted, as well as the recent vids of Jeff Loomis with that great picking hand cam that have been posted recently.

[Cliff]

Ah, right. Thanks for clearing that up. I'd been going in the opposite direction, trying to anchor my hand more . Yeah, the Jeff Loomis stuff is awesome. Must watch that again. And again. Ginsambo, if you think that Loomis' style is in someway effeminate or not ballsy enough, you're crazy .

BTW I re-read most of this thread through from the beginning the other day. I've got to say, there was a lot of great advice given up front - from you Trem and others - and at the time I guess I had so much to learn I wasn't able to take it all onboard. So, apologies for sometimes seeming to ask the same questions over and over again. Sometimes it takes a while to sink in.... especially with my memory seemingly not what it used to be.

[ginsambo]

To be honest I just use this thread to vent some verbal diarrhea when I'm tired.

Paul Gilbert says that picking is like stratching a dog. I found this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQxzd...eature=related

RE the right hand, somehow something clicked last night when I was trying some of his string skipping picking stuff fast and I got it down to speed. I then tryed playing the bit before the solo in You're Crazy by Gn'R afterwards using this right hand/arm movement, sounds silly, but its a simple three string pick done fast. I could always play it up to speed but had problems with it as I had to rake the last two notes as using a wrist action with my forearm static as the angle was all wrong for another upstroke using my wrist. Doing it the Gilbert way, I guess moving my whole arm up and down from the elbow more with hardly any or a very efficient wrist action, I could pick it twice as fast without raking it....and what's more I could do it agan and again over time, where as swinging my wrist about wildly with the base of my palm anchored I was getting major tendon pain. Of course you can bend your wrist right around and stick your elbow out fly picking etc. but the way Gilbert did it really opened my eyes.

I still think that improving the strength of your pinky is the key to more relaxed and fluid playing style as if you can't do it loud qand fluidly before picking it there is a weakness in your left hand somewhere that has to be dealth with before you start worrying about picking.

For me personally I make sure I have it down with the left hand BEFORE I even think about picking. And I mean fluid without any string noise or guffs when skipping strings and equal and loud note volume on each and EVERY hammer on pull off. If you don't then you are on a hiding to nothing practicing it with picking straight off, as like you say, you'll be good one night then back to square one again the next and it will be a slow learning curve of improvement. Doing it the way I do it, not only will you progress as your finger strength will improve, as your string skipping will be tidy you will be more abel to adapt and learn new phrase and runs, but picking with whatever style will be easier, as you just have to concentrate on the right hand and accents etc. as the left is working on auto pilot and co-ordination will just click into place.

But as regards picking. Stratching a dog. Its the same action that worked for me.

[ginsambo]

I notice that Jeff Loomis and Gilbert do have the same right hand technique, I have to guess it is the most efficient and and works the best for some stuff. Compared to Stevie Ray Vaughan it is effeminate and a girl could easily match them, because it is efficient. I just looked up a Loomis vid and he plays EMGs....say no more....

Seriously though look at all professional players they gig they HAVE to play efficiently, time after time, all night, without getting tendonitis, even Vaughan does the Loomis/Gilbert technique for Rude Mood....Check out the straight wrist forearm and elbow moving up and down action...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-BEphVRgts&feature=fvst. However he doesn't play EMG's though eh!

Because he was not a girl! Ha Ha! How it pains me to draw parallels between Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jeff Loomis...but its true.

I think the key to it is combined all the right hand techniques, like the Loomis/Gilbert stratching the dog, static elbow swinging wrist and bent wrist, projected forearm fly picking as one hat does not fit all for everything I reckon and it if does you limit your playing.

Again look at pro players, not matter what their bias and specialism when they start off, they do undertake some form of retraining, usually in their late 30's or 40's...lol. If you just played with your wrist, you'd be Slash, great sound, great pick control, vol and tone and mute control but you're limited in what you can do. Just your forearm all the time and you risk sounding too clinical and banal. All players adapt and improve their technique over time, usually when they want to start playing other styles of music and getting the feel down after they have made their name. You have to mix and match I reckon.


I grew up wanting to be Slash and trained my right hand to play like him....at that time, twenty odd years ago, I always thought that Stevie wasn't for me but I couldn't quite pin down why, too rough and ready, not enough delicate feel I did't know what it was at the time, but just try playing Rude Mood ten times over with a static forarm and just a wrist action. It will kill you. Even Slash these days has retrained himself doing stuff and Paul Gilbert sounds more like Stevie Ray Vaughan than the old classical edged Gilbert we used to know.. Its a funny old world. I think the love of music does homogenize people after a half a lifetime to a degree, as you absorb the benefits and efficiencies of different styles.

[Trem]

Paul Gilbert says that picking is like scratching a dog. I found this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQxzd...eature=related

RE the right hand, somehow ...

Jason Becker lick at 2:00.

It's weird to hear someone say their main influence was Slash...and be reminded that that was 20 years ago. Fk :/

[ginsambo]

Jason Becker lick at 2:00.

It's weird to hear someone say their main influence was Slash...and be reminded that that was 20 years ago. Fk :/

Yeah I was just pre teen in 1987 and the teenager who introduced them to me topped himself a couple of years later poor lad, I'm guessing that if I'm starting to feel old...you're feeling older Trem?


Yeah I was trying to work out when 1987 was...I thought it was 5 years ago right?, then I thought no hang on there is another 10 in there somewhere,...ahhh right so it must be fifteen years ago.....wrong again..so I had to seek out the calculator.....it was in fact a quarter of a century ago! It does still piss me off when I talk to mates today who are ten years older saw them in '87 at Donnington Park, because I had to wait until 1992 to see G'NR 'cause mummy wouldn't let me out and I didn't have a ride and they didn't really break here until 1988.

Oh well, I might still be shite on the guitar and supplement that shiteness with verbal diarrhea, but hey, looking on the bright side, I get older, the girls, well they stay the same age eh!

I think the recent problem with my cognitive history personally is that the uneventful, banal twenty years of greed driven society from 1992 - 2012 years passed in a millisecond for me and actually, for better or for worse I was wasted for most of them till 2002 and ever since then I've been working 26 hours a day with my head in the sand. So yeah I'm still on 1992 time I think.

But the fact remains that 1987 was 25 years ago none the less. Next time you pay a cheque in the bank, check the date on your paying in slip man, it'll seem surreal...

I reckon the funniest thing will be in 2052 when all these 85 year old kids are running about the nursing homes with alzheimers thinking they are still back in 1987.

....Well I wish, who am I kidding, state ethanasia will be a government sanctioned, legal requirement by 2052 for the working class. On your last day at work on your 75th birthday, the men in green uniforms will lead you down a corridor for lethal injection, unless you are obscenely rich, in which case you will be able to choose new bodyparts or a brain regeneration grown from stem cells that should last you another eighty years or so. Yeah I don't look forward to the future much, power outtages, marshal law, eastern european mafia, totalitarian state control 90% of your earnings docked at source. But on the flipside, they can now grow hair on the back of mice so baldness therapy may be readily available in ten years time so you can enjoy your final years up until your numbers are up with the state with a full head of hair and an empty wallet.

Who would have thought it 2012, the year they mounted surface to air missile launchers on the top of residential towerblocks at the olympics, its really beyond fiction. I know what their real agenda is though.

Anyway....on the bright side improving your picking technique, women and guitars ain't a bad way to spend the interim, especially as we all go with nothing in the end.

[Cliff]

You know, it's the strangest thing. Every night last week I played this and it sounded awesome . Now it sounds like it does below, which is the best of many tries (the only bit I'm proud of is the pinched harmonic about half-way through). It's Flight Of The Bumblebee again, this time at 120bpm. I've been concentrating on the first half - the second is a bit more tricky. As always, I'd appreciate any advice and/or criticism.

[horns666]

Well, this seems to be working for you in baby steps. You have MUCH more patience than I care to imagine. I love this piece since I seen Marcello, Batten, and Nuno put their spin on it. Oh, I seem to remeber dedicated Jackson shredder The great Kat butchering it to shit. Ummm l,ike I said before. I wanted to play fast before I picked up a guitar. So that's exactly what I did. Sure it was a sloppy mess, and I sounded alot like Vinnie Vincent (Invasion debut) at one point..literally. Then over time technique was left behind for the end result. My ear, pitch got better with time, and now play with more "feeling"..not blusey by any means. But I love players like Eddie Van Halen, Dime, Oliva, ..then Uli and Loomis. Uli being my epitome of perfection. Then Jeff Loomis in his own way..

That's what I loved about those players. They seperated themselves by sounding different ..like Jimi..Blackmore..Page..They all had their sigs. Jeff Loomis told me he doesn't put much thought into theory or technique, but he gets an idea..mostly spontaneos and "I just go for it"..

Eddie called it falling down the stairs and landing on you feet. I say you have much structure. that should stay with you. Be a little reckless but fast as you can. I think pretty soon your structure and recklessness will cultivate into your sig. Your sig is in that middle ground.

You play very melodic when doing Santana and Scorpions ect..just go fast for fast sake and see what comes from that. Practice fast without metronome. get some fast comfort stuff goin' at high speeds ..then play that to a meter to tighten it up. It doesn't have to be spot on perfect..just sound cool. Who doesn't like Page and Eddie..those guys were pretty sloppy when compared to structured players. But that's what we loved about them.

Oh take a break to make sexy time with the wife. That's important and clenses the pallette. Just don't get inspiration in mid boink to break off and shred. At least be a gentlemen and shoot all over the place. Then say thank you and excuse yourself..then shred.

Oh..good tone BTW. I like the tone on these. That's all amp right..no fuzzy stomps..eh?

Well, that's what I know..anywhoo.

Have fun,


Billz