Help improving speed and accuracy

[BenoA]

Hey, Cliff, this is good news, but make sure to keep the "fun" factor somewhere. This is supposed to be fun!!!

[Cliff]

Surprisingly, though it is fun, in a strange sort of way. My wife's beginning to find the chromatic scales a bit disturbing, though. I think she's reminded of the 'all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy' bit from The Shining.

[BenoA]

Cool to hear. I was worried as all that talking about technique can be so boring.

Rock on!!!

[Cliff]

Thanks!

Here's a vid of my progress:

As you can see, the pinky drifts a little as I move further down the fretboard and speed up. I'm not sure if this is an acceptable amount of movement or not. Any comments or advice greatly appreciated.

[RR2772]

This is my first post on this forum. I am usually at the Jacksonguitarpalace under the same name. I have owned RR2772 since new. I will get back to that guitar later.


The reason for posting here is having gone through all 19 pages and content which has been interesting to follow. We seem to have something in common. I am soon to be 38 years old. I have played guitar since around 1987 or so but I have never stuck with a practise method just played whatever I liked both rhytm and lead. I got my copy of speed mechanics here in Denmark back in 1993 I guess and I never got much down and applied from it but I still find the book very good if if you take the time and do what it says.

My guitar style has it's high points including strong bends and vibrato, improvising and Hendrix style chordal rhytm along with metal riffs I picked up along the way. I still feel that my style needs to be more in focus and to be free playing whatever comes out.

To get into challenge my guitar style I am back into SM starting on page 10 and 11 exercise 1-8 to get my left hand up to speed which I can see is faster than what was written down a decade or so ago.


I can see that I think you are going to fast not in playing but in the exercises themselves. I mean you can't play at 130 if your left hand plays 120 and so forth.


I sugest you start with getting the exercises from 1-17 until your left hand is strong enough.

[Cliff]

Welcome to the forum!
I'm sure you're right. Damn - it all takes too much patience . I find I can't help but dart about the book a bit, otherwise I tend to get bored with the same small set of exercises. But clearly that strategy is not working out for me.
Anyway, good luck with your practice - be sure to post some clips.

[Iivari]

Hey there ! I was away for some time (forming a hard rock band, going to vocal auditions for thrash metal band, alot of stuff realy). Since we tend to try to jam in my rock band, I decided to jump into Paul Hanson - Shred guitar. Great book, has lot's of nice phrases, which work good for working out and improving technique + you improve your improvisation skills.

[RR2772]

Thank you Cliff. I think the problem is that any exercise sounds like an exercise and not like music. That was one of my reasons for not really getting into SM like a maniac back then. It was always more interesting to play x by your favorite band/artist as you could quickly make it sound like music.

Playing exercises can get boring I do agree and that is why I do never spend to much time on them but rather the time it takes to get them down and then practise them no more than getting comfortable with them. Mostly it is like 10 minute tops here and there on an exercise. When I am comfortable enough then I speed it up to challenge it.

SM is a brilliant set of exercises in a book for the most important thing for a guitarist that is getting your left and right hand co ordinated so whatever you want to play can come out of you. The order of the exercises are in the order they are. It is not a TAB book where you can play this or that song.

If its boring make it interesting or see it as fun to challenge where you are and where you want to be.

Video clips? I will see if can get some some clips. It could be fun.

[BenoA]

This is my first post on this forum. I am usually at the Jacksonguitarpalace under the same name. I have owned RR2772 since new. I will get back to that guitar later.

Welcome aboard!

The reason for posting here is having gone through all 19 pages and content which has been interesting to follow. We seem to have something in common. I am soon to be 38 years old. I have played guitar since around 1987 or so but I have never stuck with a practise method just played whatever I liked both rhytm and lead. I got my copy of speed mechanics here in Denmark back in 1993 I guess and I never got much down and applied from it but I still find the book very good if if you take the time and do what it says.

My guitar style has it's high points including strong bends and vibrato,

You got a similar journey as mine, started around 87 also, discovered the Stenina book around 92... I'm just a bit older than you are... 43.

I think the problem is that any exercise sounds like an exercise and not like music. That was one of my reasons for not really getting into SM like a maniac back then. It was always more interesting to play x by your favorite band/artist as you could quickly make it sound like music.

Playing exercises can get boring I do agree and that is why I do never spend to much time on them but rather the time it takes to get them down and then practise them no more than getting comfortable with them. Mostly it is like 10 minute tops here and there on an exercise. When I am comfortable enough then I speed it up to challenge it.

SM is a brilliant set of exercises in a book for the most important thing for a guitarist that is getting your left and right hand co ordinated so whatever you want to play can come out of you. The order of the exercises are in the order they are. It is not a TAB book where you can play this or that song..

Well said and this is mostly why I never really got into the Stetina book back then.

These days, I try to mix a bit of both... Boring exercices and learning new tunes.

[RR2772]

Thank you BenoA

Were your version of SM with a red cassete tape too? I still got that one somewhere and it does still play well. Troys tone on it is not that bad or dated in my ears.

Since I studied and learned music sounding stuff enough since I bought SM I am now ready to get more into that book as it a bit of a question where to go guitar wise and learning x song by x artist or band is not that interesting overall. I allready picked my favorites at any given time.

As for the exercises I am currently doing page 10-11 and my lefthand can handle a steady 120-135 bmp so far.

Some of the exercises I did get down like 10,11,12 combined like Troy sugests. 14 is also one. Exercise 25 is over 132 bmp! 26,27 I do play on and off. Number 29 I can remember so that one is stuck in my playing. Exercise 33 sounds like music and I play it a lot. Ad 35 to it and I think I have covered the ones I have spend time on.

Now as I never really sit down or stand up practise every day or use a metronome the exercises are not up to some high bmp. My hands and fingers are in good form overall. I have always used 4 fingers and in some cases 5 on my left so they are not off balance but still some minor flaws/limits here and there. As for standing up I have always done that due mainly to pointy guitar shapes like a V or explorer. The RR is ok but I rather stand with it.

I do prefer to do this kind of practice on my homebuild Fender Stratocaster which is a bit more of challenge to play and I was down to just that back in 1996 so I put the order in for RR2772 but somehow those 2 guitars are still with me and I do play that Strat better today. As Blackmore said that a Strat is harder to play I do agree on and that is fun to me. Somehow that Strat always sounds very good regardless of the effects and amp. I do love RR2772 the most.

[Cliff]

For me, I've been working mostly on the RH exercises (25 and above), since I thought my right hand was the weaker of the two. I used to play (relatively) fast legato, but I realised the timing was far from even, so I thought by concentrating on alternate picking I could improve both my picking and my left-hand accuracy. Now I think, as you've noticed, it's my left hand that's lagging behind and needs more work.
I'm hugely impressed you can do pages 10-11 at 120-135 bpm. I think you said earlier you practice an exercise for no more than 10 minutes at a time, which for me is nowhere near enough time to make progress. I've been trying these first few exercises again recently, and can only dream of getting them up to that sort of speed. I find it very difficult still to hammer on and pull-off without giving undue emphasis to the easier notes and having to hurry through the harder ones, even at relatively slow speeds. If you could post a clip of you playing one or more of these I'd really appreciate it.

[RR2772]

That is to me a very clear sign that your left hand suffers but your right hand has improved.

I will try soon to get some videos up. I currently have a slight rip on my 1 finger of the left hand that needs to heal. My hands has just to warm up a little but they pick up speed pretty instantly. One thing that has always helped is having a Gripmaster tool on me. I saw the ads back in the 90's in guitar magazines and it does help getting the left hand in shape when there is not a guitar around. Kirk Hammett even says thumbs up for these.

A good warm up is a few minutes with one. They come in 3 versions red, blue and yellow. The red is the strongest and yellow the lightest. I use the blue version.

I always kind of challenge my lefthand when ever I play so my fingers are pretty adapted for my style of playing.

Also it would help if you can hear how the exercise sounds in your head before you play them. There are no limits to anything in life only yourself. Playing guitar is a limitless thing that a person can do regardless of age.

[Cliff]

Thanks for the Gripmaster tip - I'll check that out.
I've been concentrating more on the earlier exercises since your previous comments. I'll see how that goes.
"Also it would help if you can hear how the exercise sounds in your head before you play them." - that's the funny thing with me - once I'm concentrating on playing something remotely difficult, my hearing goes out the window. I suspect this might be a problem...

[xenophobe]

For me, I've been working mostly on the RH exercises (25 and above), since I thought my right hand was the weaker of the two. I used to play (relatively) fast legato, but I realised the timing was far from even, so I thought by concentrating on alternate picking I could improve both my picking and my left-hand accuracy. Now I think, as you've noticed, it's my left hand that's lagging behind and needs more work.

Try changing pick positioning. I don't know about everyone else, but my left/right hand timing changes when I'm picking at an angle and change that dramatically, flatpicking or picking at a reverse angle.

As for your worrying about your pinky wandering. I can rip a couple of scales really fast and I can play some somewhat technical passages, but otherwise am in the same camp as you or a few other players here mention. I never fully grasped theory, and I create unique patterns, and I always played whatever I wanted with little focus on practice technique, though in realization, probably ran more warm up than most. When I was a child, I had a deep cut on my left forearm that left some muscles attached in weird ways... like my ring and pinky fingers have some shared repaired muscle. So, sometimes when I want to do something, my ring finger may not easily comply and I need to move it and my pinky much farther than normal. You just have to learn to live with the fact that finger positioning will always change depending on what style of progression/pattern/scale/whaterver, so keeping things static and trying to keep your hand level to the fretboard may hamper you in some cases.

Another good exercise is to play your normal scales, but alternating what fingering you're using. Example would be, playing frets 1,3,4 (or whatever) with index, middle and ring, and then playing it with index, ring and pinky, going through your mode and your patterns. I can play most of what I play with any three of my four fingers.

And if you're just doing practice runs, don't do the same thing every day. Change up every other day, or don't go back to the same thing until the third day or more. Practicing one thing over and over can easily put you in a rut and sometimes setting the guitar down, or moving to a completely different style for a while can help build your technique.

Just some thoughts from a hack amateur.

[Cliff]

"Just some thoughts from a hack amateur." - and very much appreciated .

"my left/right hand timing changes when I'm picking at an angle and change that dramatically" I've noticed the same thing. Makes me wonder whether the timing is issue with my left, my right, or both.

"so keeping things static and trying to keep your hand level to the fretboard may hamper you in some cases." It'd be nice to think that there was one rule that could be applied in all cases, but I guess it's not as simple as that. Watching someone like Ynwie play, I see his left hand position will change quite a bit throughout a passage. And his pinky isn't always close to the fretboard. On the other hand, I've definitely found I can get more speed easily when I *do* try and keep the fingers close.

"And if you're just doing practice runs, don't do the same thing every day." Good advice, thanks!