Playing faster

[SammieWammie]

I know that playing fast is definitely not the most important thing to be able to do to play jazz, but there does come a time when it's necessary to play 8th or 16th note lines at 300 bpm. Bird wouldn't have been Bird if he couldn't, would he? Also perhaps I've been listening to too much of Bird but I hear fast lines in my head, faster than I can play them. Anyway that sort of thing has always been a weakness for me so I'm wondering what I can do to improve this. Certain exercises or simply putting on a metronome or backing track or song just outside your comfort range and playing along? What works/has worked for you?

At the moment what I've been doing while learning scales all over the neck is 'gesturing', running a scale up and down and in and out randomly all over the neck continuously at a certain tempo. I use swing drum tracks, got a range of tempos from 57-360 bpm. Quite a handy exercise I've found, gives a practical kind of map all over the fretboard for scales and at higher speeds it pushes how fast I can play (not in set shapes as I'm meandering any which way though the scale as is possible, which I think would help at crafting lines at fast tempos), and how fast I can think. At 200 bpm I'm at the edge of my comfort zone doing that in 8th notes, past that I can't coordinate both hands and past 280 bpm my picking hand gets loose and behind or simply loses it. Also when I get to playing fast I instinctively do little slurs to give my picking hand a little rest.

[merritt stone]

Yeah, you don't play 16ths at 300bpm..

[TruthHertz]

Originally Posted by merritt stone

Yeah, you don't play 16ths at 300bpm..

No, not without asbestos mitts and a graphite neck. Last time I did that I got 3rd degree burns and had to get the neck replaced on my guitar. Burned a hole in the 7-12th frets.
I was playing Flight of the Bumblebee and there were some bees listening. One of them had a heart attack.
David

[SammieWammie]

Originally Posted by TruthHertz

No, not without asbestos mitts and a graphite neck. Last time I did that I got 3rd degree burns and had to get the neck replaced on my guitar. Burned a hole in the 7-12th frets.
I was playing Flight of the Bumblebee and there were some bees listening. One of them had a heart attack.
David

Hahahha! Parker played 16th notes at 300 bpm.

[TruthHertz]

Originally Posted by SammieWammie

Bird wouldn't have been Bird if he couldn't, would he?

Who would he have been, then? Maybe he would have changed into a duck.
David

Parker played that way because he heard fast. If you play fast from the fingers and you can't hear ideas, you'll just be another of the 7 gazillion guitarists that plays scales really fast and plugs them in all over the place cause it's too hard to think fast.

You really want to play fast, practice WAY slow. You want to appear to play really fast, play in an old people's home... or give your audience lots of valium and you drink a lot of coffee.

[SammieWammie]

Yes I believe he would have been a duck instead. As I originally said some of my ideas I hear faster than I can play them. Not all of them of course, just little bits. I'm more interested in making my music sound musical of course. And my goal is not to play scales fast, but to be able to craft fast lines as I see fit. But to do that I need to physically be able to play fast, and mentally think fast. And I don't see it fit to play continuous 16th notes every song.

[AlsoRan]

Originally Posted by SammieWammie

Yes I believe he would have been a duck instead. As I originally said some of my ideas I hear faster than I can play them. Not all of them of course, just little bits. I'm more interested in making my music sound musical of course. And my goal is not to play scales fast, but to be able to craft fast lines as I see fit. But to do that I need to physically be able to play fast, and mentally think fast. And I don't see it fit to play continuous 16th notes every song.

Do you do any picking isolation exercises using only your right hand? It has really been the "secret" that helped me push through a plateau I had been if for many months. I "discovered" during my fourth year of guitar playing and wished I would have done it from the start.

It can be boring but it really helped me a lot. I don't have a lot of time but at least twice a week, I just set the metronome and pick with my right hand. I make sure I string-skipping and include some "sweep" picking as well.

Good luck on whatever you choose. My goal is to be able to play Pat Martino's Impressions by December (2012!)

[fep]

Originally Posted by AlsoRan

Good luck on whatever you choose. My goal is to be able to play Pat Martino's Impressions by December (2012!)

imho, there's a couple of problems with that...

1. I wouldn't consider that a goal, I'd consider that an aspiration.

2. It's too far out in the future, if you don't do anything to move towards that "goal" today you probable won't notice and it won't bother you.

3. For many (maybe most) guitarists, that 'goal' is unattainable. You want goals that you have complete control over.

------------

A goal would be something like:

"I'm going to practice for 15 minutes 6 days a week on exercises to increase my single line speed."

You can still have your aspirations, but separate them from your goals. (Still, imho)

[Nuff Said]

For increasing your speed you need the Andy James dvd:

Speed And Accuracy Guitar Tips with Andy James - YouTube

Speed is usually attained from playing pre-rehearsed lines.
Nuff

[AlsoRan]

Originally Posted by fep

imho, there's a couple of problems with that...

1. I wouldn't consider that a goal, I'd consider that an aspiration.

2. It's too far out in the future, if you don't do anything to move towards that "goal" today you probable won't notice and it won't bother you.

3. For many (maybe most) guitarists, that 'goal' is unattainable. You want goals that you have complete control over.

------------

A goal would be something like:

"I'm going to practice for 15 minutes 6 days a week on exercises to increase my single line speed."

You can still have your aspirations, but separate them from your goals. (Still, imho)

Ha Ha - Point well taken Fep! As usual, your wisdom is on point and greatly appreciated. Please, keep it comin'.

I will add that my main goal right now is to continue to strengthen and increase the dexterity of my baby finger on my fretting hand. That baby finger has been a hindrance but I am overcoming it and it is helping me get faster. I make sure I spend 15 minutes a day on it

[setemupjoe]

Something I did when I was building my technique was to pick a song from a program like band in a box or iRealBook. Set the tempo at something very easy and play only arpeggios in constant eighth notes right across the neck. Do that for about 5 minutes, take a few minutes break, move the tempo up a little and do it again. Do that routine around four or five times, writing down your progress. The next day start at the slower tempo again but just a little faster and again slowly push the tempos up. After a week, pick a new song and start again.
One important note is never go faster than you can confidently perform the exercise. If you screw up, slow it down. Speed comes from accurate practice.
The aspect of building speed in jazz that's different from the metal shredder videos is that in jazz you have to navigate through sometimes complex sets of changes. It's not a matter of shredding over an E blues scale. Your brain has to learn how to juggle different chords and find the line through these changes at break neck speeds. That takes time and lots of practice which has to be done at much slower speeds first.

[SammieWammie]

Good advice Joe, thanks people.

[texasjazz]

Speed is usually attained from playing pre-rehearsed lines.

This is a very valid thought process on building greater speed. It stands to reason that if you are going to do something fast it is necessary to have practiced it more than something you intend to only do slow. I've always seen the virtue of learning stock and working them up to a fast pace. By doing this you are ingraining the lick deep into your subconscious to where when you want to play it muscle memory kicks in, its immediate and always in the bag.

[princeplanet]

Originally Posted by SammieWammie

Hahahha! Parker played 16th notes at 300 bpm.

It may just be possible to do certain runs on sax at 600 bpm as 8ths, but I don't think Parker ever got past 360, and even that was rare. If you know different then please share! Besides, someone may play faster than Parker, but better? Not very likely. Some people can touch type hundreds of words per minute, does that make them Shakespeare?

Anyway, practice prelearned lines up to the speed you wish. That's how most acquire their blistering runs. Use a combination of alternate and sweep picking and pay attention to your right hand. Pick your lines carefully as you will need to practice them hundreds of times...