One way to hold a guitar pick

[Vladan]

For the real life application my first choice would probably be to omit a note, or two, or muffle them, guess the word is "to imply", or "fake through" . With more time to think , I'd probably figure fingering with at least 2 notes on at least one of the strings, play in a different position. With time to practice, I'd probably screw the rhythm and play anywhere from 12-15 tupplers over 4 beats. However, with that much practice I'd likely get used to proposed fingering and continue as written/learned.

[Reg]

... I don't believe any of this is quite that serious... it's just music. Please don't let music become life or death...

My example is not performance related... it is designed for improving alternate picking across strings... anyone reading this line at a gig would perform as needed by context and the chart. But this is not a gig etc... The goal of this exercise is for alternate picking improvement. The line has combinations of different applications of alternate picking... It's designed to not be easy and natural...

If you can't play it within a few tries... your not going to be able to play it, or other similar lines in two weeks, the point is to help one see where they need work.

I did post a chart of a tune that uses similar technique that is performance related. But it uses 8th notes at 250... 16th note complicated picking at 200 and above... at gigs, just doesn't happen, no one would be able to cover.

[Vladan]

Yes, string skipping, chromatics, whichtever you chose as a starting point different combination, as you say.
Playing with your exercise this morning, nice little sub paaterns, usable fragments emerged from it.
I did not look at your notation of that tune, I mean, I took a look, but since I could not follow it at instant I abbandoned it immediaatelly.
However, I think I can undersstand how it could make for practicaal aapplication of the exercise, though not in a copy paste form.

BTW, I managed to play the exercise (Reg's arpeggio one) at 140bpm ferw times, cold without preparation, like the firsst thing I played today. When I warmed up, after munngling with it for a while and doing some other things, I got tired, sore mussles and that, could not repeat at that speed any more.
Seems 140 should be easy for a good player "in training", so to say.

[mr. beaumont]

Vladan...8ths at 140...or 16ths?

[destinytot]

16th note complicated picking at 200 and above... at gigs, just doesn't happen, no one would be able to cover.

Thank you for saying so, Reg.

[Vladan]

Vladan...8ths at 140...or 16ths?

16ths, as written in Reg's sheet.

Again, it did not last for too long, but is the sign of possibility, IMO.

[ecj]

It would be nice if someone other than me would post a vid of their attempt so that we can see how other people are navigating the thing.

Edited to add: Coltrane's Countdown is at about 400bpm on the record, so 16s at 200 isn't purely academic. Some of the crazy bop stuff gets up there.

Thanks for clarifying that you're mostly talking about an exercise, Reg. That answers some of my questions about the utility of this stuff.

[Vladan]

I'm out of guitar for the next several hours, I promise to post soon enough, tomorrow noontime the latest.

[MarkRhodes]

Edited to add: Coltrane's Countdown is at about 400bpm on the record, so 16s at 200 isn't purely academic. Some of the crazy bop stuff gets up there.

Here's a transcription of Coltrane's "Countdown" solo. (This is technically dazzling but not, to me, emotionally gripping. This seems like an attempt to play as fast as one can just to show how fast one can play.)

[MarkRhodes]

...
I did post a chart of a tune that uses similar technique that is performance related. But it uses 8th notes at 250... 16th note complicated picking at 200 and above... at gigs, just doesn't happen, no one would be able to cover.

As with others, I'm glad you said that.

I think there is one exception, which is double-time parts in jam tunes, such as the bridge of rhythm changes. Herb Ellis and Barney Kessel---among many others---had lines they could really wind up there, but they wouldn't improvise a whole chorus that fast. I've learned some of Herb's double-time lines but for me, I had to be careful to watch the overall tempo so that when double-time came, I didn't blow it, even though it was worked out in advance. (180 is not so fast but if you have to jump to 360---if only for a 8 bars--you can be in for a rude awakening!)

[mr. beaumont]

It would be nice if someone other than me would post a vid of their attempt so that we can see how other people are navigating the thing.

Edited to add: Coltrane's Countdown is at about 400bpm on the record, so 16s at 200 isn't purely academic. Some of the crazy bop stuff gets up there.

Thanks for clarifying that you're mostly talking about an exercise, Reg. That answers some of my questions about the utility of this stuff.

I think countdown's more like 350, but, damn fast no doubt. And pretty uncommon. But not impractical...i'd rather have speed i didn't need than be caught flat footed.

I'll try and make a vid today, so we can see someone else's approach, even though its not very good! My picking sucks, i've never had to think about it. Came from a rock background, used a tele for 10 years playing jazz before i even bought an archtop...never had a guitar where picking every note was important...now that im in to acoustic jazz too...all my weaknesses are evident!

I fing the "Regpeggio" exercise tricky. I also found out i default to evonomy ascending, but alternate descending. A mess. I can't even get that exercise past 95 (16ths) cleanly.

The three note thing...i can do that, with alternate picking, right at the top range of what i think my "ppick every note" speed is, about 240 (8ths)

I can play faster, but not picking every note.

I think the tempo at which i play anything worth hearing (i.e. not regurgitating licks) is a good deal lower, though.

[destinytot]

Playing by ear as I do (I'm not advocating this as an approach, but neither am I ashamed to say what is so), I've hardly done any exercises per se.

I've never actually practised scales (though I do play a lot of arpeggios, patterns and line clichés... because they're all I can come up with at a given moment or because I happen to like them) for fear of playing scales instead of improvising. Thanks to this thread, I can see benefits I hadn't imagined.

I also avoided using a pick for years, but I'm more comfortable with one now. There's a little test I use in order to measure this. (It may be far too simple for many here, but I find it helpful.) I play the first eight bars of the intro to this:

[pkirk]

It would be nice if someone other than me would post a vid of their attempt so that we can see how other people are navigating the thing.

Edited to add: Coltrane's Countdown is at about 400bpm on the record, so 16s at 200 isn't purely academic. Some of the crazy bop stuff gets up there.

Thanks for clarifying that you're mostly talking about an exercise, Reg. That answers some of my questions about the utility of this stuff.

I was thinking of doing that last evening, but.....

Anyway, I could do the arpeggios exercise you were doing cleanly up to about 100bmp (16ths), using economy picking. Curiously, it felt most comfortable with Benson picking until about 90, where I switched to my default which is roughly the approach of the OP, although sometimes I rest my pinky on the pickgard.

for VL's 3 notes alternating exercise, I could do it cleanly 10 about 110 but it just falls apart after that. I can't conceive of working that up to 140.

Unfortunately, that was it for me for a while, I've got 3 weeks away from the guitar followed by 6 months of traveling with only my telecaster, no gigs, and not a whole lot of time to play. (Anybody here live in Bonn?)

[Frank67]

(Anybody here live in Bonn?)

I did for five years and still go there often. I am living just an hour drive away now.

[vintagelove]

I was thinking of doing that last evening, but.....

Anyway, I could do the arpeggios exercise you were doing cleanly up to about 100bmp (16ths), using economy picking. Curiously, it felt most comfortable with Benson picking until about 90, where I switched to my default which is roughly the approach of the OP, although sometimes I rest my pinky on the pickgard.

for VL's 3 notes alternating exercise, I could do it cleanly 10 about 110 but it just falls apart after that. I can't conceive of working that up to 140.

Unfortunately, that was it for me for a while, I've got 3 weeks away from the guitar followed by 6 months of traveling with only my telecaster, no gigs, and not a whole lot of time to play. (Anybody here live in Bonn?)

Think of it this way. You just learned the excercise. Your starting out and your already getting to the low side of the desired range....

A couple months ago she was hurting running five miles. She ran 14 this morning....

You do that excercise several minutes a day for a few months watching tv, other little bits of time (because it doesn't take a lot of brain power, just mechanics) and I guarantee you will be in the middle of the desired range. Your already 76% of the way there!!!

[Frank67]

Tried Regs arpeggio excersize this morning on a shabby flattop that happens to be at the holiday resort place where I am currently staying.

Alternate picking was clean'ish until about 90 bpm. With significant practice I could probably reach 100 or 110 (?)

I also tried gypsy picking which felt better than alternate. Briefly tried up to 90 which was fine. With sufficient practice I guess I could make it faster than alternate, but 140 and beyond ??? Doubt it. You're impressive guys!

[ecj]

Seeing Steve Morse do it means it's possible, I guess. I'm not sure I'll ever get there.

I'll keep working on it, but I'm thinking that for someone not really physically gifted like myself, sweeping might be a better approach to working on things like Parker licks that require a lot of descending arpeggios at tempos in the 250-300 range.

My big project this next year is to separate the wheat from the chaff and try to come up with strategies that will help me achieve my actual goal - soloing comfortably at fast tempos. I feel like 90% of guitar instruction out there never acknowledges how hard it is to get above 250 bpm and play legit vocabulary on the instrument.

[Reg]

Yea sounds good... very reasonable, and 90% of the instruction out there is about making a living. Not to mention trying to teach what you can't quite do.

Pick a tune and lets go through how to approach being able to play at 250... it's not just technique. When playing at speeds where you can't really figure out what to play on the spot... you need pre programed improv concepts, have a few approaches that you can use, again almost plug and play... save your ears and inspirational playing for what to play with in that approach, basically you have default forms with harmonic formulas, that adapt... and you use your soul to fill them in.

You only have so much to say, save it for what makes the differences..

[ecj]

Yea sounds good... very reasonable, and 90% of the instruction out there is about making a living. Not to mention trying to teach what you can't quite do.

Pick a tune and lets go through how to approach being able to play at 250... it's not just technique. When playing at speeds where you can't really figure out what to play on the spot... you need pre programed improv concepts, have a few approaches that you can use, again almost plug and play... save your ears and inspirational playing for what to play with in that approach, basically you have default forms with harmonic formulas, that adapt... and you use your soul to fill them in.

You only have so much to say, save it for what makes the differences..

So, perfect example and I should do a vid, would be Donna Lee. I always fall apart on the head of that tune once it gets 230-240+. Would love to see you break that down and show how you'd address it. Blues for Alice would be another good one.

It's that sax vocabulary that I really struggle with.

[MarkRhodes]

You only have so much to say, save it for what makes the differences..

Reg, that is profound!

[mr. beaumont]

Heres my vid. Feel free to use me as a bad example...it might help others.

[ecj]

Thanks for posting, Jeff. You have the same thing going on that I do, where trying to do string skipping alt-picking makes you tense up. I noticed on the vid my fingers tensing up and whatnot.

I think for me the big thing is that when I'm in the middle of that four-string arpeggio figure my hand feels "lost". It's the "passing" motion, where you're moving through the B and G strings with this giant gap where your hand is floating without a reference, especially after playing a downstroke on the G string and having to come back to grab an upstroke on the D string.

You're doing the sweep up, which I wanted to do naturally at first, too. Dropping that makes it even more ridiculous.

One thing that I've noticed in looking at it is that I can't even do the right motion without tempo as slow as possible. For example, picking down on the G string then up on the B, or up on the G string and then down on the B. I can do some kind of loopy thing to get the pick on the right path, but I can't figure out an economical motion that clears the pick out of the path of the strings.

I'm trying to figure out how I move to the point where I'm doing a "tremolo" on two strings, rather than one, if that makes sense. I need that really fast, economical motion to work for me.

But even if you get that the "passing" thing is still really freakin' hard.

That stuff is tough!

[destinytot]

I can't listen where I am, but I'd like to say a big THANK YOU for moving the learning forward. EDIT: I've listened - renewed thanks.
(Personally, I'm hopeful that this might offer a way into tackling obstacles to Parker heads on guitar.)

[vintagelove]

So, perfect example and I should do a vid, would be Donna Lee. I always fall apart on the head of that tune once it gets 230-240+. Would love to see you break that down and show how you'd address it. Blues for Alice would be another good one.

It's that sax vocabulary that I really struggle with.

Hello, these are excellent fingerings for donna lee at a fast tempo

Someone posted the link here a while back. Thanks again whoever you are!!!

[mr. beaumont]

Thanks for posting, Jeff. You have the same thing going on that I do, where trying to do string skipping alt-picking makes you tense up. I noticed on the vid my fingers tensing up and whatnot.

I think for me the big thing is that when I'm in the middle of that four-string arpeggio figure my hand feels "lost". It's the "passing" motion, where you're moving through the B and G strings with this giant gap where your hand is floating without a reference, especially after playing a downstroke on the G string and having to come back to grab an upstroke on the D string.

You're doing the sweep up, which I wanted to do naturally at first, too. Dropping that makes it even more ridiculous.

One thing that I've noticed in looking at it is that I can't even do the right motion without tempo as slow as possible. For example, picking down on the G string then up on the B, or up on the G string and then down on the B. I can do some kind of loopy thing to get the pick on the right path, but I can't figure out an economical motion that clears the pick out of the path of the strings.

I'm trying to figure out how I move to the point where I'm doing a "tremolo" on two strings, rather than one, if that makes sense. I need that really fast, economical motion to work for me.

But even if you get that the "passing" thing is still really freakin' hard.

That stuff is tough!

Yep!

The whole thing that dictates it for me is that downward arpeggio.

I need to make another video....one of my pet licks is actually a four note downward arpeggio into whatever that i can do at a much higher tempo...but not one note on the same string i finish and then up four...its weird...it should be a much more comfortable for me...but its definitely not!