Is working on a piece until you can play it at tempo important?

[charlieparker]

I'm working through the Mel Bay Modern Guitar Method and I was wondering if I should work on a piece until I can play it at the tempo marking?

Even in book 2 some of the exercises are incredibly challenging for me with 16th notes at 120 bpms.

[mr. beaumont]

Yes and no.

It's important to get things to tempo that you want to play at tempo...I mean, the Mel Bay books are great and all, but...you busting any of those tunes out on a gig?

But...there's a reason they're there and tempos are set. Its a challenge, and getting things to tempo will never hurt your playing...

[charlieparker]

Yes and no.

It's important to get things to tempo that you want to play at tempo...I mean, the Mel Bay books are great and all, but...you busting any of those tunes out on a gig?

But...there's a reason they're there and tempos are set. Its a challenge, and getting things to tempo will never hurt your playing...

Yeah, I'm mainly using them as a technique primer to work on picking and fingering because I don't feel like my current technique is adequate and while I can play most of the stuff in book 2 at a slow tempo playing them at the suggested tempos is not happening.

[Jimmy blue note]

Yes, because to really PLAY a piece at tempo is a balance of navigation of the fingerboard, control of the fingers, concept (knowing what you want to do) and being able to hear. Being aware of tempo (time and meter, phrasing) is the test of whether all four of those forces are in balance.
Don't make the mistake of thinking that filling the space in time with notes constitutes playing music.
When you can achieve proficiency in each of those areas, playing in time is your "exam" of whether you've really got it.
When you work on an exercise, try keeping a journal of what is solid and what needs work. Be aware that playing is more than just setting a metronome and hanging on for dear life.
Be smart and aware when you practice and the speed will come (with time, pun intended).

[wzpgsr]

I’ve been working with the Donna Lee head for a few months, trying to bring it up to tempo. I am making progress and can play it around 140 bpm. So that’s one thing, and I consider it an accomplishment, even if I am far from Charlie Parker’s tempo.

But my real goal is to incorporate various ideas from the Donna Lee head into my ear and muscle memory so that I can call on them whenever I please in different improvisational scenarios: tempos, tunes, keys, neck positions, fingerings. And that requires me to slow things way down—this part of it is a much longer slog for me. I’m not so much interested in playing the lines exactly, but rather in being able to conjure their spirit.

[rpjazzguitar]

I'd add this.

Mel Bay probably has the fingering and picking in the book. Presumably the recommended fingering/picking will work, so you just keep at it.

In other kinds of reading, there is what Warren Nunes called "speed technique". It varies depending largely on whether you're an alternate or economy picker. For alternate picking, you have to find the left hand fingering that puts notes on the strings in ways which accommodate the needs of the pick. So, for example, if you can pull-off to a note, that gives you that much time to reposition the pick. In some cases it can take some thought to find the way that works best.

I think it's less of a problem with economy picking.

[emanresu]

Playing in tempo is not a benchmark.
Well, it may be but its a fake one.

[rpjazzguitar]

I'm working through the Mel Bay Modern Guitar Method and I was wondering if I should work on a piece until I can play it at the tempo marking?

Even in book 2 some of the exercises are incredibly challenging for me with 16th notes at 120 bpms.

I just re-read this. Book 2 of a beginner's series. 16ths at 120bpm. Something wrong with this picture.

I used that book back in the day. I think I got a lot out of it at about half that speed.

[charlieparker]

I just re-read this. Book 2 of a beginner's series. 16ths at 120bpm. Something wrong with this picture.

I used that book back in the day. I think I got a lot out of it at about half that speed.

The tempo marking was allegro and it was a scale exercise all in sixteenth notes which seems might challenging. I have a hard time just picking and open string that fast without resorting to a tremolo.

I downloaded some of the recordings though and even the demonstration performances aren't that fast so there's that.

[rpjazzguitar]

Is this the Speed Study in D on page 38?

I can play it pretty clean up to 105 or so. Not 120. At 120 I can't do all the alternate picking and the result sounds sloppy.

OTOH, I have very rarely been faced with the need to play that fast.

Even Donna Lee is actually played a little slower. Around 220, typically, I think. DL is in eighths, so 240 compares to 120 for sixteenths. Now and then there will be a few sixteenths to play at a blistering speed, but nobody would write a long passage at that pace and expect it to be played at a gig or even a jam. At least, I don't think so.

There are some bop players on the forum who might know some other heads that are this fast, or faster.

We have some theater pit musicians on the forum, maybe they'll chime in. In my experience with big band charts, the pro arrangers don't write things that are physically really challenging. Sometimes the reading is tricky, but usually the execution is manageable.

You occasionally see a transcription of something played by somebody with a lot of chops. In my world, those are often amateur charts or transcription exercises. I can think of a few compositions by monster players that are really demanding.

240 isn't all that odd for a bop tune. So, if you want to double time (16ths) a solo, you might want to do this. OTOH, if you play a good melodic solo without that kind of continuous speed, nobody will complain.

[charlieparker]

Is this the Speed Study in D on page 38?

I can play it pretty clean up to 105 or so. Not 120. At 120 I can't do all the alternate picking and the result sounds sloppy.

OTOH, I have very rarely been faced with the need to play that fast.

Even Donna Lee is actually played a little slower. Around 220, typically, I think. DL is in eighths, so 240 compares to 120 for sixteenths. Now and then there will be a few sixteenths to play at a blistering speed, but nobody would write a long passage at that pace and expect it to be played at a gig or even a jam. At least, I don't think so.

There are some bop players on the forum who might know some other heads that are this fast, or faster.

We have some theater pit musicians on the forum, maybe they'll chime in. In my experience with big band charts, the pro arrangers don't write things that are physically really challenging. Sometimes the reading is tricky, but usually the execution is manageable.

You occasionally see a transcription of something played by somebody with a lot of chops. In my world, those are often amateur charts or transcription exercises. I can think of a few compositions by monster players that are really demanding.

240 isn't all that odd for a bop tune. So, if you want to double time (16ths) a solo, you might want to do this. OTOH, if you play a good melodic solo without that kind of continuous speed, nobody will complain.

Yeah, that's the one.

[Jimmy Smith]

Listen to what rhythms guys use. For med or med up, a lot of times guys will only use 8th notes and 8th note triplets and not really much 16th notes. Sometimes even pianists will do this even though it's easier to play fast on piano. Continuous 16ths at 120 is getting into 'monster' territory for jazz guitar. I think rpjazzguitar pretty much summed it up. If you want to level up on speed, focus on attainable goals like leveling up the tempo of your 8th note playing or integrating smaller bursts of 16th notes. You don't really have to be shredding for jazz guitar.

[Christian Miller]

Rhythmic acuity is more important than raw speed

[kris]

Speed ??- requires many years of work.

[charlieparker]

Rhythmic acuity is more important than raw speed

Right, but I want to build a baseline of technical dexterity because I feel without it, it is difficult to play the lines of other jazz greats unless you limit yourself to a few players like Grant Green.

For instance on the exercise that I mentioned, rpjazzguitar was able to play that exercise at 109, i can only play it comfortably at 70 and with work get it up to the 80 or 90 bpm range.

[rpjazzguitar]

Right, but I want to build a baseline of technical dexterity because I feel without it, it is difficult to play the lines of other jazz greats unless you limit yourself to a few players like Grant Green.

For instance on the exercise that I mentioned, rpjazzguitar was able to play that exercise at 109, i can only play it comfortably at 70 and with work get it up to the 80 or 90 bpm range.

One point about that ... during rapid improv, a great player is likely to be playing lines that he's practiced or, at least, lines that fit his particular technique. So, it's one thing to improvise at a certain (breakneck) speed and quite another to read somebody else's line at the same speed.

Another point. Probably best to seek out multiple opinions on this. I think that the basics of speed are very much dependent on the right hand. Alternate vs economy picking? And, then, depending on what you're doing on the right hand, you need to get the left hand coordinated with it. Some people might think I have that backwards -- that you decide how you're going to play with the left and then adjust the right. Speaking for my own struggle with speed, I think the bottleneck is the picking.

So, for example, Chuck Wayne played scales with 3 notes per string and economy picking. Down, up, down and then down on the next higher string. Fits nicely.

But, if you're an alternate picker, that switch to the next higher string will require an upstroke, which is more awkward. You might be better off fingering it some other way. Or, maybe your nervous system will allow you to move the pick that way.

My guess is that if speed is a goal, you might be better off with economy picking, but, on the other hand, there are some blindingly fast players that don't do it that way.

[Christian Miller]

Right, but I want to build a baseline of technical dexterity because I feel without it, it is difficult to play the lines of other jazz greats unless you limit yourself to a few players like Grant Green.

For instance on the exercise that I mentioned, rpjazzguitar was able to play that exercise at 109, i can only play it comfortably at 70 and with work get it up to the 80 or 90 bpm range.

Yeah, I don't know those exercise... so can't comment

(I don't think I ever worked on stuff like that myself; aside from playing scale patterns and arpeggios etc on the neck, I've worked on bebop heads, Bach and so on. I just like working on music. Anything can be an exercise ... )

Technique wise a lot of student players make really inefficient movements with their picking hands, string hopping is a classic. This is what 99% of people do when they alternate pick. The other 1% are probably in Nashville. So while practicing alternate picking is a really good thing to do, it may be worth considering other approaches if a hard ceiling is reached.

I was lucky because I have quite good physical intuition - basically in a movement feels easy I do it. As a mostly self taught player, in my 20s I played with an unconventional but effective picking technique that was actually very similar to Kurt Rosenwinkel's, but I retrained to become a Gypsy picker 10 years ago, and now do a sort of hybrid approach that I don't think has a good name (but is based on gypsy style picking.)

One great thing about gypsy style picking is that the movements the right hand makes are very simple; this is also (perhaps even more) true of Chuck Wayne style picking or any economy style picking. The tough thing about economy picking is not playing fast (once the hands are synchronised), it's doing it in time. You will rush. The exact reverse is true of alternate picking. Choose your hell.

I think some players persist with complicated picking movements because they've been told to do it that way or because they feel that it's the 'proper way'; I actually think a lot of otherwise good guitar teachers have no idea how to teach pick technique. Unless they subscribe to this or that system, Chuck Wayne, Rodney Jones, Gypsy Picking etc, there's not really a clear pedagogy. It's not like being a pianist.

Interestingly, a lot of conservatoire level jazz guitarists are still basically self taught technically, even today, at least in the UK. Also interestingly, few of them are having lessons with guitarists - but they all have great chops. Professional jazz players at the highest level are actually extremely diverse in the way they pick, in a way that would be unthinkable for concert guitar or something. It's funny though, you think you understand what the principles are and then you see something that confuses you. I can't look at Bruce Forman's right hand, it makes me feel tense, but he's such a blazing, swinging player he's obviously got something that works really well.

Anyway, I think the things to watch out for are plateaus in improvement. If you hit a ceiling that you think is too low, you may need to change the way you do something fundamental. That's never easy and it requires both an acceptance that things may get worse in the short term, and also the will power to stick at something which may feel very awkward at first.

Also mind over matter - if I can really hear something, my body does it what it can to play it.

[Danil]

Can anyone post a picture with the exercise? I'm curios what it looks like - I would assume that the fingerings and positions are a given, since it is a method book. Or does it say 'play any way you like provided you can keep with the tempo'?
The difficulty to alternate pick anything depends of course on the line itself -- how regular the pattern is (do you need to change slant) or things like inner picking (an extreme case would be inner picking with string skips, like an upstroke on a thicker string after a downstroke several strings below, but I imagine nothing will be much better for the last case).

For uncomplicated note layouts 120 bpm of 16th is very much doable although of course it will take to get there (probably a speed study should present some kind of a challenge you need to work on anyway, also if not pushed beyond your current limit you may never question what you are doing or really try to improve).

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

Rhythmic acuity is more important than raw speed

+1! You have to be able to put the notes where you want them rhythmically as well as melodically and harmonically. The ability to run a line "among the beats" rather than on them, without losing them, is inherent in artful improvising. The classic example is Art Tatum. He ran lines for an entire chorus that sounded to the uneducated (or pessimistic) like he'd lost the beat entirely - but there he was, spot on at the 1, at the start of the next chorus.

This is important not only for your own soloing but also when backing a soloist (instrumental or vocal), especially by yourself. Many fine players and singers will lead, lag, or dance with the beat in their phrasing. If you can't feel and keep a regular beat behind this, you'll soon get lost and drag the soloist with you. And it's essential for funk and other syncopated styles in which the groove is built around notes that may lead the beat by as little as a 32nd or a 64th note.

You can always tell when you're playing with a musician who tends toward OCD - they just can't swing to anything except regular rhythms, but they can blast 32nd note lines at superhuman tempos forever.

[charlieparker]

Can anyone post a picture with the exercise? I'm curios what it looks like - I would assume that the fingerings and positions are a given, since it is a method book. Or does it say 'play any way you like provided you can keep with the tempo'?
The difficulty to alternate pick anything depends of course on the line itself -- how regular the pattern is (do you need to change slant) or things like inner picking (an extreme case would be inner picking with string skips, like an upstroke on a thicker string after a downstroke several strings below, but I imagine nothing will be much better for the last case).

For uncomplicated note layouts 120 bpm of 16th is very much doable although of course it will take to get there (probably a speed study should present some kind of a challenge you need to work on anyway, also if not pushed beyond your current limit you may never question what you are doing or really try to improve).

Here's it is. It's just a scalar exercise in the second position.

[Danil]

Yes, the picking and fingerings are set. It is a nice exercise - not out of reach, but not an easy one either -- there is some inner picking and change of direction inside the bars of lines 2 and 3, making it both more challenging in useful in the sense that it is more resembling actual line.

[maxsmith]

If you’re going to play the piece on a gig with other people and you’re not the one counting it off, then yes, you have to practice it until you can play it at tempo.

If you are working through a method book, I would recommend this: once you have worked out positions and fingering and picking for a piece and can play it through correctly but not “up to speed”, move on to the next piece in the book, but on subsequent days go back and review the earlier piece, playing at the fastest tempo you can still play it correctly. So you’ll be moving forward in the book but going back each day to review the previous few pages, overlapping.

Speed is only one component of technique, so moving on gives you some fresh material to add variety and novelty to your sessions - new keys, melodic movement, positions, etc. Just hammering away at the same piece day after day, trying to boost your speed, has diminishing returns. You’ll do better to review the older pieces, played correctly, once or twice each day and make sure you get adequate sleep every night - sleep is the single best thing you can do to improve learning and memory.

[ccroft]

What Max said. And might be a good time to say what Christian and others have said in the past: learning guitar is cumulative. Working on other things will help you master seemingly unrelated things.

Try not to get obsessed with nailing one particular thing to the exclusion of others. I know because I have a tendency to do it: Donna Lee, Freedom Jazz Dance and some other heads come to mind. It can be a bit...unhealthy :-)

Watch out that learning guitar doesn't become just a series of obstacles to hurdle. There has to be some joy (and sleep) mixed in.

[RJVB]

+++ what others said about study material vs. concert repertoire.
However, I'd argue that concert repertoire is study material too unless it's for an upcoming gig. Because if it's not, beating down on it until you get it perfect is likely to have adverse effects at some point. You can grow to dislike even the most beautiful piece like that, or worse, cultivate "fixations" on certain passages where you'll keep derailing or sounding tense because it's "one of those I could never get right".

Good advice to come back to recently practised piece at the end of practice, when you're all spent but don't want to stop playing just yet. That's often when I suddenly "get" lines I'd struggled with to understand, for instance.

[RJVB]

Here's it is. It's just a scalar exercise in the second position.

Just back from my weekly lesson (I'm doing one of Bay's nocturnes), and I have to ask something that would surely come up if I were to take this kind of exercise to work on: how do you play this in proper legato (if that's the intention!), at the indicated (breakneck) tempo, and esp. when using a pick?

Do you lift fingers when notes should end, or place a free finger on open string(s) that stop or be prevented from sounding? Or do you just let everything ring?

I note this doesn't come from a method for learning a particular style so that aspect doesn't enter into the equation.