-
Does anyone have any good tips for building speed with sololing? I'm more of a groove player, I don't try to shred through a solo to impress people, I've always been a fan of meaningful playing rather than fast playing, but I still think that in the right context and done tastefully it can sound good at times....
anyone got any excercises they've done to work on building speed?
-
01-10-2013 10:56 AM
-
If you search this forum there are many threads on subjects like
playing fast
picking speed
picking technique
handling fast tempos
legato
etc
so there's quite a lot of reading to do.
A lot of people have invested a lot of time and effort in the study of trying to play faster...there are a lot of different perspectives out there, maybe some of them are better in theory than practice.
Here's a thread, for example. https://www.jazzguitar.be/forum/impro...ope-speed.html
I think it gets interesting around here: https://www.jazzguitar.be/forum/impro...html#post73162
-
I'm by no means a fast player, but you need fast musical ideas in order to play fast and I think that come easiest when those fast ideas have a definite target note. The way to get fast musical ideas is to listen to others and try to copy or emulate what they do. I never had any desire to play fast until I started hearing Bird insert some flourishes into his solos, and what I noticed is that, unlike many guitar players, when he plays fast it is still a clear logical idea that pulls the ear somewhere specific. It's a long term project, but it's one of the things I'm working on this year.
-
Me neither but I'm working toward it. Right now most people would call me a "Half-Fast" player...
Originally Posted by coolvinny
-
Thanks guys! I'll check out those threads!
-
In high school, a hot shot metalhead guitar player once razzed me by calling me "Slowhand." I had no idea of the Clapton reference, which wasn't relevant anyway. The comment stuck, and I spent many years fixating on my speed, or rather the lack thereof. I eventually developed some, but I took a short cut down the road of canned licks rather than pure dexterity. Big mistake.
25+ years later, my perspective is very different, and I'm trying to fill the gaps in my playing that are more related to willful, creative note choices. I'm still battling some of my own cliches that were developed during a long preoccupation with speed. I find that my left hand is now the more reluctant of the pair! It needs to be taught to move in different directions than it is used to. My right hand can pick plenty fast enough.
So I guess my advice is to incorporate your speed-building exercises into a diverse base of musical content. Don't play the same stuff over and over until it's fast. If you do, it might be the only stuff you can play fast!
-
I've posted on building speed many times... but having good technique is also required when playing at slower tempos.
You need to be able to subdivide the beat. Even a very slow phrase will not really lock in unless you can articulate and reflect the accent pattern. It's not just playing the rhythmic pattern... it's where on or off the beat the attack is.
Generally bad fingerings and bad picking technique are source of slower technique. I sight read well, if I didn't have good technique I would stumble when reading bop tunes or 16th note lines... not memorizing, sight reading. I'm playing fast because that's what's notated and I can read at fast tempos because I have the technique to be able to play at faster tempos. Being able to play at faster tempos allows you the pay attention to all the other details of making music. Phrasing, articulations, being aware of what your reading, (or improvising), in relationship to all the other references. I don't need to watch my fretboard, think about fingerings or how to pick... I can, in my opinion and what I believed to be implied by whatever I'm playing... play musically and interact with whom I'm performing with. My technique is a useful resource... not a liability.
JazzFanatik... do you have fingering and picking systems, for your fretboard. That repeat and are basically your default playing, you use as your base reference. You use other fingerings and different picking methods and styles... but their in relationship to your default systems. Once you do... you just internalize those, they become you.
It's fairly mechanical and just requires organized practice.
JazzFanatik... don't mean to single you out, sorry. I always dig you posts and your playing examples... Have you seen my posts about fingerings and picking. Their not that exciting ... I'm sure there are others, but they work.
Reg
-
Paul Gilbert's Intense Rock DVD was a great help for me, lots of stuff to coordinate the two hands. Is it jazz though, no, so it's purely great guitar exercises to do exactly what you requested - build speed. I can't claim that it will help your soloing, but it has been a highly effective DVD and worked for myself and many of my friends, and also great players like Andy James and Mark Tremonti. If you want a more "jazz" approach, probably the best suggestion I can come up with is to transcribe or learn solos or tricky bebop heads and play them slow and accurately, gradually working up your speed. Doing simple exercises hundreds of thousands of times is extremely effective, but can also be boring, deadening and not necessarily give you what you are looking for in the end. For instance you may have improved part of your technique, but the only thing you can really play fast is the one exercise you worked on. In the end, all roads lead to rome so to speak and any dedicated consistent work you do will pay off, and you will improve. As with anything 10 hours invested on the issue per day will get you there many times faster than 30 mins, but I guess the point I'm trying to make is even 30 mins, IF CONSISTENT, will get you there as well (although, I'd be pretty focused if I only had 30 mins).
Here are some other suggestions I have:
Learn difficult guitar solos, isolate the tricky techniques, practice separately, write an etude based on the tricky pattern, practice
Learn classical violin or similar pieces which use rapid single note lines. Learn to play cleanly and with solid and controlled tone and timing.
Learn hard bebop heads or charlie parker solos, whatever you can get your hands on. Continue to challenge yourself and step by step you will become a better player.
Pick up some instructional DVDs or visit youtube stuff on the topic, there are many resources out there if you go looking.
Sit and play without tension, I'm talking NO tension. This was a really hard one for me to learn. Can you play fast and super tense? I'm sure you can, for a bit, but can you play consistent 8th notes at 280bpm with lines that loop in and out and all over the guitar and mix techniques for 10 mins straight super tense? No. The point is, learn to play the guitar, don't let the guitar play you.
Relax! Don't say "I have one month to get super fast by practicing 6 hours a day". Name one great guitarist who got there in a month? Even 2 years? Silence. Can you improve alot in one month? Absolutely, but that improvement will disappear the moment you stop working. Slow and steady wins the race, always will. Work at it, even if it's just a little bit, but be consistent. Before you know it you will have matured into a great player.
Hope that helps
-
Your playing sounds great, lot's of melodic ideas. I do think that a lot of musicians who play really fast are also playing meaningful, like Coltrane or for guitar John Mclaughlin. Originally Posted by JazzFanatik
What helped me most with chops is to first find the types of lines you want to play fast. Lot's of picking scales like John M. or lots of legato lines like Holdsworth or chromatic picking like Martino. Then find a transcription and take one of the lines and practice it slowly with a metronome and slowly increase your speed.
You can take patterns that you learn and apply them to any scale and any notes. The nice thing about working on chops is you can take some line and work on it while watching tv or whatever.
Then later on when it's under your fingers you can play along to a track and work on making it musical.
But yeah, after listening to Art Tatum or Liszt for a while I totally need to hear something more chill, like some ambient tune.
-
+1 with Reg's point about fingering. I think that's something that's often overlooked. Obviously the mechanics of technique are important (no tension, right hand position etc.) but if your lines are clear and logical from a fingering point of view that's gonna help a lot in my experience.
This point about fingering is also strongly related to actually knowing what you're going to play before you play it - being able to visualise and hear in your mind the notes just before you physically play them.
Or to put it another way, you can practice picking drills to a metronome all day, but when you're improvising, if there's a moments hesitation in your left hand what note you should play next, that's gonna throw the whole speed thing out of whack big time.
-
When gigs started getting scarce for monster Johnny Smith, he retired because he couldn't keep his chops up with practice alone...if you don't have a steady supply of performance opportunities it is very hard to maintain advanced chops.
-
Originally Posted by 3625
I think that's true also. After metronome stuff I think it helps to then put on a backing track and use whatever you were working on in an actual musical situation. That way you can find out what things are in your head that are still too complex for your fingers and use that to make a new practice routine.
That helped me a lot.
But still, after every gig I realize I have like so many things I need work on.
I'm not really a great jazz player yet I don't think, but a few years ago Guitar World had me included on a list of fastest alternate pickers. So I've managed to get some chops together.
-
Hey Joel, like to hear your playing one day, cheers
-
I'd like to know what you guys consider "fast" for long, continuous, complicated jazz lines (ie, not merely scale or arp running). There has been some videos submitted by folks on this forum that are up around 360 bpm. Would you consider that fast, or very fast?
-
Well my thing is playing bop/standards over a swing beat, so for me it would be something like - bursts of 16th's at say 200bpm. As for long continuous lines, 8th's at 250bpm or slighty above with a relaxed feel for maybe 3 or more choruses. That's what I'm working towards - what would probably be a level of proficiency that means you could cut it fairly well with pianos, horns etc. which is a hard thing for most guitarists.
360bpm is pretty burning - I'd like to see a link to that if you can remember one. But to be honest, I can't think of a single guitarist that could play bop at that tempo doing eighths for a few choruses. That would basically sound like a blur!Last edited by 3625; 03-13-2013 at 08:35 AM.
-
At the moment, if I could play a complex improvised line using 8th notes at around 200bpm, I'd be very, very happy.
Note that I state "improvised", I'm not referring to a practiced pattern, there's a big difference.
See Jack Zucker's playing.
-
Go Jack! Hey Guy, I measured that somewhere around 270, plenty fast for me to listen to!
I posted a clip of Tal Farlow playing Lover a few days ago on another thread - that's one of the fastest examples of swing 8's being continuously improvised that I know of. I didn't measure tempo, but it's up there...
I don't want to be to blame for this turning into another 'who's the fastest thread' lol
-
Let's say two measures of consistent 8th notes without breaks. I think the average amateur/student guitarist breaks up around 220-250 bpm, being generous. I've thrown that number out on this forum before and folks seem to agree. Originally Posted by princeplanet
The consensus on what is 'uptempo' swing seems to be about 250bpm or higher. I've always felt like being able to play at 350 comfortably in the practice room is a good guidepost towards being comfortable at any tempo in your average jam session or jazz gig. I think of 300 as standard uptempo tempo.
A little OT, but also, just because the tempo is X doesn't mean we have to play 8th notes. Similarly OT I think there is a LOT to be said for working on feeling fast tempos accurately, separate from picking technique.
-
joe pass dizzy's big four Originally Posted by 3625
-
Greg Duncan | Free Music, Tour Dates, Photos, Videos
Greg can handle more or less any tempo it seems.
-
Practicing phrasing at home - Donna Lee, Cherokee Originally Posted by 3625
This kid's recently been a student, and plays pretty clean. The Cherokee is gettin' up there...Last edited by princeplanet; 03-13-2013 at 12:36 PM.
-
Hey, PP that guy sounds great. I remember seeing clips of him last year when I did a google on that Ibanez PM he's playing. I clocked it somewhere around 320 lol Originally Posted by princeplanet
-
Don't know that track Randall, I'll see if anyone I know has it so I can check it out, cheers Originally Posted by randalljazz
-
ed cherry breaking a sweat with the impossible diz (i make it about 394):
-
Three things I've learned (I'm still trying, I think my breaking speed is 250).
Feel the longer beat values, instead of thinking "1 and 2 and 3 and 4" or even "1 2 3 4", feel it on 1 and 3, so you're only counting "one...three...one...three". It makes you sound more relaxed. You might even want to start playing in half notes as well, and gradually build it up. I always love listening to Peter Bernstein play up tempo tunes, because he isn't much of a fast player. He can do it, but he doesn't. Just this Tuesday I saw him and they called Oleo, it must have been at like 380 (I'm double checking on my metronome, but it only gets to 300, and it was definitely faster than 300). He was literally playing half notes and quarter notes, with very little 8th note licks.
Speed it up gradually. Take a tune like Cherokee, which sounds good at many speeds from about 180+ I started doing it at 180, playing well constructed phrases (and well constructed, I mean you get through the changes, voice lead correctly and punctuate it at the end). Speed it up after you have it down well at a speed. It didn't take me long until I got to 250. Sometimes you'll plateau at a certain speed, which is when you, ironically, want to stop speeding up and forget about it for a week or two. When you start speeding up again, you'll have to start at a slower speed, but your plateau level will be at a slightly faster speed.
Lastly, I took a lesson with Adam Rogers a few months ago and asked him about speed (if you don't know him, listen to him. The guy has chops!). He told me that really all he did was practice Bach violin concertos. He actually went to school for classical guitar, so he practiced a lot of those things. It worked out for him, and he still practices those things!
This advice is obviously disregarding the obvious, like good technique.
Reply With Quote
Ben Webster
Today, 02:23 PM in The Players