Poll: How Fast Are You?

[DB's Jazz Guitar Blog]

I never practise playing fast, I never like what comes out! It’s hard enough to play something good and melodic as it is.

I don't practise playing fast either. It sometimes works as a tool for creating excitement though. It has its place in the bebop tradition so it should not be ignored or played down. All my favourite guitarists can play pretty fast if needs be, some of them ridiculously so (Lagrene, Oberg, van Ruller, van Iterson, Martino, Farlow,, Doug Raney, Bruce Forman etc.) It's just a tool that comes with the trade for most name players. There are exceptions of course.

DB

[grahambop]

Agreed, I should probably try and improve my speed a bit. I think there’s a video where Pasquale Grasso says you can do this just by going a little faster each day, even if it takes a long time.

[Roberoo]

I can see how one needs some speed to express what you want but really you don't need to be fast be a great jazz guitarist. Django, Grant Green, Kenny Burrell. Jimmy Raney had facility but their greatest stuff was not about blinding speed (despite what gypsy jazzers play like now) it was about making deliberate musical statements that were lyrical and compelling. It wasn't a circus act like you see with some speed demons.

I had a great teacher that continually said if you can't play a compelling solo (over 8 bars) with quarter notes and 8ths you are playing bullshit and go back to the drawing board. In my opinion this holds true in most situations - not all - but most.

[rpjazzguitar]

I can play a practiced scale pretty fast, but I can't improvise very fast. If I'm trying to double time I get a few notes into it and I can't continue to generate ideas at that speed. If I try, it doesn't sound good. I play with another guitarist occasionally who can just rip at high speed. I ought to ask him what he practiced to be able to do that.

Or, I may think of a line or idea, but then I don't have the right hand for it. The bottleneck is always in the right hand.

OTOH, I rarely encounter a written out line that I can't get up to speed. I've rarely seen anything I couldn't play in a big band chart. I think there's some stuff in Steps Ahead charts that is difficult.

And, if you play well crafted line in a high tempo tune, it doesn't have to be 32nd notes to work.

The players I listen to repeatedly tend not to be speed demons. Jim Hall is my ATF. Wes, another fave, doesn't strike me as a speed demon (until you try to play his stuff). OTOH, I'm a fan of Chico Pinheiro who has, among every thing you need for guitar, monster level chops.

[stark]

Pearls of wisdom.

[pauln]

I can play a practiced scale pretty fast, but I can't improvise very fast. If I'm trying to double time I get a few notes into it and I can't continue to generate ideas at that speed. If I try, it doesn't sound good. I play with another guitarist occasionally who can just rip at high speed. I ought to ask him what he practiced to be able to do that.
Or, I may think of a line or idea, but then I don't have the right hand for it. The bottleneck is always in the right hand.

I play by ear but maybe describing something about it will help. My right hand is never a bottleneck because it derives its picking solution as a subset of the left hand's fingering solution... it is kind of like a shadow, it always moves as fast.

This will be just about single note soloing for simplicity. It begins with me composing a line in my mind's ear in the form of how it sounds - an aural image. It is this aural image I present to my left hand and make the request, "Make it sound like this". The left hand transforms the aural image (the sound of it) into a schema of geometric kinematics (a fingering solution).

So at a very simple level, the mind's ear's aural image comprises a sequence of pitches, each with just two attributes - a start time and a duration. That minimally accounts for the melody and its rhythm.

aural image
sequence of: pitches [start, length]

The left hand fingering provides a solution based on what it knows from experience about strings, frets, and fingers. That solution schema has a "type" which informs whether a pitch of the series will be sounded by pick or some other method, a start time, a string and fret coordinate, and a duration. It actually knows much more, but this is simplified.

left hand solution
sequence of:
type [p, n] (p= pick n= slur, hammer, pull, bend)
start [time]
string [6-1]
fret [0-22]
length [time]

I call my method "left hand drive"; what I mean is that my musical ideas are presented to the left hand for execution - I drive the left hand and ignore the right hand. This seems paradoxical since the right hand is doing the physical driving of the strings, but here is why it works. Still thinking at the simple level, all the right hand needs is contained in the left hand solution. The right hand only needs to know if it needs to pick the string, when to do that, and which string.

right hand
sequence of:
type [iff p]
start [time]
string [6-1]

What that means is that as fast as the left hand can formulate fingering solutions to "make it sound like this", the right hand always has its picking solution. For example...
If the left hand fingering solution is the note is picked on the up beat of two, sounding 3rd string 7th fret as an eight note...

[p, 2.5, 3, 7, 1/8] left hand solution schema ===> [p, 2.5, 3] right hand solution schema

...then the right hand picking solution is already there - pick at the upbeat of two the third string

I never have to drive a picking solution to the right hand because it derives its picking solution directly from the left hand's fingering solution. In essence, I inform my left hand what I want to hear and my right hand uses a subset of the left hand's solution. The right hand can't fall behind the left because the picking solution is inherent in the fingering solution.

You might try the experiment of focusing your playing on driving just the left hand as a test to determine how much your left hand fingering solutions are communicated to your right hand's picking solutions. In other words, if you ignore your right hand, does it just not work, or does it kind of work somewhat, or does it show promise of actually working well?

[princeplanet]

I play by ear but maybe describing something about it will help. My right hand is never a bottleneck because it derives its picking solution as a subset of the left hand's fingering solution... it is kind of like a shadow, it always moves as fast.

This will be just about single note soloing for simplicity. It begins with me composing a line in my mind's ear in the form of how it sounds - an aural image. It is this aural image I present to my left hand and make the request, "Make it sound like this". The left hand transforms the aural image (the sound of it) into a schema of geometric kinematics (a fingering solution).

So at a very simple level, the mind's ear's aural image comprises a sequence of pitches, each with just two attributes - a start time and a duration. That minimally accounts for the melody and its rhythm.

aural image
sequence of: pitches [start, length]

The left hand fingering provides a solution based on what it knows from experience about strings, frets, and fingers. That solution schema has a "type" which informs whether a pitch of the series will be sounded by pick or some other method, a start time, a string and fret coordinate, and a duration. It actually knows much more, but this is simplified.

left hand solution
sequence of:
type [p, n] (p= pick n= slur, hammer, pull, bend)
start [time]
string [6-1]
fret [0-22]
length [time]

I call my method "left hand drive"; what I mean is that my musical ideas are presented to the left hand for execution - I drive the left hand and ignore the right hand. This seems paradoxical since the right hand is doing the physical driving of the strings, but here is why it works. Still thinking at the simple level, all the right hand needs is contained in the left hand solution. The right hand only needs to know if it needs to pick the string, when to do that, and which string.

right hand
sequence of:
type [iff p]
start [time]
string [6-1]

What that means is that as fast as the left hand can formulate fingering solutions to "make it sound like this", the right hand always has its picking solution. For example...
If the left hand fingering solution is the note is picked on the up beat of two, sounding 3rd string 7th fret as an eight note...

[p, 2.5, 3, 7, 1/8] left hand solution schema ===> [p, 2.5, 3] right hand solution schema

...then the right hand picking solution is already there - pick at the upbeat of two the third string

I never have to drive a picking solution to the right hand because it derives its picking solution directly from the left hand's fingering solution. In essence, I inform my left hand what I want to hear and my right hand uses a subset of the left hand's solution. The right hand can't fall behind the left because the picking solution is inherent in the fingering solution.

You might try the experiment of focusing your playing on driving just the left hand as a test to determine how much your left hand fingering solutions are communicated to your right hand's picking solutions. In other words, if you ignore your right hand, does it just not work, or does it kind of work somewhat, or does it show promise of actually working well?

Always interesting to read how others try to explain their approach to things. Of course, we can't expect that any such description can actually be of benefit to anyone else, right? I'm sure each has their own way of lock-stepping the right hand to the left, but most could not even begin to explain it. Years ago I realised that picking downstroke on a downbeat was not always desirable - for both technical and musical reasons. The solution for me was to practice cells, devices, lines etc with inside out picking (eg- play upstrokes on downbeats etc). Another thing was to improvise for an hour or 2 as often as possible using exclusively triplets and accentuating the start of every triplet group. That helped my right hand be ready for anything (well, almost...).

But again, it's what (kinda) works for me. The great thing about the guitar is also the most frustrating thing - everyone's technique ends up being totally unique. Same cat, many skinning techniques...

[Litterick]

Always interesting to read how others try to explain their approach to things. Of course, we can't expect that any such description can actually be of benefit to anyone else, right?

[awkward silence]

[pauln]

Originally Posted by princeplanet
Always interesting to read how others try to explain their approach to things. Of course, we can't expect that any such description can actually be of benefit to anyone else, right?

[awkward silence]

Maybe he's being sarcastic. The test of whether "such description can actually be of benefit" is to try the experiment I suggested.

[princeplanet]

Originally Posted by princeplanet
Always interesting to read how others try to explain their approach to things. Of course, we can't expect that any such description can actually be of benefit to anyone else, right?



Maybe he's being sarcastic. The test of whether "such description can actually be of benefit" is to try the experiment I suggested.

No sarcasm, but no offence intended also. We all have different ways of negotiating all aspects of not just technique, but every aspect of Jazz guitar. With picking suggestions, there are already too many out there in youtoob land to confound every novice wanting advice. It would be nice if someone made sense of your suggestions and made it work for themselves, but it's also OK if they don't, and work out their own way instead (which is probably more likely).

[Litterick]

I suspect the solutions create the problems. Perhaps I am fortunate in that I do not have aural images to present to my hands, and I have never experienced much difficulty in picking. And I have no desire to play fast.

[pauln]

I suspect the solutions create the problems. Perhaps I am fortunate in that I do not have aural images to present to my hands, and I have never experienced much difficulty in picking. And I have no desire to play fast.

What kind of musical communication do you have with your left hand?

[Litterick]

What kind of musical communication do you have with your left hand?

Subconscious, for the most part. I have no idea what I will play before I start playing. So long as I do not think too much, my hands and my mind work it out.

[Greywolf]

While I practice fast 16th notes , it's mostly as a motor skill development. Playing Mandolin definetly helps with picking speed , but it should be about content , not speed.

The speed has to fit the song, which I learned early on ( 40+ years ago) when I was enamored with Fusion. I remember clearly my first good gig sitting in, the main guitarist came over to me during the break , hand on shoulder and told me .."Man I really like the way you play , but if you played 1/4 as many notes everybody else would enjoy it even more.."

I'll never forget that advice.

[pauln]

While I practice fast 16th notes , it's mostly as a motor skill development.

The speed has to fit the song, which I learned early on ( 40+ years ago) when I was enamored with Fusion. I remember clearly my first good gig sitting in, the main guitarist came over to me during the break , hand on shoulder and told me .."Man I really like the way you play , but if you played 1/4 as many notes everybody else would enjoy it even more.."

I'll never forget that advice.

Unfortunately most guitarists never hear that advice, or forget. There is a trade-off between speed and melodic quality. It is good to be mechanically able to play faster than ever needed for performance, important to resist the urge to demonstrate it, and very nice to turn that reserve capacity into quality control. I think that is what Wes meant when he mentioned that ability to play fast allowed for better phrasing.

[rsclosson]

I haven't measured yet, but since I started adopting Gypsy Jazz picking techniques, which is still a work in progress, I can play faster and cleaner than I used to. I haven't eliminated slurs, but I a using them less.

[doc w]

+1

I don't get it.