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First and foremost, I realize that I don't need to play fast to be good and that sometimes it's better to play few notes and make them count. This isn't what I have questions about and I can do without everyone telling me that. I just want to be able to pick fast when I want to. Thanks.
When I'm talking about picking fast I'm referring to moments like this,(Around 1:03)
I practice scales just about every day and I have noticed my speed increases steadily, but I wanted to know if there were certain exercises or tips that you could pass on to a kid like myself. I know that I will not attain this skill over night and it will take plenty of time, in the mean time, I want to make sure I'm doing whats best. I have also read that improvising fast and playing fast are two very different things.
I would go about talking to people in my town, but I live in an area that has virtually no musicians that can or will help me. The few that are here are far too busy to help me. Thank you for any help or advice that you can give.Last edited by Franklin52; 05-12-2014 at 02:37 AM.
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05-11-2014 07:49 PM
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I think you'll get lots of answers. This comes down to there being different questions you're asking here too. To play fast, or to make music fast?
I can only say a little about making music fast: Be able to make it really slowly. Practice with a metronome as slow as you can get it to go. Learn to place the not exactly where you want it and not to be sloppy AT ALL. It's harder than you think.
While you're mastering this, learn to know what you're playing and learn to know exactly what you're doing and be able to anticipate it before you begin to move your hands. If you move faster than you can think, you're in trouble or you're not connected with the music.
Now some people will tell you it's only technical. That may be the case, but this is my experience. Learn to play super slow, and only take the speed up when you're rock solid. Time feel. Swing. Ideas. The speed of thought. They all come into play.
That's one opinion anyway.
David
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Q: How do I gain the speed to pick blazingly fast?
A: The same way you get to Carnegie Hall...practice.
Last edited by edh; 05-11-2014 at 09:35 PM.
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That's what I seem to be reading. I feel like that's a good way to look at it. At least it is for me. Are there any exercises you or anyone else could recommend to me? I'm not so concerned about making music fast right now. I will be soon I'm sure.
Originally Posted by TruthHertz
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I suggest a book like Superchops by Howard Roberts. A really great book.
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Picking (not necessarily playing) fast is one of the easiest thing to achieve, and that happens through a very boring process.
The Johnny Smith part you are referring to is all alternate picking and there are tons of shredders'material on youtube and as manuals to build that kind of speed. Troy Stetina's "speed mechanics for lead guitar" comes to my mind. It is a good book, very rational and methodical, but there are many other as well. The use of a metronome and a log of the progress is very important. It is also important to combine the gradual slow increase in speed to build a solid and clean technique with some of the opposite, trying to stimulate your speed with speed bursts, i.e. every three repetitions play one at higher speed, or in triplets with the same clock. The idea is that a short burst (like Johnny Smith's) allows you to work on your top speed before you can actually play constantly at that speed.
Another approach that is surprisingly effective is the manouche guitar right hand technique: very impressive stuff and probably closer to what Johnny Smith was playing in your example, but it includes short sweeps and other tricks to get beyond plain alternate picking. Check for instance this video around 3:00
The main risk with this kind of routines, apart from dying of boredom, is to get tendonitis, which are a serious problem, but I don't know if you need to work that much, certainly not to get to that Johnny Smith's speed.Last edited by GuitOp81; 05-12-2014 at 12:11 AM.
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You can avoid tendonitis by being careful. Slowly increase your practice routines in terms of time spent and muscles worked. Don't jump from 30 minutes a day to 3 hours a day of hard technical practice. That's how you get injured. But slowly develop the hand.
There are a ton of right hand exercises.
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Three tidbits:
1. I believe that Corey Christiansen has a book at Mel Bay - Killer Technique. Cheap book with great exercises.
2. Another thing to keep in mind is that it can be much more difficult to sustain speed when playing across all 6 strings, as opposed to playing across 3 - using so-called "string sets". (6-5-4, 5-4-3, 4-3-2, 3-2-1).
3. A classical guitarist whose name escapes me at the moment has a nifty little speed exercise that I like:
First: Pick a scale fingering pattern - like the one for G major in the second position.
1. Play two notes slowly (G and A). Then a little faster, then faster, than as fast as you can, etc. (keep it clean though)
2. Then play 3 notes (G, A, B) and repeat.
3. Then play 4 notes etc.
4. continue until you have played the complete scale for one octave.
Then expand to two-octave fingerings.Last edited by fumblefingers; 05-12-2014 at 09:05 AM.
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Another thread mentioned a book studied by Rob MacKillop (and monk, etc.)
- Mairants, Ivor (1997). Perfect pick technique for guitar: A method of playing steel-strung guitar devised to result in a flawless basic right hand technique without limitations. Tyne and Wear NE21 5NH, United Kingdom: Ashley Mark Publishing Company. ISBN 0-7935-9195-3. Distributed by the Hal Leonard Corporation HL00695293.
and Mairants's earlier plectrum method
- Mairants, Ivor (1952). The Ivor Mairants’ book of daily exercises: The first of its kind to be written for the plectrum guitar. Francis,Day & Hunter. LCCN unk84170147. ASIN B007SFDIR2, ASIN B001IY2ZRI.
which was practiced by Robert Fripp as a youth. Mairants advocates picking from the elbow, while (for beginners) Fripp advocates wrist picking on single strings (and allows elbow movements between strings) in his Guitar Craft classes.
Chuck Wayne's instructional books on arpeggios, chords, and scales prescribe a free-hand picking technique that is optimized for legato playing.
Like Fripp, Troy Stetina's Speed Mechanics for Lead Guitar advocates wrist picking (in general).
None of these authorities recommend aiming for speed. The ability to play well at high speed becomes a side-effect of musicianship.Last edited by Kiefer.Wolfowitz; 05-13-2014 at 04:20 AM. Reason: Troy Stetina's "Speed Mechanics for Lead Guitar"
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Did you folks notice the response to Johnny Smith's speed picking at that 1:09 mark the OP pointed out?
When people complain about the fascination with speed, they need to keep this recording in mind. Many musicians love that "I blew your mind" moment, and it serves as a motiviation to be able to gain that type of speed, even if only in short bursts.
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Does anyone know of any downsides to the Benson picking technique or have any idea what Johnny Smith would have been doing?
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As my first real jazz guitar teacher told me, "if you want to get faster, you have to practice slower. Much slower."
Basically, tension is the enemy of speed. You can't play reliably fast and without errors if you are tense.
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When I was younger I was into developing my speed and for whatever reason I have a propensity for doing things quickly so I was good at it. I was state champion sprinter in high school and I can type over 100 wpm so I must just have fast twitch muscle fibres or something. So yeah, I can play Vernon Reid, Steve Vai and Yngwie stuff, or at least I used to when I was into that. The cruel irony is that my musical tastes runs to Miles Davis and John Scofield style that's more sparse but melodically and rhythmically clever. Playing fast lines is kind of a parlour trick but since you asked here are some things that work for me.
The most important thing is to play relaxed. As Vinny said above, tension is the enemy. The feeling of playing fast is that of lightness and ease. When you begin to feel tight or tense, and you will as fatigue sets in, you have to stop because that's counter productive. No tension in your hands, arms or upper body. You're a sparrow, not a humming bird. And keep good playing posture.
Thinking is also the enemy. You have to get to the point where you can play on complete auto pilot. This requires a lot of repetition. A LOT of repetition. It's pretty mindless but you have to put in the reps.
You have to practice both very slow and very fast. First, you have to get yourself to slow down to practice very slowly. Practising slow smooths out your technique. A friend of mine is a Navy Seal and he once told me the Seals have a saying that relates to practising new skills "Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast". That's absolutely true. When you start your daily technique practice you should be playing at about 30 notes per minute at most.
But about 15% (just a a rough estimate) of my practice I did what I call "over clocking" (to borrow a phrase from computer tech). What that means is I would play as fast as I possibly could play while staying relaxed. The key here is to get your muscles to play faster than they are used to moving. When you do this, try to play as accurately as possible but ignore the mistakes. You'll make plenty of mistakes and that's ok. Your hands won't sync up properly and you'll probably pick much faster than you can fret notes and just for this exercise, that's ok. The key is to move as fast and smooth and relaxed as you can. IMO this really helps a lot.
I got this idea from watching top level sprinters. They sometimes train with a big rubber band pulling them forward to get their legs to move faster than they could on their own power. Later I saw a guy named Shawn Lane, who is a freakishly fast player and one of the few shredders who actually plays some harmonically interesting stuff, also does the same approach
Another thing that really helped me was working on my hands separately. Set a metronome and work on just your picking. 2 notes per string, 3 nps, 4 nps etc. and get that accurately in time as fast as you can. Just mute the strings with your fretting hand or let them ring out if you prefer. Then work on just the fretting hand, hammering on notes, get that fast and accurate. Of course spend most of your time playing with both hands together.
Another very important thing is you want the very tip of the pick to just barely skim across the tops of the string. This decreases resistance and drag which is important. I've read that the blades of Ice skates don't actually touch the ice, they glide on a very thin layer of melted water above the ice. I don't know if that's technically true or not but I like that image. Glide over the strings. Use a very stiff pick with no flex and be aware of just barely skimming the top of the string. There is a device called the Stylus Pick that helps you feel where your pick is hitting the string. It sounds like a gimmick but the thing really works. You'll only need to use it a few hours to get the proper feel. Stylus Pick . When practising always be thinking "play lighter. don't dig in. Ease up on the strings".
That's all I can think of at the moment. Good luck.Last edited by teok; 05-12-2014 at 05:35 PM.
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Downsides - hard to figure out how to dampen open strings while using it, although some folks seem to have figured that out. Sounds pretty weird when playing with round wounds. Lots of scraping. Not the best approach if you want to get anything like a traditional sound on an acoustic flattop with steel round wounds, or a nylon string. Originally Posted by omfgzeroftw
That being said, Johnny Smith was famously devoted to alternate picking from the elbow. He was basically the opposite of the Benson approach to picking.
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Alternate picking, straight picking from the elbow, is rough. It's not smooth. It sounds like Smiths picking. I used to play this way. It took me years to overcome it. I understand Sal Salvador mastered this style. But the elbow won't let you get a smooth attack. BUT you can play very fast.
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if tension is the enemy of speed it would seem to argue against the Benson technique (or at least what people describe as such).
in other words, if you are gripping the hell out of that pick (so as to be able to play in the back seat of a bumpy car between cities you are gigging in).
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Originally Posted by AlsoRan
audiences too. not just musicians. virtuosity has always impressed.
the challenge is making it artful.
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Play slowly: play RIGHT. Playing fast with clicks and bumps and scratches and fluffs is practicing mistakes. Speed comes automatically with SLOW careful practice.
Why DO you all have this pointless obsession with playing fast? Do you want to finish the song/piece before the rest of the band? Isn't being the fastest(insert your axe)-ist like being the fastest f***? If you played classically it would be an unspoken prerequisite...
Calm down, learn the melody, understand the harmony, listen to the rest of the band and its limitations/skills and play MUSIC. FAR too much musical masturbation. Listen to tasteful players and LEARN!
Just a thought...Last edited by Stumpy; 05-13-2014 at 12:43 AM.
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I understand where you're coming from when you say that, but I still want to be able to do it. Originally Posted by Stumpy
Could someone give me an example of what alternate picking from the elbow is? I'm pretty sure I know, but I just want to make sure. I imagine I would prefer doing this, but I'm still very open to new picking techniques. For speed or just for cleanness. From what I've gathered, there's the Benson technique, gypsy, and what I think Johnny Smith would have been using. I guess I'm just looking for a picking technique to stick with and use for all the styles I play. Thanks for all the pointers guys.
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Fair enough, but bebop is fast music. If someone wants to play bebop then learning to play progressively faster has got to be part of the practice routine. I love bebop so working on faster playing is just something I do, and it's hard because I'm not a naturally fast player at all...but like anything when you practice regularly you do get results. Originally Posted by Stumpy
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Originally Posted by Stumpy
Well, classical music is as tasteful as it gets. Playing fast is a prerequisite for being a complete classical player.
So, are jazzers required to be less talented or skilled? Is everybody supposed to be a humble blues player?
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I think the grip is actually light. It may appear strained (-and some people may over-do it when they're learning to grip a pick that way) but isn't. At least, it isn't supposed to be. My 2 cents Originally Posted by fumblefingers
if tension is the enemy of speed it would seem to argue against the Benson technique (or at least what people describe as such).
in other words, if you are gripping the hell out of that pick (so as to be able to play in the back seat of a bumpy car between cities you are gigging in).
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The Benson legend, as I understand it, was that he was laying on his back on top of the B3 in the van as they traveled. In order to keep the guitar from sliding around, he would keep it snug with his forearm, which naturally rotated his wrist into what we know today as the 'Benson" angle.
PK
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forget about specific pick techniques, super chops books, etc. Just work on playing everything slow and be acutely aware of being in the pocket. Playing accurately slow is the only way to learn to play fast. You don't need to use benson picking or anything different about the way you currently play unless you're doing something acutely wrong.
And don't rely on advice from a chat forum for answers to questions like these. Find a local player in your area who is respected by other musicians and study with them but in the end *YOU* have to do the work.
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You might want to look at the book "Effortless Mastery". It has no guitar-specific information, but gives an overall approach to--well--effortless mastery. A lot of the book is kind of touchy feelly--he is working through some issues with pushy piano teachers from his youth--but the core methodology is great for mastering any technique.
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