Can anybody pick this passage at this tempo?

[FuseHead]

I'm just staying out of this one... The thread from a psychological aspect was pure awesome though as I just skimmed through it.

[Lobomov]

......... and since I've learned OP could not solve his problem by applying teachings of TG

That remains to be seen .. worth mentioning is that I haven't learned to play like Joe Pass yet despite having all his books and DVDs

[AlsoRan]

Saw a touring blues/rock band at a club a few years back. Two very good guitarists swapping off lead work. One clearly loved the arena/glam rock style of the time and had great proficiency at those high speed runs and turns and repeated figures.

The other ... wow. He could take a medium to slow scalic passage, with a chromatic or turn figure tossed in ... but with subtle ... pauses ... sudden speedups to ... pause in a slightly off-time way ... give it so much interest he could nearly make the crowd cry.

We definitely all held our breath at times. Making an amazing group experience.

You know which of the two I preferred ... ?

Make me cry just with your "axe" ... you got a fan.

Stumbling fingers still need love ...

I had a similar experience. A Blues band with two guitarists, trading 8's. One guy played fast, searing lines during his turn, while the other relied more on mid-tempo lines, with lots of bending notes.

The contrast was magic. What a great use of speed contrasting with slower, more deliberate solos.

Of course, it would not have been possible if everybody played slow solos.

[pluck]

i played it with just down strokes. I started out at 155bpm iwas able to do a couple of measures then i could feel I was losing the beat so I switched to down up, Im using a solid body guitar with heavy strings 1st is 13

im an old man of 78 speed is not a problem as long as I dont have to think.


pluuck

[JakeAcci]

i played it with just down strokes. I started out at 155bpm iwas able to do a couple of measures then i could feel I was losing the beat so I switched to down up, Im using a solid body guitar with heavy strings 1st is 13

im an old man of 78 speed is not a problem as long as I dont have to think.


pluuck

hey pluck - it's written as 16ths, not 8ths.

[Stevebol]

*Just*? Ha! That alone provides me with enough material to practice for 2 hours a day. On top of that, general practice, ear training, reading practice, writing, listening, gigging etc. It's a lot of work just to play music. Also - why do work that isn't used?



I suppose a lot of my time is spent trying to get myself to play less notes. For example I feel I want to develop rhythmic versatility at high tempos. That's not quite the same thing as playing fast. Jim Hall could do this for instance.

Martino does both IMO - play strings of notes but also include interesting rhythms.



Was the alternation part of the original line? For me that's the tricky bit.

Seven Come Eleven, which has something like your example, is not crazy fast - eights at around 260 or less. It's tricky but not super difficult although ATM I have a little trouble getting it super clean. Something worth practicing within that context, because it's something I actually play.

But within that context I probably wouldn't focus on getting it down at shred speeds, which might require a different mechanic.

BTW, Martino of course executes it cleanly, as in fact does Jim Hall and Charlie Christian.

It would be interesting to see what people's goals were a bit more.



I suppose I don't see the point much beyond a specific musical situation, it just becomes like sports science or something. But that's me...

I'm hearing about 240-250 BPM here. I top out right around there. If I worked at it I could probably play in bursts and give the 'Impression' I could play faster. 270 maybe?
250. That's all I got.
Too slow for jazz.

[pluck]

hey pluck - it's written as 16ths, not 8ths.

yeah i looked at the
tab only. ill try it this afternoon.
ive got to get the egg off my face.

pluuck

[AlsoRan]

yeah i looked at the
tab only. ill try it this afternoon.
ive got to get the egg off my face.

pluuck

Ha!Ha!

It happens every now and then to all of us.

[sgcim]

Another alternate picking problem I have is playing an upstroke on the B string, then a downstroke on the high E string, and going back and forth with that pattern in 16th notes at a tempo faster than about 106bpm (212bpm as 8th notes).

If I reverse the picking, I have no problems, but you don't always have the choice in the course of improvising.

[JakeAcci]

If I reverse the picking, I have no problems, but you don't always have the choice in the course of improvising.

well, after the first note or two you could flip the pick strokes to your advantage, right?

[sgcim]

well, after the first note or two you could flip the pick strokes to your advantage, right?

That's not the point. I'd never use up on B, down on E if I had the choice, but the point is that this type of picking is at the root of the problem that in the example that you first posted, and maybe most other problem areas as well.

No matter what you do, or how you pick (alternate, economic, sweep, etc...) this one problem is going to come up in improvisation at some point.

[JakeAcci]

That's not the point. I'd never use up on B, down on E if I had the choice, but the point is that this type of picking is at the root of the problem that in the example that you first posted, and maybe most other problem areas as well.

No matter what you do, or how you pick (alternate, economic, sweep, etc...) this one problem is going to come up in improvisation at some point.

Yeah, it's worth getting the hang of, but hypothetically, you could flip it around with something like this:



the passage would look like it would be your achilles heel (if you somehow got forced to start it on an upstroke) but then one 'hammer from nowhere' and you could flip the picking.

Obviously, makes sense to have the versatility to avoid those gymnastics, but, I find things like this useful for the blazing tempos.

[JakeAcci]

If anybody was equally curious about this topic of conversation (nobody? really? haha) there's been a lot of IN-DEPTH discussion of the physical movements required to do this kind of stuff over at the cracking the code forum, and some people are starting to 'get it.' I'm working on it....

Search results for 'crosspicking' - The Cracking the Code Forum

[AlsoRan]

Did anybody ever say they could do this at tempo?

Just curious.

[JakeAcci]

Did anybody ever say they could do this at tempo?

Just curious.

Hah, I'd have to go back and check but I don't think anybody could do it exactly as written and exactly as I specified. There might have been one person. It's funny because even a shredder specialist probably doesn't practice this exact move that move.

[Lobomov]

I totally forgot about this challenge .. actually wanted to see if I could make it work ...

[JakeAcci]

I totally forgot about this challenge .. actually wanted to see if I could make it work ...

Scrolling up a few posts I think they have the answer at the cracking the code forum, but I haven't practiced it enough to work out the kinks.

[sgcim]

I can do it at tempo, but it just sounds like a mish-mash, because I can't control the accents. I can only play it starting on an up stroke with heavy pick slanting.
I've been practicing the descending dim. arp that Vai played in that movie. I didn't use any pick slanting, because it shifts too fast and too often. I just practiced it with alternate picking at a slow tempo and kept increasing it until I could play it at about 160bpm as sixteenth notes WITHOUT distortion, and on an archtop guitar.
It took me months to make the transition to the faster tempos (above 144bpm as 16ths), but once I got it, it has stayed with me all the time.
I haven't used it on any solos yet. I'm not really a lick player, and this seems like too obvious a lick.
I guess I'll eventually find some use some use for it...

[Vladan]

I can play it for a long time at about 150 as written, but I'd have to pick it up-down instead of down-up.
I could keep it up for 20 measures or so, before starting to drop beats
I've always found it important to be able to repeat exercises like that over and over, rather than just play it for one measure, because you can incorporate it easier into your technique, and be able to do it with little effort.

But as far as playing it down-up, I can't come anywhere near that, although I have been working on that type of thing lately. I don't do any pick slanting that I'm aware of, but maybe I should start consciously working on it.

Back when high school students were still interested in playing musical instruments, I used to get kids in my band class that could shred way faster than I could. One Guyanese kid used to sneak into the band room, and stay there the whole day, shedding Paul Gilbert exercises. Then he'd go home and practice another ten hours!
He came back to visit me after he finished school, and he was already playing professional gigs after playing guitar for only three or four years.
I xeroxed a bunch of Paul Gilbert things that he bought, and still practice them today. We used to sit there and watch Paul Gilbert and Steve Vai videos in my office every day.

When he brought in an instructional video that had Vai playing while he had a fan trained on his hair, I almost puked.
Another Sri Lankan kid could also play me under the table, but when he came back to visit me after he graduated and
was going to college for engineering, he couldn't play as well, because he had to study now!

I can do it at tempo, but it just sounds like a mish-mash, because I can't control the accents. I can only play it starting on an up stroke with heavy pick slanting.
I've been practicing the descending dim. arp that Vai played in that movie. I didn't use any pick slanting, because it shifts too fast and too often. I just practiced it with alternate picking at a slow tempo and kept increasing it until I could play it at about 160bpm as sixteenth notes WITHOUT distortion, and on an archtop guitar.
It took me months to make the transition to the faster tempos (above 144bpm as 16ths), but once I got it, it has stayed with me all the time.
I haven't used it on any solos yet. I'm not really a lick player, and this seems like too obvious a lick.
I guess I'll eventually find some use some use for it...

So, after 1.5 years of practice, changing from no slant (?!) to heavy slant ... you only got worse at it?