Speed on the Guitar

[henryrobinett]

Such a drag. I had a very detailed contribution to this thread. I'd been thinking about this for years and had some fiarly cogent things to say. I got called away before I could post, came back and finished it. Hit submit and it froze. Lost forever. Not enough energy to do it again. Damn. Sorry.

[christianm77]

I think I can...

You mean all legato? With no picking at all?

ANd what instrument - acoustic or electric?

I think you reattach the note and then hammer/pull off

[Runepune]

Such a drag. I had a very detailed contribution to this thread. I'd been thinking about this for years and had some fiarly cogent things to say. I got called away before I could post, came back and finished it. Hit submit and it froze. Lost forever. Not enough energy to do it again. Damn. Sorry.

You're not alone. I always do a Cmd+A - Cmd+C before I dare push any button beneath a message field in a forum.

[AlsoRan]

Such a drag. I had a very detailed contribution to this thread. I'd been thinking about this for years and had some fiarly cogent things to say. I got called away before I could post, came back and finished it. Hit submit and it froze. Lost forever. Not enough energy to do it again. Damn. Sorry.

I know how it is, sometimes. But the OP would have probably loved to read input from a bonifide speed merchant such as yourself. But, as I said, I know how it is sometimes.

[AlsoRan]

jaopaz,

I thought this thread had a nice video about "Slaying the Speed Dragon."


Speed Building For Jazz Guitar

[henryrobinett]

I know how it is, sometimes. But the OP would have probably loved to read input from a bonifide speed merchant such as yourself. But, as I said, I know how it is sometimes.

Thanks. I'll try and do it over a few posts.

I was saying that I have been working with this forever, but especially the last couple of years I'd say. I've always been able to play fast, but when I played bop super fast I hit a ceiling. There was a different level. Different than playing straight 8ths or modal where you can just run up and down the neck. Bop demanded you play with a certain feel and phrase in a certain way which, for me, was very difficult.

There are several factors I found, all of them equally important. TIMING, the fretting hand, the picking hand, fretboard knowledge, knowing the song. I mean KNOWING the song and how to navigate the changes. Knowing how to phrase. Relaxing.

A lot of times we focus on the picking technique. Doesn't get you there alone. You have to know what you're playing, hear how to phrase, know how to phrase technically, get your LEFT hand to feel the time and quarter notes. Get your right hand to pick time and the same quarter notes. But they're both specific sensations of force and dynamics in different hands and functions. The left has to press down and feel the quarter notes mainly because those are more generally accented, even if they're ghosted. The pick, many of you know, I feel needs to get the downstroke on the quarter notes, as a rule. I'm no fan of economy picking, even though it may be more efficient and faster. It's not more musical. I want to hear the PHRASE articulated properly.

So even though I said all things are equal, the MOST equal is timing, and drills to accomplish that. You've got to FEEL the timing. FEEL it. KNOW it.

So the original post went into how I hit this ceiling. Most people, seasoned musicians who were great, said you never can get faster. You develop and that's it. I meant to prove that even at 60 I can improve. I can go faster and play with better articulation, speed and phrasing. I think I did. When IN practice, meaning my chops are in, I can comfortably play 300+BPM, which is better than I could do before. That means being comfortable and play musically. Not just shredding a bunch of scales. I haven't measured that. That's meaningless to me at this point.

Hopefully I'll be able to recreate more of this in the coming days. Just my personal observations from a workhorse in the fields.

[ginod]

Ich think you will get an amazing overload of information in this thread. there are many good advices, like - If you think "fast fast fast !" !!" you won't reach the target. I think its better to work in Sub Divisions . "Now i play great Eight Notes, now i play Triplets an now 16th etc. " . This is better for practice but could lead into a robotic improvisation. So after this Workout you should only think in Melodies maybe sing with your lines. Doesn't matter if you really hear them before you play them, its only a tool to come away from technical thinking.

Myself should more sing while improvisation too , but maybe i am a little bit shy. :-D

I changed my technique for a while, but not to get faster. I could play really fast, but i didn't liked the tone i produced. I played more like a metal shredder und but all my energy out of the forearm in upward pick slanting. It wasn't really relaxed and the tone was fast, and also not sloppy but not really nice and rich too.

I started to play more out of the wrist, but in a movement like you would open or close the door with a key. Pretty similar like a Gypsy Player would do, but with less movement, because with a electric guitar you don't need so much strength and energy. I think more in very little and close Movements, so in fast Lines there is no Restrokes in general.

But the most Important point for me is "Be relaxed". I think i should make a tattoo on my hand to remember myself every time i take my guitar.

[joaopaz]

Playing fast does seem to be parallel to talking fast. There is a fine line between excited communication and nonsense, and where you are compared to the line depends on the listener.

loved this one

[joaopaz]

Coordination is usually a big problem with speed... left hand does it fast, right hand does it fast --- but together they don't.



One of the thing was taught...

Usually when we think about playing phrase or notes we consider it's teh right hand that controls it, right hand is the beginning of the sound at least/
But musically it is as much the left hand (or even more),
thinking you play notes and sounds with your left hand rather than with your right.
It's like your left hand is pressing the keys and they sound (or should sound)... so you right hand is a bit like organ pipes.

Of course it's not really like this because right hand is resposible for atack etc.

But it's a good way to work with coordination: you left hand should stop a string in musical timing as you hear it, and right hand just do soundjob - 'blow the air in the pipes'...

Makes lots of sense, particularly on my other instrument, the violin. You can long a huge array of legato notes in a single bow. But then the bow is super connected to the sound quality, fullness, dynamics, expression.

[joaopaz]

Can you play a scale legato at 60bpm and slower with transitions between notes absolutely instant?

Lennie Tristano had an exercise like this IIRC. Tristano taught Satriani. IMO there's no coincidence Satch ended up playing the guitar the way he did :-)

Kurn Rosenwinkel mentioned this in one of his clinics, too (it's on YT, though it was a side note).

[joaopaz]

Thanks. I'll try and do it over a few posts.

I was saying that I have been working with this forever, but especially the last couple of years I'd say. I've always been able to play fast, but when I played bop super fast I hit a ceiling. There was a different level. Different than playing straight 8ths or modal where you can just run up and down the neck. Bop demanded you play with a certain feel and phrase in a certain way which, for me, was very difficult.

There are several factors I found, all of them equally important. TIMING, the fretting hand, the picking hand, fretboard knowledge, knowing the song. I mean KNOWING the song and how to navigate the changes. Knowing how to phrase. Relaxing.

A lot of times we focus on the picking technique. Doesn't get you there alone. You have to know what you're playing, hear how to phrase, know how to phrase technically, get your LEFT hand to feel the time and quarter notes. Get your right hand to pick time and the same quarter notes. But they're both specific sensations of force and dynamics in different hands and functions. The left has to press down and feel the quarter notes mainly because those are more generally accented, even if they're ghosted. The pick, many of you know, I feel needs to get the downstroke on the quarter notes, as a rule. I'm no fan of economy picking, even though it may be more efficient and faster. It's not more musical. I want to hear the PHRASE articulated properly.

So even though I said all things are equal, the MOST equal is timing, and drills to accomplish that. You've got to FEEL the timing. FEEL it. KNOW it.

So the original post went into how I hit this ceiling. Most people, seasoned musicians who were great, said you never can get faster. You develop and that's it. I meant to prove that even at 60 I can improve. I can go faster and play with better articulation, speed and phrasing. I think I did. When IN practice, meaning my chops are in, I can comfortably play 300+BPM, which is better than I could do before. That means being comfortable and play musically. Not just shredding a bunch of scales. I haven't measured that. That's meaningless to me at this point.

Hopefully I'll be able to recreate more of this in the coming days. Just my personal observations from a workhorse in the fields.

Henry, thanks for the great post - and for attempting to recreate the original one!

(because of that not I almost always write long posts on Gmail ... it's always doing auto-saves so you don't have to worry even about saving a document!)

Great post and inspirational, too!

[joaopaz]

Hi guys!
Firts of all, thank you very much for all the splendid contributions to this thread!

I just re-read it all and instead of taking notes I decided to quote everything that ringed with me. Hope you don't mind me quoting just some portions of you post - and if you wish to see your quote removed just give a shout and I'll do it!
Hope you forgive me the ammount of self-quotes, too - they're just there so I can remember in a centered location of my own ideas.

I think this will do for a fun reading, and hopefully will prompt some new ideas and reactions from you guys!
Enjoy..... your own words

Changing instruments may be less important than changing picks or picking approaches. (...) I discovered that the pick shape, size and material were far more important than I had ever thought, both for execution and tone(...)

I feel that finding the right instrument to practice on is helpful, many of the improvements will transfer to other guitars fairly easily once you've gotten your coordination together.

One hint I got from Gustav Assis-Brasil's hybrid picking book: work on the right hand without using the left for a period each day so you can focus on that set of movements. 15-20 minutes of right-hand alone can really accelerate your progress. Combining alternate, economy and sweep picking styles over time is also recommended, giving you more tools

Perhaps your problem is working on speed. Work on accurate subdivision, relaxation and efficiency.

My problem isn't being able to play fast enough. It's being able to think fast enough. When I know what I want to play and how I want to play it, then I'm fast enough. When I'm not sure about what I want to play or how I want to play it, then I'm not fast enough.

(...)Playing without thinking requires a level of competence that I have not reached at this point...I think.

Another thought was when I reached my highest speeds, if I did not actively maintain it, it would fade. (...) So I learned how speed and chops must be maintained, at least for me.

Christian, If I'm reading your post correctly, you are saying that speed is a consequence of other types of work, and not something that you should work as a separate entity(...)

Sometimes I may come up with a line, fast and clean, and amaze myself to what I just played... when something happens you know that:
a) it's phisically possible
b) the "answer" must reside in what you just did, or...
v) the "answer" must reside in what you didn't do!

I think also there are two "kinds" of speed. One is speed playing something we are more or less memorizing. (...) But then there is speed improvising. That's something different because we are hearing music in our heads and trying to express it on the instrument. (...)i find my improvisation runs about a third slower than my ability to play a memorized piece or solo.

This post triggered a huge blast from the past... (...) There was a lot I couldn't do - but at the same time, while doing my own stuff, I could be close to an heart-attack and be able to pulled them out without a blink.

The main mistake people make is thinking practice is in some way linear. It is not.

Adam Rogers says 'if you play something fast it'll be something you played before' (I paraphrase)

(...)Anyway, I'm not working on speed, but it's coming anyway, since I am working on coordination and movement, and taking great care to avoid unnecessary tension buildup.

The fact of the matter is that it's a lot easier for the young kids to relate with this (learn fast, 16th-based, rhythms before playing with longer figures) ...and perhaps that helps (I'm sure it does) demystifying speed for the early ages on. Kids grow with speed...

I'm sure that rhythmic control of common rhythmic cells is part of the answer.

I have this feeling that there's a 3rd element in this equation; something that may have to do with our character, with the way we react with things in life. I'll put this in a very clumsy way: If you're a shy person, for instance, if you have "fear" of something, of several things, etc... you will retract yourself instinctively from exposure, from failure, from even attempting speed.

Hitting the wall with picking speed may have much to do with ones level of innate ability. If that's the case, it is not a good use of ones time to work on picking speed once one has reached or gotten near the limit of their innate ability. I also believe that there is individual speed limits based on ones innate ability. However, how does one know if they have reached that limit?

(...) Having said that an occasional flurry of notes played quickly can definitely add to musics intensity. But flurry after flurry is deafening and monotonous. Just my opinion

(...)However, if you want to play bebop speed is a necessary ingredient to both play the heads and to improvise in the bebop style at some breakneck tempos.

There's a difference between playing fast runs and phrasing interestingly in double time.

My point was that perhaps there are limits to what a particular person may achieve speed wise based on their natural abilities.

In my case, when I feel I have it my limit, I try to play a lot of songs and exercises at that limit, and before you know it, I can bring the metronome up another 5 to 10 beats per minute. It is amazing what we can get used to.

Perhaps the sequence of events is inverted... maybe so. Perhaps we should always start with being musical and acquire the competences as they reveal themselves to be necessary.

I did not want to ride one of those slow motorcycles, I needed one with power for those moments that I craved a rush. I feel the same way with music. And, consequently, sometimes I want to crank on the throttle and burn out. If I can't play fast, then that need for a thrill will go unfulfilled, and I might as well go back to motorcycles.

(...)Every abled bodied person can run, right? Well everyone should be able to play 8th notes at around 280 bpm, which I would say is about where you need to be to be a competent jazz guitarist technically.

[joaopaz]

Here's Part 2!

Can't get past repetition. Repetition. Repetition. Patient, relaxed repetition, that is. (...) When teaching I stress the importance of economising practice. I notice that students will often repeat long passages instead of focusing on the one problem in there. Repeating e.g. 16 notes when it's really only the transition between two notes that is the problem. By only focusing on that little spot, e.g. playing some 4 notes around that spot, you will effectively train yourself four times faster.

Practice something musical, and know the harmonic function of what you're practicing. Practicing plectrum technique with nothing but plectrum technique in mind is also some serious waste of precious time. There's no reason you can't simultaneously learn the fretboard.

Take frequent, small breaks in your sessions. If only 15-30 second ones. And instead of one long session, do several shorter ones throughout the day.

Most of our jazz guitar heroes make up their speedy improv lines out of pre-planned, pre-rehearsed lines. Listen to Parker, or Martino, and you hear the same licks over and over. Why are they great in addition to fast? partly because their pet licks are great, their intent is so strong, partly because they have a large bag of them, as opposed to just a couple, and hence can draw on many different ones.

Another thing about speed I've come to realize is that if your phrasing is lousy, your speed will also be lousy. The reason is that lousy phrasing means you don't know when your phrase is going to stop, hence you end up playing long lines (say of 8th notes), and as the line gets longer so does the tension in your hands, and eventually the tension destroys the flow.(...)

That called to mind the line of St. Augustine about time. (Not musical time but, uh, time time.)
"What then is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know."

What I notice in my solos the best parts are the licks I stole somewhere, not my own shit. If I play something like Cherokee I'm happy i have bunch of licks that i rehearsed that get me through. I don't aim high. I can play fast what I know, and dont worry about reinventing the wheel. The touch, attack, dynamics, timing, thats where personality come through.

The thing is that while there are violin peed training "etudes" you are being trained to speed - and every other thing - since day one.
Christian mentioned it a few posts above (I read it at work today) and it was a bit of an eye opener ... don't recall his/your exact words, but it something about speed being thing that comes naturally with technique among classical music students ... (I'm using the word classical in lack of a better word, but you all understand).
Thinking about it I realized I never heard/participated on a discussion with my fellow students/teachers in which a "speed wall" was mentioned.

Licks are usually well structured, and tend to amplify things that are at the core of many other lines;
This good structure makes them good technical exercises; The fact that you listen/play some links a thousand times means that you learned the lick (as a listener or as a player) BUT ALSO that you learned the structure and the DNA enclosed;
so as more the licks you know, the more words you know - it may be not those exact "words on the lick", but the DNA of those words that will allow you to create other words, like neologisms, for instance.... and the more words you know the more complex and meaningful sentences you may write.

Lately I also realize for myself that speed playing could be used for different purposes. (...) it seems to me someone like Dick Dale uses speed for different purpose. I'd call it speed as a purely sound effect.

I grew up loving and learning shred (to my limited abilities), and yes, there's a place for speed in music.
Blather, however, should be abjured at all costs. Fast or slow, each note should mean something, should move the piece forward.

Another thing about speed, and I am guilty of this. I don't like it when the notes don't ring out.

Playing fast does seem to be parallel to talking fast. There is a fine line between excited communication and nonsense, and where you are compared to the line depends on the listener.

But..after spending 18 months focusing on attaining some great speed about a dozen years back, once attained....it must be MAINTAINED. In a bygone era, you could have gone out and gigged and jammed with OTHERS nightly to keep those chops up, 'cuz if you don't use it, you lose it.

Coordination is usually a big problem with speed... left hand does it fast, right hand does it fast --- but together they don't. (...) it's a good way to work with coordination: you left hand should stop a string in musical timing as you hear it, and right hand just do soundjob - 'blow the air in the pipes'...

Subdivision. Left hand must be subdividing as accurately as the right.
Paradoxically, working on the accuracy of left hand fretting for legato can help with picking. And I mean both physical and timing accuracy.(...)
Can you play a scale legato at 60bpm and slower with transitions between notes absolutely instant?
Lennie Tristano had an exercise like this IIRC. Tristano taught Satriani. IMO there's no coincidence Satch ended up playing the guitar the way he did :-)

I did a lot of cleaning up left-hand stuff in the last year or two and found that an unintended consequence was "automatic " better picking technique. I wonder how often our assumed problems with picking technique are actually more to do with left-hand issues, whether mental or physical?

(...)There are several factors I found, all of them equally important. TIMING, the fretting hand, the picking hand, fretboard knowledge, knowing the song. I mean KNOWING the song and how to navigate the changes. Knowing how to phrase. Relaxing.
A lot of times we focus on the picking technique. Doesn't get you there alone. You have to know what you're playing, hear how to phrase, know how to phrase technically, get your LEFT hand to feel the time and quarter notes. Get your right hand to pick time and the same quarter notes. But they're both specific sensations of force and dynamics in different hands and functions. The left has to press down and feel the quarter notes mainly because those are more generally accented, even if they're ghosted. The pick, many of you know, I feel needs to get the downstroke on the quarter notes, as a rule. I'm no fan of economy picking, even though it may be more efficient and faster. It's not more musical. I want to hear the PHRASE articulated properly.
So even though I said all things are equal, the MOST equal is timing, and drills to accomplish that. You've got to FEEL the timing. FEEL it. KNOW it.

Most people, seasoned musicians who were great, said you never can get faster. You develop and that's it. I meant to prove that even at 60 I can improve. I can go faster and play with better articulation, speed and phrasing. I think I did. When IN practice, meaning my chops are in, I can comfortably play 300+BPM, which is better than I could do before. That means being comfortable and play musically. Not just shredding a bunch of scales. I haven't measured that. That's meaningless to me at this point.

But the most Important point for me is "Be relaxed". I think i should make a tattoo on my hand to remember myself every time i take my guitar.

[AlsoRan]

This mention of subdivisions, phrasing, and timing is another aspect of speed that intrigues me.

For instance, I used to spend around twenty minutes a day just picking open strings to a metronome, trying to increase my ability to move the pick quickly. It worked in that I went from 175bpm 16th notes to 208bpm over a period of time.

But then come the challenge of being able to use it. If you can't play the music and stay in time, then you have more work to do.

[mr. beaumont]

That's a big point!

I've talked here about "practical speed" versus "practice speed."

I actually have a much higher "practical speed" I can sound good at and in time, because I really only practice practical things.

I'm not bragging, mind you, I have a LONG way to go

But honestly, if you told me to play on a tune at 250bpm, assuming I knew the tune, I could hang. If you asked me to play a C melodic minor scale up and down at 250bpm, absolutely not.

So my point is--you get good at what you practice. So I say, if you're working on speed, practice music.

[henryrobinett]

My post was only about a 3rd of what I had written. Subdivisions are incredibly important. You have to feel it, play them and articulate them in both hands. I think one of the errors I made was in working on my picking over everything else, thinking therein lies my problem. At various stages my picking was far more developed than my left hand. So I could shred with the right and had nothing to say with my left. Pretty stupid. The pick should FOLLOW the left hand.

What I found was, and that was very important, articulating various parts of the beat and subdivisions. The last leg of the triplet or 16th - 1-e-and AH. Or Tri- pa-LET, or the one or others. It's all about CONTROL of the pick AND the left hand articulation. I have done a whole battery of drills for this in both hands together. One of the biggest problems is getting the two hands entirely in sync.

So know what you're playing. You have to know the fretboard, the harmonic layout of the fretboard. You have to be able to see chords/arpeggios all up and down the neck. You have to see the scales. Why? Mental snags will slow you. That's why some have talked about memorizing phrases. I never did that. KNOW WHAT YOU'RE PLAYING. I'm not one who has memorized a lot of phrases. My bad. It would have made this a lot easier. I wanted to make it hard on myself. I wanted to train myself to play Intuitively. Any thinking will be a hiccup and slow you down. You have to KNOW the fretboard and KNOW the harmony, arpeggios, 3rds, neighbors, key centers so you're not tripping over your thought processes.

Then you have to practice improvising SLOWLY. Gradually, and I mean gradually, Increase the tempo over a period of months. Many months perhaps. Do this with a couple of handful of tunes. This is a improv/speed drill. This isn't a learning a bunch of tunes drill.


When you can play with an effortless flow move to the next BPM until you can comfortably do it at 300 or so. Maybe 280.


My two cents. But it ALL counts. For me at least. It's not JUST the pick. It's not just knowing the fretboard. It's not just timing, or the left hand or the tune or relaxing. All things being equal, you have to work on where you can put your attention. Then put it somewhere else when you've got that one thing more or less dialed. Even so you can only REALLY do one thing at a time until you don't have to think about them anymore.


Got'ca run. Hope this makes sense without too many typos. Good luck.

[henryrobinett]

The last point, I think, is regarding the subdivisions. I practice my scales with a metronome in these subdivisions: whole note, half note, whole note triplet, quarter note, (I used to do 5:4 quintuplets), half note triplets, 1/4, (3:2), 8th, 3:1 triplets, 16. I make sure my picking is reflective of the timing. IOW downstroke on downbeat and various configurations of the upstroke.

I make sure the whole note BPM and the 16 match up so I can do them.

What this has given me, I think, is control. I don't want to think when I play, so if I practice "correctly" my body gets used to trying to articulate in the way I've said it should.

All of this knowledge and control indicates an ability to play fast. But it's not one technical thing. It's everything.

But overall what happens, or did with me, is that speed is not a factor. Music is. You learn to play what is appropriate and can play what's in your head. You can't fight your own technique. You can't fight what you don't know or can't play. You can only do what you can do.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[cosmic gumbo]

I sure wish I could hang at 300 bpm.

[Stevebol]

I finally checked. I didn't want to face the the truth. I top out around 240 which is pathetic.

[Jonah]

I sure wish I could hang at 300 bpm

Don't you have a feeling that when playing the head he is like falling out from time to time? Like he is trying to make but does not always manage to make it...

and all so mechanical


No that fast but sooo much more musical...

[ginod]

I sure wish I could hang at 300 bpm.

I must say the same thing. His playing doesn't impress me. This tempo overtax him a lot, but basically it is fast but not really fast. It is the same thing as playing 16th notes at 150 Bpm.

[christianm77]

I must say the same thing. His playing doesn't impress me. This tempo overtax him a lot, but basically it is fast but not really fast. It is the same thing as playing 16th notes at 150 Bpm.

He makes a pretty good fist of the head IMO - it would be fine in a gig situation etc, no ones expecting nuance at that tempo from a guitar player - but his soloing isn't really in time.

It's hard to solo at 300bpm even in longer note values. But - one thing that helps me at extreme tempos is to locate the quarter note triplet.

[Jonah]

He makes a pretty good fist of the head IMO it would be fine in a gig situation etc, no ones expecting nuance at that tempo from a guitar player

Well...l if no-one is expectig then it's ok...

it must a good life when no-one is expecting anything from anyone...

[christianm77]

Well...l if no-one is expectig then it's ok...

it must a good life when no-one is expecting anything from anyone...

OK wise guy.

I can't execute DL at 300bpm AT ALL. Maybe with a bit of practice I could. I doubt I would do better than the guy in the video. Could you?

You yourself have called me a fast, agile player IIRC. So.

I'm not sure any of the pro jazz guitarists I know in London could, but I would like to be proven wrong. It's just not high on the list of priorities, probably for good reasons. The guy in the vid is probably a shred guy. Still tho.

Find me a guitarist who can execute Donna Lee better at 300bpm.

(Pasquale Grasso can probably do it. :-))

Expectations can be reasonable. It is reasonable to expect someone to be able to execute DL at 240bpm as a professional jazz guitarist. 300bpm is upper percentile ability.

I would rather, like you, hear somebody play it at 240 and phrase it well, but fuck it, you know? If you were hanging with a sax player and they call it at stupid tempo, getting through it is an achievement.

[Vladan]

I sure wish I could hang at 300 bpm...

The title says it was some kind of competition, meaning, probably, he leaarned it for the purpose, maybe ... Anyway, I feel like he have "eaten" couple of beats from the ending bar, or two. However, it's much better than I could ever do, likely .

I finally checked. I didn't want to face the the truth. I top out around 240 which is pathetic.

Still better than I could do couple of months ago. 220 just a thad above the limit, 240 was way to fast ... To compensate, I did it in 2 registers, which I find rather rare, to see someone play it up there around 12th fret ...