Playing fast - natural talent or hard work?

[franco6719]

The biggest problem most shredders have is that they don't have enough musical ideas to keep playing at the speed of light for more than 30 seconds. It is rather sad that Metal has contributed so much to the physical technique of modern guitar playing but hasn't maintained a concurrent growth in musicality. Effectively we have a generation of very technically articulate players with nothing interesting to say.

Indeed. Check the Youtube sometime and you will run into about fifty million of these videos called "Fastest playing of all time", "2000 npm (notes per minute)" and kids fighting about the technique of Joe Satriani versus Malmsteem, etc.. I was more impressed with the robot that plays Coltrane's solo on Giant Steps. At least it was playing the changes.

[Banksia]

Another point I should have added is that, regardless of its musicality (or lack thereof) Metal has encouraged probably hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of youngsters to at least pick up a guitar -this must be seen as a positive thing. If 1% of these go on to develop some broader musical taste and techniques then we should have a good supply of musicians for the next 50 years.

[franco6719]

[Steve Cat]

Thanks so much for the Liberty Ellman, comment. Never, heard of him......d/l/'d some mp3's from Amazon, I am absolutely hooked by his new CD

[METOPERARETIRED]

I don't believe that playing fast or accurately or technically complicated things is a natural talent, but there might be some natural abilities underneath some of these things. It is basically a mechanical skill and is therefore mostly about hard work. I'm pretty strongly convinced of this. However, like everything else, there might be certain natural advantages. For example, Tal Farlow's humongous hands were obviously some kind of advantage for the kinds of contorted, never-ending lines and unusual chord
voicings that he was able to play. On the other hand, I've seen people with very small fingers and hands play amazing chord solo stuff with unbelievable precision, whereas I can hardly get the fingering right on one of these five or six-note chords without hitting clunkers or provoking arthritis or something. I have small hands but very long fingers (strange combination).

A lot of it seems to be hand-eye coordination or hand-ear coordination. This might be genetic to some small extent, but I think it's basically learned and reinforced muscular and movement stuff.

Like everything else, good technique (better concept to focus on that sheer, robotic speed) is probably a combination of natural and learned. You try to do the best you can with what you have been given and try to improve on it with hard work. But ultimately Tal Farlow is Tal Farlow, John Coltrane is Coltrane, and you are you.

Frank,
Herb here, and I'm in on this discussion as of now..

Here I go briefly at least for now.. Speed and Practice?.. Natural or Practice?

On any instrument, your hands / fingers / mouth for Brass / Woodwinds players are and should be a natural extension of your mind's / brain's ability of acquiring memories of yesterday's work..

"IF" you have a natural talent for any instrument, it is the famous question and answer ~ " How do you get to Carnegie Hall, and the answer is practice, practice, practice ! "

I have played Tympani / Percussion in Orchestra Concerts over 300 times at least in Carnegie Hall, and I will reiterate that very aforementioned, famous question-answer.. Practice and you should not be overly concerned of how fast you play, as only slow 'quality' practice time will get you up to ' Speed ' if you will..

Respectfully, Herb

[Joe Dalton]

I certainly never did much in terms of speed training and by your standards im fast.
I just did a lot of practice on pieces with various speeds. So if there was a piece I'd have to play at 100 bpm I'd play on that, if it was 140 I'd play on that. Sooner or later the ability to play the timing I wanted would develop.

[Paul J Edwards]

Speed is overrated.

[METOPERARETIRED]

Most important to understand is that you must first get your techniqual ability to a very high level of control and that is done by playing virtually everything that's ' difficult ' at a very - very - slow pace.. Very slow practice with NO 'settle for' compromizes.

When and if you do that, you can express your personal interpretation of melodies / improv in an intelligent way..

Playing fast isn't neccesarily a good thing, as many players sound like they are playing fast in search for a note..

Miles and Art Blakey had the right concept, as their philosophy was to " Don't play too many notes ! "

If you understand your instrument totally,the Musical structures, notes, chords, voicings et al, and all that you can absorb in your mind which is the creative part of the brain, and how to execute fingerings and left hand positions for all the voicings in chord structers, you will eventually be happy you'invested' so much time to become a " GUITARIST ", which is different than playing Guitar..

I know this sounds like a long journey, but that's what it takes at any age to become a quality Musician..

Inch by inch ~ Anything's a cinch.

My best wishes,

[gravitas]

Most important to understand is that you must first get your techniqual ability to a very high level of control and that is done by playing virtually everything that's ' difficult ' at a very - very - slow pace.. Very slow practice with NO 'settle for' compromizes.

When and if you do that, you can express your personal interpretation of melodies / improv in an intelligent way..

Playing fast isn't neccesarily a good thing, as many players sound like they are playing fast in search for a note..

Miles and Art Blakey had the right concept, as their philosophy was to " Don't play too many notes ! "

If you understand your instrument totally,the Musical structures, notes, chords, voicings et al, and all that you can absorb in your mind which is the creative part of the brain, and how to execute fingerings and left hand positions for all the voicings in chord structers, you will eventually be happy you'invested' so much time to become a " GUITARIST ", which is different than playing Guitar..

I know this sounds like a long journey, but that's what it takes at any age to become a quality Musician..

Inch by inch ~ Anything's a cinch.

My best wishes,

I agree with the idea that speed isn't everything. In the grander scheme of things, it's only one technique inside a toolbox of many other equally important devices that will help to build a solo. Nonetheless, I think a lot of guitarists write themselves off from achieving speed because they hear it downplayed so often.

We are one of the only instruments that seems to adopt the mindset that speed always = souless robotic playing. Look at Joe Henderson, James Carter, Charlie Parker, or Michael Brecker- their musical output is unbelieveably technical, but simultaneously passionate, fiery, and vital. Even Miles liked to have at least one band member who could "shred." David Liebman, his sax player in the 80s, felt out of place because his style involved playing a million notes, while everybody else in the band played relatively few, with big spaces in between. He asked Miles about quitting, but Miles said "No don't do that. People like to see your fingers move." Just food for thought.

Maybe it is a good idea to be cautious of just how many notes you throw in at one time, or how much time you spend shedding your chromatic scales. But there's absolutely no reason a guitar player who plays fast can't be musical, so long as he sets musicality rather than gymnastics as his goal. All musicians should set their personal bar as high as they can, even if it the journey to reaching it leads them beyond the realm of traditional "taste" for a while.

[Shadow of the Sun]

Talent is being able to move your fingers with speed and accuracy.

Skill is knowing where to put them.

[METOPERARETIRED]

You write ~Talent is being able to move your fingers with speed and accuracy.
_________________________________________________

I reply ~
Good taste is a very huge consideration in playing 'Good Music' as well.
Take that into your consideration and think before where you place your fingers at any speed !

[\m/ Mad Metal Mage \m/]

The biggest problem most shredders have is that they don't have enough musical ideas to keep playing at the speed of light for more than 30 seconds. It is rather sad that Metal has contributed so much to the physical technique of modern guitar playing but hasn't maintained a concurrent growth in musicality. Effectively we have a generation of very technically articulate players with nothing interesting to say.

Thank you. As a player of both jazz and metal as well as other genres of music, this is the first time I have read someone say what I have been thinking for quite some time. I am a metal head and a jazzer--been playing both for years--and the frustration I have is all these metal guitarists do is brag and show off their fast playing, but they don't have a sense of melodic or chordal aspects of the tune. I get bored when the tunes don't modulate enough or don't have anything interesting in the actual compositional structure. Yet I am expected to play super fast in order to satisfy the genre. Food.

[Dennoow]

This is definetly hard work rather than talent IMO. If you sit down one week long and practise triplets at say 120 bpm (12 notes per second) as your "baseline", then you speed up the metronome playing triplets at 145 bpm, then add string skipping to that, play that for about a minute or 3, set the metronome back at 125 bpm now, you'll notice you've become faster already. This is the exercise players like Shawn Lane went through, they started out playing stuff too fast (and sloppy) then "cleaning it up downwards". There's no talent involved, just some muscles and coördination. Another thing that works and is even more important is making your picking technique as tiny as possible: 1. It's less probable you'll hit a string you don't want to hit and 2. you can go faster. I was a metal guitar player for a long time, I've been obsessed with speed untill I heard Francesco Fareri! This guy is arguably one of the fastest guitar players in the world but he can't hit a decent note slow!! His vibrato and bends sound like he's drowning a mosquito. So it's not that much natural talent, more hard work, the talent comes in when playing "music" not when playing fast.

[timscarey]

The music you produce is a product of yourself, your life experiences, and your relationships. expressed aurally. that is all. playing fast has nothing to do with it. sometimes it just that, "Playing". Sometimes your music is fast, and if it's really fast and you really want to get it out, you'll find a way.

[flatfive]

Thanks for posting that link. It made me look at some things in my playing that I need to work on. My goal has never been to be lightning fast all the time. I play melodically usually. However, having the speed in reserve for that moment where I really want it would certainly be a plus.

The key to speed seems to be developing licks, scales and arpeggios and getting a big group of executable runs that you can draw from. Anything I already can play, I can play with speed. It is the unknown stuff that trips me up.

Certainly, shredding for shred's sake gets old real quick and I can see why some players get irate when the discussion of speed comes up. Yet I enjoy some of the uptempo Django, that Scotty Anderson stuff and some of Eric Johnson's revved up moments--not mention some good bluegrass flatpicking, a la Tony Rice.

As others have mentioned, speed alone does not make good music. I see it as another facet of playing and worth having in the arsenal to use when the moment is appropriate. As always, serve the music.

[Krenwin]

it's better to be somebody who works very hard than to be a talent.

[Krenwin]

In a hundred years there's only one talented person born. All the others work extremely hard.

[Joe Dalton]

When I practice every note I play I press the fret down extra hard even when playing fast. Build good articulation next to just speed.

[fast1]

it's better to be somebody who works very hard than to be a talent.

i agree. success is 99% hard work. 1% talent.

[Fritzjazz]

When I was a "tween age" musician, me and my click would go to the local highschool dance. All the girls would dance but me and my click would drool all over the musical equipment (stacks of plush rolled and pleeted Kustom amps etc.) And we'd marvel at the raw talent of the average highschool dance band.

Back then Jimmy Hendrix was fast, and Alvin Lee of Ten Years After, then Carlos Santana, then John McLaughlin and on and on. Made them seem more like gun slingers than musicians. Who was the fastest gun in town?

Later I've learned to appreciate the artistry of playing- building a solo from the framework up. Playing just the right series of notes at just the right time, just the right way with beautiful tone.

After all these years I still can't play REAL-fast, but I can play HALF-assed.
* Thanks guys for a really interesting thread.

Fritz.

[franco6719]

t's better to be somebody who works very hard than to be a talent.

Well, all I can say is thank you very much. I disagree myself, but thanks for the compliment.

[franco6719]

i agree. success is 99% hard work. 1% talent.

Hard work will put you in the mental asylum. You need to find some secret channels or something. (half-joking maybe).

[franco6719]

"Who was the fastest gun in town?"

Shit yeah. I was brainwashed by that shit too for a long while. I still haven't gotten that idiotic mentality out of the unconscious mind completey. I used to practice the modes up and down for 6 hours a day and no music from about 16 to 19. I just wanted to be faster than Al DiMeola or, later on, Ingwie or whoever the latest gunslinger was.

Things started to change at Berklee. My first private teacher said: "You seem to have a very strong right hand. We'll have to work on all the other stuff." He assigned "Autumn Leaves". I started practicing the relevant modes, as fast as I could, over the changes. Eventually I started to listen to more and more actual jazz musicians play the tunes. No, I realized, I was missing something there obviously. (;

[franco6719]

Thanks for posting that link. It made me look at some things in my playing that I need to work on. My goal has never been to be lightning fast all the time. I play melodically usually. However, having the speed in reserve for that moment where I really want it would certainly be a plus.

The key to speed seems to be developing licks, scales and arpeggios and getting a big group of executable runs that you can draw from. Anything I already can play, I can play with speed. It is the unknown stuff that trips me up.

Certainly, shredding for shred's sake gets old real quick and I can see why some players get irate when the discussion of speed comes up. Yet I enjoy some of the uptempo Django, that Scotty Anderson stuff and some of Eric Johnson's revved up moments--not mention some good bluegrass flatpicking, a la Tony Rice.

As others have mentioned, speed alone does not make good music. I see it as another facet of playing and worth having in the arsenal to use when the moment is appropriate. As always, serve the music.

You need to work on technique so you can play and execute properly more interesting lines, in order to play something that you like that you heard from Wes Mongtomery (or whomever) that involved some tricky fingerings and movements and so on. You don't need to work on technique so you can be fastest gunslinger or the most complicated whole-tone line player or something silly like that.

[METOPERARETIRED]

Hello,

I've seen many threads on this site about developing speed picking, fast licks, runs, and scales. In all those threads I see some people who thinks that this ability only is for the very few, who has the natural ability to play fast. I used to be one of those guys, but that changed when I started practicing picking technique very thorough and very focused. The more I practiced the faster and cleaner I was able to play....

By fast I mean 16th notes at 160 bpm+, sixtuplets at 100 bpm+.

I've also found a website about "the secret of shred guitar"... it is about a documentary about that the speed picking technique has a secret, which we haven't discovered. The only ones who knows it are the ones who are able to play fast. But they don't know that they know it! That one does something unexplainable with the right hand. The argument is that almost everyone practices with metronomes and increasing the tempo bit by bit, but only very few ever get above the mediocre level. The site mentions that many of the virtuosos developed the technique over a short span of time.... Including Paul Gilbert, Rusty Moore, Michael Angelo Batio. The site is found here:

Cracking the Code: The Secrets of Virtuoso Picking Technique

It is my opinion that the technical ability to play fast can be learned but anyone who practice it correctly. The has been my own experience. I had played guitars for 8 years before I really sat down and got my s*** together. And all the guitarists I know who can shred and play fast have all dedicated a lot of time and practice to reach that skill level. None of them believes it is a "gift" for the chosen few. I'm not speaking about tasteful and musical fast note runs. And not rock, jazz or any genre. Only the physical ability the set the "neck on fire"! The musical skill to pick the good sounding notes when improvising at fast tempos are another skill, and NOT the topic here.

So lets hear it, what are your opinions and experiences? Can anyone learn to play fast seen from a technical point of view, or is it a utopia for the many who practices scales for years and years to the metronome without ever getting it?

P.S.
I hope that this thread not will get any of the "speed-hater", "speed is not music", "there's more to technique than speed", "difference between rock or jazz speed" -kinda replies. That was not the intention. I only ask about developing the technique and not what genre you use it in, or how you use it.

Hi Franco and one and all,

I've been away but I'm back now and have an opinion as always..

Personally I hear what I want to play before I play it. That goes back to old school solfeggio ~ Sing the notes ( in your head or out loud) and then find them..
To settle for anything else is compromising an endeavor to play/improvise on your Ax..
Playing Guitar and being a Guitarist is not a thin line, as it takes practice, tenacity, perserverance and tens of thousands of hours investing in the ability to cross that narrow aforementioned line of playing Guitar well or being a "Guitarist"..
That sounds elite but nevertheless I have been 50 plus years a Pro-Percussionist and am making great strides in my learning Classical and Jazz Guitar at 70 + years of age..

I am doing all of the various techniques without any Music books.. I do it because I was very well educated to do it on my Percussion instruments of all types.. I am no better than anyone else as I don't expect to be a Guitarist, but a very good Guitar player..

Hey, maybe I'll be surprised and live to be 100 and play very well, even approaching that thin line I mentionedl..

One never knows what tomorrow will bring.. Until another tomorow comes for now, I'll close by saying I hope you and all are doing what you seek to do and are happy doing it.. That's what is important isn't it?

Keep the "Burn" to achieve very well fired up !