How to practice for moderate increase in speed

[Lola]

I am looking for ways to increase my speed. Not in a dramatic context like a shredder but say around 150-180 bpm cleanly.

Help pls!

What do you do?

 

[Jasmine10]

unfortunately there are no tricks and secrets: it takes a lot of practice and gradually increases the speed of the metronome

 

[Lola]

unfortunately there are no tricks and secrets: it takes a lot of practice and gradually increases the speed of the metronome

But there are such as speed bursts. I haven’t tried them myself but with practice they are suppose to work.

 

[sergiodeblanc]

Ask the Doctor

 

[Lola]

 

[Lola]

I am sure there are more little subtle hints or tips. There is almost always something on the side to help budding intermediate guitarists.

 

[Deleted member 5962]

I am sure there are more little subtle hints or tips. There is almost always something on the side to help budding intermediate guitarists.

How fast are you now, and how fast do you want to go?

Edit: So were you basing the 150-180 bpm on the 120 used in the video? So, you want to go just a little faster than that?

 

[Lola]

How fast are you now, and how fast do you want to go?

Edit: So were you basing the 150-180 bpm on the 120 used in the video? So, you want to go just a little faster than that?

Yes please!

 

[Deleted member 5962]

Yes please!

So, if you do the drill in the video, are you comfortable and clean at that speed, picking every note?

Second question: is one hand faster than the other? meaning, do you feel you can pick faster than your left hand can keep up with, or, do you feel you can play notes faster than you can pick?

 

[DISTORT6]

Got a metronome?

 

[Lola]

Got a metronome?

Yes I have one and use it regularly. I can honestly cleanly and smoothly play at 140 bpm I would like to up it to around 180 and I am I will be over the moon with joy. Between the two higher bpms I have tendency to overthink things and then have a mini melt down. I know the solo or phrase is coming and then my brain is MIA. I shutdown and completely screw things up.

 

[Lola]

Got a metronome?

Yes I have one and use it regularly. I can honestly cleanly and smoothly play at 140 bpm I would like to up it to around 180 and I will be over the moon with joy. Between the two higher bpms I have tendency to overthink things and then have a mini melt down. I know the solo or phrase is coming and then my brain is MIA. I can feel it in my body! I shutdown and completely screw things up.

 

[PRSWILL]

Work on sweeping arpeggios - 4 string or 3 string arpeggios will teach you to hammer correctly on the string, pick correctly and you can get very fast. same with pick/ hammer drills on one string- ala Eddie Van Halen. If it's speed picking you want, a lot of that - at very fast speeds is in the wrist. You need to get comfortable- really relax the wrist and forearm- and focus on good motion/technique. Use a LIGHT pick - that will help. Post a vid!

 

[Lola]

Work on sweeping arpeggios - 4 string or 3 string arpeggios will teach you to hammer correctly on the string, pick correctly and you can get very fast. same with pick/ hammer drills on one string- ala Eddie Van Halen. If it's speed picking you want, a lot of that - at very fast speeds is in the wrist. You need to get comfortable- really relax the wrist and forearm- and focus on good motion/technique. Use a LIGHT pick - that will help. Post a vid!

What mm pick are you recommending?

 

[PRSWILL]

I use the dunlop super lite nylon picks. they never break.

 

[Deleted member 5962]

Yes I have one and use it regularly. I can honestly cleanly and smoothly play at 140 bpm I would like to up it to around 180 and I will be over the moon with joy. Between the two higher bpms I have tendency to overthink things and then have a mini melt down. I know the solo or phrase is coming and then my brain is MIA. I can feel it in my body! I shutdown and completely screw things up.

When you say you can play at 140bpm, are you referring to whole notes? Or what?

 

[Draconomics]

I am looking for ways to increase my speed. Not in a dramatic context like a shredder but say around 150-180 bpm cleanly.

Help pls!

What do you do?

Sorry for a long post...

So for me...building speed is a byproduct of economy. The smaller your finger movements are, speed will just happen naturally. So this means look at your fretting hand, watch for how far the fingers lift off the fingerboard. Ideally, they just need to clear the string without muting it. Anything more is waste. Same for the pick. Watch how far the pick oscillates during picking. All it needs is to contact the string, any other movement is waste, and when we are getting up past the 16th notes at 120bpm, all these little wastes of movement will become crazy important. If you want to get to 180bpm, economy will be your friend. On a really good day I can do 16th notes at 220bpm, but it took YEARS and ample frustration to hone this crap down. Its like a golf swing, you have a natural but unrefined technique, but making your body do something that is refined but doesnt come naturally is hard.

As for stuff that can help you....string gauge sorta matters and sorta doesnt. I do find slimmer gauges easier, but caution. If you are a hard alternate picker you can send that string flopping about like a rubberband, and that can slow you down. Lower action isnt a must, but it really, really helps. Playing fast with high action feels so cumbersome. Maybe if you got big sausage fingers, or SRV strength, but its gonna force you to work way too hard. The pick is a matter of taste, but generally small, pointy, thick picks are best. I use run of the mill jazz 3's. Cheap, works great, and accurate.

One last thing about alternate picking. As you increase your speed or you do more challenging exercises, you will feel alot of tension in your hands, and it can travel up your arm to the whole body. Work on relaxing that tension as much as possible. Dont choke down on the pick either, putting in some kind of death kung fu grip. Hold it gently, and youll find you can pick faster that way with less tension and softer attack.

Another thing you can learn is to cheat at picking, aka economy picking. Basically put, when you put runs together think about how you pick it and the direction of the pick when changing strings. For example, you can use a downpick from one string to move to the next one and start a new phrase there. Its like a mini sweep pick. You can create very quick runs that way.

 

[Deleted member 5962]

On a really good day I can do 16th notes at 220bpm,

Help me with the math here, as I’m not good at mixing theory with beats per minute. Are you saying you can play 16 notes in one beat, and and at almost 3 beats per second? I’ve never figured out (or tried before now) how BPM relates to 1/4 notes, or 1/8 notes or whatever. But I was thinking 220 BPM is 2 2/3 beats per second. So what fraction note would equate to playing 2 2/3 beats per second? A whole note? I have to be off here somewhere, or that would be roughly 40 notes per second.

I use a metronome, but am just not sure how to match up the 1/16 note thing to the BPM thing. And 40 notes per second if flat out flying.

 

[alantig]

Help me with the math here, as I’m not good at mixing theory with beats per minute. Are you saying you can play 16 notes in one beat, and and at almost 3 beats per second? I’ve never figured out (or tried before now) how BPM relates to 1/4 notes, or 1/8 notes or whatever. But I was thinking 220 BPM is 2 2/3 beats per second. So what fraction note would equate to playing 2 2/3 beats per second? A whole note? I have to be off here somewhere, or that would be roughly 40 notes per second.

I use a metronome, but am just not sure how to match up the 1/16 note thing to the BPM thing. And 40 notes per second if flat out flying.

One beat in bpm is one quarter note. So 220 bps is 220 quarter notes per minute, or almost 4 per second (3.67 per). Four sixteenth notes per quarter note gives you 14-15 notes per second.

 

[Draconomics]

Help me with the math here, as I’m not good at mixing theory with beats per minute. Are you saying you can play 16 notes in one beat, and and at almost 3 beats per second? I’ve never figured out (or tried before now) how BPM relates to 1/4 notes, or 1/8 notes or whatever. But I was thinking 220 BPM is 2 2/3 beats per second. So what fraction note would equate to playing 2 2/3 beats per second? A whole note? I have to be off here somewhere, or that would be roughly 40 notes per second.

I use a metronome, but am just not sure how to match up the 1/16 note thing to the BPM thing. And 40 notes per second if flat out flying.

Alantig explained it best. This is my calculation: Basically take your bpm, divide by 60, now you have beats per second. Multiply by 4 for sixteenth note amounts and there you go (reason being is 16th notes implies 16 notes in 4 beats, not 1). Conversely, multiply by 2 for 8th notes, 1 for quarter notes. At 220bpm, that's around 14nps.

In terms of human limits for speed, there are guys I've seen who can play TWICE that fast using alt picking. That said, a little psa about fast playing: there's a point where its not useful in a musical context anymore. When you play so fast all the notes turn into soup (especially with fast sweep picking), it's time to hit the brakes.