Playing Guitar Faster and Faster and fa...
Discussion
I've been listening to a track called Grace by Lamb of God recently and I estimate the picking in the heavy intro riff (after the clean noodling intro) to be in the region of about 240bpm. So this is like picking around 4 notes per second.
I can play the riff consistently at around 210bpm, but I'm struggling to go much faster whilst keeping accurate.
How tricky is 240bpm to keep consistent with? Is this a shredders trick and if so, is it considered easy? Can everyone do it or does it take a particular person? i.e. is there a point where natural talent takes over?
I can play the riff consistently at around 210bpm, but I'm struggling to go much faster whilst keeping accurate.
How tricky is 240bpm to keep consistent with? Is this a shredders trick and if so, is it considered easy? Can everyone do it or does it take a particular person? i.e. is there a point where natural talent takes over?
I think there are two ways, slow then fast, keeping it clean. Or fast and messy, then cleaning it up.
Both depend on how far along you are in playing, and the type of riff. Sometimes when playing a riff/lick slow its hard to break out of the slowness and speed up, shawn lane said something very similar about fast licks. Get it clean after you have the speed nailed.
I've spent the last year after a wrist injury trying to get to Paul Gilbert levels of alternative picking, getting it clean and clear, yet fast and with that lovely fluttery hummingbird sound. It was a pain given my hand was rather lazy after a year out! I found if you cant get the speed, do a PG tip and just tremolo pick on the string as fast as you can, then you know how fast your right hand can do it, just need to work on the left and get the two hands in sync. I found the less you consciously think about tying the two up, easier it is!
With a sludgy low style riff like yours keeping it clean and clear is going to be hard, so just hard practise sounds like the only options. Maybe play the riff on clean settings, see where/why you struggle when you speed up (hitting other strings, excess noise, tricky fingering), you might find that you can play the riff fine without gain, its just a case of making sure that keep the riff clean with high gain. Or you might see the area your fingers are struggling with and can concentrate on that small area of the lick. Sometimes you can miss little things when you are playing fast and low with lots of lovely distortion!
Hope that might give you some ideas. Not exactly revolutionary but hey ho!
Both depend on how far along you are in playing, and the type of riff. Sometimes when playing a riff/lick slow its hard to break out of the slowness and speed up, shawn lane said something very similar about fast licks. Get it clean after you have the speed nailed.
I've spent the last year after a wrist injury trying to get to Paul Gilbert levels of alternative picking, getting it clean and clear, yet fast and with that lovely fluttery hummingbird sound. It was a pain given my hand was rather lazy after a year out! I found if you cant get the speed, do a PG tip and just tremolo pick on the string as fast as you can, then you know how fast your right hand can do it, just need to work on the left and get the two hands in sync. I found the less you consciously think about tying the two up, easier it is!
With a sludgy low style riff like yours keeping it clean and clear is going to be hard, so just hard practise sounds like the only options. Maybe play the riff on clean settings, see where/why you struggle when you speed up (hitting other strings, excess noise, tricky fingering), you might find that you can play the riff fine without gain, its just a case of making sure that keep the riff clean with high gain. Or you might see the area your fingers are struggling with and can concentrate on that small area of the lick. Sometimes you can miss little things when you are playing fast and low with lots of lovely distortion!
Hope that might give you some ideas. Not exactly revolutionary but hey ho!
Edited by Fantuzzi on Friday 5th June 17:40
I'm not a guitarist, but a drummer. I can relate to the wanting to play faster but it gets a bit messy. To be consistant with 240bpm is very difficult indeed. Fine perhaps for a verse, but a 4 minute track? That'll take lots of practice.
For me, I find the best way to practice and build up speed is play the phrase through seven times at say 150bpm. Once it's perfect (which it will be if you are at 210bpm) then increase to 160bpm. Same again, seven times and so on, keep going until you can't go anymore.
It's something to do with the brain and muscle memory needing to repeat it this amount of times before it sinks in. I think. And due to the gradual increase in bpm over time, you wont notice the speed as much as you if you just started at 240bpm.
Hope it helps, if not, ignore
For me, I find the best way to practice and build up speed is play the phrase through seven times at say 150bpm. Once it's perfect (which it will be if you are at 210bpm) then increase to 160bpm. Same again, seven times and so on, keep going until you can't go anymore.
It's something to do with the brain and muscle memory needing to repeat it this amount of times before it sinks in. I think. And due to the gradual increase in bpm over time, you wont notice the speed as much as you if you just started at 240bpm.
Hope it helps, if not, ignore
Edited by Jazzy Jefferson on Saturday 6th June 13:29
It should be pretty obtainable if you slow it down and make sure you're being efficient with you LH fingers and compact with your alternate picking you should be able to get there pretty quickly.
It's only quavers at 120 and no where near shred speeds.
Chunk it down and work on it bar by bar and you'll be there in no time
Good thing is that it sounds like its all on one string which will make your life much easier
PS. nothing to do with natural talent, you can absolutely do it with structured practice
It's only quavers at 120 and no where near shred speeds.
Chunk it down and work on it bar by bar and you'll be there in no time
- * edit ***
Good thing is that it sounds like its all on one string which will make your life much easier
PS. nothing to do with natural talent, you can absolutely do it with structured practice
Edited by dojo on Saturday 6th June 18:15
Thanks for the tips everyone.
Dojo, thanks for noting that it's way faster than I'd put in my initial post. Having somebody confirm that it is indeed very fast makes me feel better.
Fantuzzi, Paul Gilbert levels of picking is an extraordinary level to get to. I really do need to practice more and more and tie in the right hand with the left when it gets beyond how fast I can do it. I think that's my problem, my right hand overtakes the left.
The first part of the riff that I want to nail is played on just the E and A strings and never more than 4 frets up so it's a bit of a finger exercise for me too. Fortunately, it's all alternate picking rather than economy picking (which is something else I need to practice more too).
What I have noticed so far is that sitting there and practising this for maybe 15 minutes improves the speed of all of my improvised soloing thereafter, which feels great.
Dojo, thanks for noting that it's way faster than I'd put in my initial post. Having somebody confirm that it is indeed very fast makes me feel better.
Fantuzzi, Paul Gilbert levels of picking is an extraordinary level to get to. I really do need to practice more and more and tie in the right hand with the left when it gets beyond how fast I can do it. I think that's my problem, my right hand overtakes the left.
The first part of the riff that I want to nail is played on just the E and A strings and never more than 4 frets up so it's a bit of a finger exercise for me too. Fortunately, it's all alternate picking rather than economy picking (which is something else I need to practice more too).
What I have noticed so far is that sitting there and practising this for maybe 15 minutes improves the speed of all of my improvised soloing thereafter, which feels great.
Yeah its tricky, some times you think you've got tricky stuff nailed then you go to do it, and it isn't quite perfect so you feel like you're at the beginning again!
But as you've said, when you try and learn hard stuff, even if you haven't perfected it, your playing still improves.
I find as a sort of tough measure, I wont say I've got something down until I can play it on a bad, lazy fingered day. If you can play it then, you know you've got it perfected! Some licks I find you just need to play constantly to keep at the level you want. I was messing with 8 fingered tapping a few months back, had some cool licks sorted so was rather pleased, months later tried them again, but hadn't played the full E to e two handed licks for a while and found it a pain to get it back sounding right.
Also for some licks you realise how much tone affects the 'speed' of the lick. Take Yngwie, most of his stuff is done with the neck P/U, so has that bouncy rounded sound that makes faster stuff flow together better. Same with Paul Gilbert, Vai etc, when you watch vids online its easier to see how the got that sound. Especially true with fast alternative picking stuff as well as some sweeped stuff, simple stuff like p/u position can make a massive difference!
But as you've said, when you try and learn hard stuff, even if you haven't perfected it, your playing still improves.
I find as a sort of tough measure, I wont say I've got something down until I can play it on a bad, lazy fingered day. If you can play it then, you know you've got it perfected! Some licks I find you just need to play constantly to keep at the level you want. I was messing with 8 fingered tapping a few months back, had some cool licks sorted so was rather pleased, months later tried them again, but hadn't played the full E to e two handed licks for a while and found it a pain to get it back sounding right.
Also for some licks you realise how much tone affects the 'speed' of the lick. Take Yngwie, most of his stuff is done with the neck P/U, so has that bouncy rounded sound that makes faster stuff flow together better. Same with Paul Gilbert, Vai etc, when you watch vids online its easier to see how the got that sound. Especially true with fast alternative picking stuff as well as some sweeped stuff, simple stuff like p/u position can make a massive difference!
Just tried that riff and I can do it pretty cleanly but it does make my fretting hand ache after a while. I don't normally play anything like this but my guess would be that although it's a very energetic run you'll need to really relax both fretting and picking hand to keep it going.
I remember watching some yt vids of the Slayer guitarist and being amazed at his strength, these guys must divide their time between playing and lifting weights!
And on a separate note, variety being the spice of life and all and the best of luck to you with your playing but christ on a bike that Lamb of god track is a bloody awful racket!
I remember watching some yt vids of the Slayer guitarist and being amazed at his strength, these guys must divide their time between playing and lifting weights!
And on a separate note, variety being the spice of life and all and the best of luck to you with your playing but christ on a bike that Lamb of god track is a bloody awful racket!
A guitar magazine did an article several years ago about the fastest players.
They measured how many notes were played per second ,the majority of really fast players (Gilbert ,malm steen etc) were between 15 and 17,but Steve vai hit 22 .
There is some guy can't recall his name that can play 25 notes or so .
It does become meaningless though as I'm not sure the human brain can actually process that when listening to it .
They measured how many notes were played per second ,the majority of really fast players (Gilbert ,malm steen etc) were between 15 and 17,but Steve vai hit 22 .
There is some guy can't recall his name that can play 25 notes or so .
It does become meaningless though as I'm not sure the human brain can actually process that when listening to it .
audidoody said:
Seen that before, very cool sounds!franki68 said:
It does become meaningless though as I'm not sure the human brain can actually process that when listening to it .
Quite literally Brain melting shred? 
br d said:
Just tried that riff and I can do it pretty cleanly but it does make my fretting hand ache after a while. I don't normally play anything like this but my guess would be that although it's a very energetic run you'll need to really relax both fretting and picking hand to keep it going.
I remember watching some yt vids of the Slayer guitarist and being amazed at his strength, these guys must divide their time between playing and lifting weights!
And on a separate note, variety being the spice of life and all and the best of luck to you with your playing but christ on a bike that Lamb of god track is a bloody awful racket!
I think staying relaxed whilst the speed increases is one of my issues. I do tend to tense up, certainly with my picking hand and I tend to automatically hold my breath a bit too, not very much, but it's certainly not xen-like, relaxed breathing.I remember watching some yt vids of the Slayer guitarist and being amazed at his strength, these guys must divide their time between playing and lifting weights!
And on a separate note, variety being the spice of life and all and the best of luck to you with your playing but christ on a bike that Lamb of god track is a bloody awful racket!
I grew up listening to Carcass, Slayer and a bit of Cannibal Corpse, so quite enjoy all the quick guitar riffs and hellish sound. You'll be pleased to hear that my repertoire also contains the likes of Bowie, Knopfler, ACDC, GnR, Led Zep, Rolling Stones and Steely Dan, even a bit of Queen too.
Incidentally, when not trying out Lamb of God tracks, what tracks would you normally play?
audidoody said:
That's brilliant in its own right, but no, in the LoG track every following note is different so it's definitely not using delay.bennyboysvuk said:
Pleased to see the video title isn't 'girl plays grace LOG cover' or the like, the internet seems unaware that women have been playing stringed instruments to virtuoso level for quite a while now!(Although I'm not a fan over her clean intro bit for the record
).There's fast and there is fast.
Hammering on as fast as you can through a distortion pedal and/or volume up to 11 is a bit different from flat-picking an acoustic - like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ni8KBhnebwE
Hammering on as fast as you can through a distortion pedal and/or volume up to 11 is a bit different from flat-picking an acoustic - like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ni8KBhnebwE
There's fast and there is fast.
Hammering on as fast as you can through a distortion pedal and/or volume up to 11 is a bit different from flat-picking an acoustic - like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ni8KBhnebwE
Hammering on as fast as you can through a distortion pedal and/or volume up to 11 is a bit different from flat-picking an acoustic - like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ni8KBhnebwE
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