1 Month Technique Challenge: 30 Days of Wrist Pain - It's not what it sounds like!

[ghost_of_karelia]

Hit the two week marker, and just enough time for an update.

After a few days of struggling with motivation I finally peeled myself off my bed and grabbed my guitar ready to see some progress. It was at that moment that I realised I have never actually had a structured practice routine, usually I just play through songs and analyse my playing while doing so. So I thought to myself, damn, it's time for change, and this one month technique challenge is just the time to do it!

So what did I do? The following!

Practice Routine - June 2014:
- Stretches: about five minutes of gently pulling each finger back and forth, as well as the entire hands and some forearm/shoulder stretches
- Left hand warmup: about ten minutes from John Petrucci's "Rock Discipline" DVD, the chromatic stretches
- Right hand warmup: about twenty minutes, again from JP's DVD (this is now my bible) the arpeggiated major chord shapes with added top 3rd at 80BPM starting on both down- and upstroke, with quarter, eighth, triplet and sixteenth note practice - for muting practice and alternate picking practice
- Theory and picking speed warmup: about ten minutes, running sixteenth notes at 100BPM, four notes per note over all the diatonic modes of one key in one octave (i.e. bottom three strings). Starting with C (C ionian, D dorian, E phrygian, F lydian, G mixolydian, A aeolian, B locrian) and then choosing a random key and repeating.

After I've driven the neighbours insane with constant repetitive exercises on top gain to be as brutally honest to myself as possible, only then do I get onto actually practicing my riffs.

Having now done enough regular practice to better gauge my own progression, I've decided to ditch the Amon Amarth and Mastodon tracks as there's no way I'll be able to play them in this short space of time, nor will they get the required attention. Four riffs is just too much to practice in a month. Concentrating on Sleeping Stars and Sons of Winter and Stars.

I'm having some serious problems with elbow and shoulder tension. To get the required consistency of sound and cleanliness I'm having to apply waaay more tension than I previously thought (the songs are only 155 and 145BPM respectively, but I can't play them relaxed over about 95BPM). I'm making serious headway with SS at 128BPM (increasing speed in increments of 4BPM, just enough so my brain won't notice the difference) but the muscles in my shoulder are screaming at me the day after. Looking into relaxation exercises, but logic tells me I need to ditch the 128BPM practice and be patient and jump back to ~95 to really do it properly.

More regular updates coming soon! Cheers for sticking with me o>

 

[Mik3D23]

Hit the two week marker, and just enough time for an update.

After a few days of struggling with motivation I finally peeled myself off my bed and grabbed my guitar ready to see some progress. It was at that moment that I realised I have never actually had a structured practice routine, usually I just play through songs and analyse my playing while doing so. So I thought to myself, damn, it's time for change, and this one month technique challenge is just the time to do it!

So what did I do? The following!

Practice Routine - June 2014:
- Stretches: about five minutes of gently pulling each finger back and forth, as well as the entire hands and some forearm/shoulder stretches
- Left hand warmup: about ten minutes from John Petrucci's "Rock Discipline" DVD, the chromatic stretches
- Right hand warmup: about twenty minutes, again from JP's DVD (this is now my bible) the arpeggiated major chord shapes with added top 3rd at 80BPM starting on both down- and upstroke, with quarter, eighth, triplet and sixteenth note practice - for muting practice and alternate picking practice
- Theory and picking speed warmup: about ten minutes, running sixteenth notes at 100BPM, four notes per note over all the diatonic modes of one key in one octave (i.e. bottom three strings). Starting with C (C ionian, D dorian, E phrygian, F lydian, G mixolydian, A aeolian, B locrian) and then choosing a random key and repeating.

After I've driven the neighbours insane with constant repetitive exercises on top gain to be as brutally honest to myself as possible, only then do I get onto actually practicing my riffs.

Having now done enough regular practice to better gauge my own progression, I've decided to ditch the Amon Amarth and Mastodon tracks as there's no way I'll be able to play them in this short space of time, nor will they get the required attention. Four riffs is just too much to practice in a month. Concentrating on Sleeping Stars and Sons of Winter and Stars.

I'm having some serious problems with elbow and shoulder tension. To get the required consistency of sound and cleanliness I'm having to apply waaay more tension than I previously thought (the songs are only 155 and 145BPM respectively, but I can't play them relaxed over about 95BPM). I'm making serious headway with SS at 128BPM (increasing speed in increments of 4BPM, just enough so my brain won't notice the difference) but the muscles in my shoulder are screaming at me the day after. Looking into relaxation exercises, but logic tells me I need to ditch the 128BPM practice and be patient and jump back to ~95 to really do it properly.

More regular updates coming soon! Cheers for sticking with me o>

If you're getting tense like that, I'd say set some more realistic goals maybe. If you're focusing on being perfectly relaxed and consistent, and are tensing up above 95 I'd stick with where you're comfortable and not try to get ahead of yourself too much. Proper technique, and making sure you take the time necessary to train your muscles is more important than being able to play those songs full speed right away.

Yes, you should push the envelope. But (IMO) you shouldn't be 30 some BPM above where you start tensing up. I would venture to say that does more harm than good in the long run.

Keep at it though, it takes a lot of determination for something like this. I'm in the same boat, and it really pushes my patience sometimes.

Good luck man

 

[ghost_of_karelia]

If you're getting tense like that, I'd say set some more realistic goals maybe. If you're focusing on being perfectly relaxed and consistent, and are tensing up above 95 I'd stick with where you're comfortable and not try to get ahead of yourself too much. Proper technique, and making sure you take the time necessary to train your muscles is more important than being able to play those songs full speed right away.

Yes, you should push the envelope. But (IMO) you shouldn't be 30 some BPM above where you start tensing up. I would venture to say that does more harm than good in the long run.

Keep at it though, it takes a lot of determination for something like this. I'm in the same boat, and it really pushes my patience sometimes.

Good luck man

Makes a bunch of sense, cheers for the advice. Might extend the challenge past a month and track how long it takes me to be able to play the riffs, rather than rush for the gold and end up wrecking meself.

chek urself b4 u rek urself etc.

 

[Centrix]

This is really cool man, I'm actually thinking of doing something similar once I wrap up my final exams.

Keep it up, and let us know how you're progressing!

 

[ghost_of_karelia]

Thanks man!

 

[80H]

I would extend your stretch window to about 15 minutes. Easily one of the more significant changes I made to my practice routine, and that was about 3~4 years ago. The ratio of results produced to time invested is really nice once you're all the way stretched out.

What I would also recommend is to look up some of the various hand exercises ("name of body part" stretches in youtube, advanced "n.o.b.p" stretches, stretches for athletes, etc, there's a few hundred to choose from) and to just do those throughout the day if you get caught in line at a grocery store or are bored somewhere. It's great. Your nerves run into your neck also, so dont forget to get that area and your shoulder blades. Makes a huge difference in terms of comfort/sustainability/your ability to effectively distribute weight and concentrate force.

 

[ghost_of_karelia]

Took a bit of a knock yesterday. Was in the studio with my band (group of lovely guys, all older than me and with between 3 and 13 years more experience playing music than me) recording rhythm guitars, and due to time constraints had to let the bassist play some of my parts as they just didn't sound right when I played them. Great for a budding guitarist's confidence. Anyway, back to the drawing board, cue hours spent locked in my bedroom making a right racket until I don't suck ass anymore.

Continuing with aforementioned routine today, trying to make it a daily occurance now instead of every other day. Also incorporating the last four songs for recording into my routine so they don't sound like a rat's arse being dragged across a cheese grater when it comes to laying them.

 

[ghost_of_karelia]

Now that SS.org isn't asploded, can drop a post in to update my progress, and what progress I've been making! Spent a few days solid just running the routine, pulled everything back to non-strained tempos to try and work on relaxation and it seems to have paid off. I can now play Sons of Winter and Stars, albeit a little inconsistently, and have noticed the improvement in technique and speed in other songs. Nine days left, let's make the best of it.

 

[Static]

keep it up!

 

[Mik3D23]

Any updates on this?

 

[Andromalia]

It's also interesting how Satriani plays triplets.
His triplets are most of the times down-up-down, down-up-down.

Uh, there's another way ? (Real question)
I've always done them this way since my first Maiden cover.

 

[ghost_of_karelia]

Damn, this thread. <3 Sorry for lack of updates!

Essentially I decided to quit the whole "let's restrict it to one month" and instead put more emphasis on the continuous progress to perfection, however long it took. A couple weeks more down the line (roughly 7 since I started) and I'm now confidently playing Sons of Winter and Stars, and after a slight change in forearm angle (to bring my arm into better alignment with my wrist and picking hand) my muscle tension has dropped faster than CGI Persians off a cliff in Greece.

Sweet.

 

[Maniacal]

^ better choice

 

[Mik3D23]

Uh, there's another way ? (Real question)
I've always done them this way since my first Maiden cover.

You're thinking of gallops, not triplets..