Tips for breaking speed barriers? (alternate picking)

[tabqwerty]

I seem to be stuck at around 140 BPM with 16th notes. I constantly have been slowing down, working on fretting hand / legato and alternate picking accuracy, then bumping back up to "kill yourself" tempos (what John says in "Rock Discipline") and back down to 140. Still, 'am struggling to accent each click/downbeat. The only thing that's seemed to work to get past this is to turn the tempo down halfway and play 32nd notes, but it removes context from the beat, which is unavoidable live.


I can almost do legato at 200 BPM with no problem, but I guess synchronizing both hands instead of one takes twice as much work.

 

[Drew]

Where exactly is your picking hand running into problems? Synchronization along a single string? Synchronization when changing between strings? And, you say you can do legato at 200bpm. Are you 100% sure your legato is meter-perfect, or is your grouping becoming uneven at speed? Try using a drum program or drum loop with a 16th note hi-hat and playing against that - when you're playing against an even 16th note groove, is your legato audibly perfectly in sync, or is it alternately rushing and falling behind as you go from (presumably) four notes on a single string to changing too the next string?

 

[tabqwerty]

It was just a general estimate about 200 BPM. I can't even tell what my hand is doing at that point (yet anyway), but being able to follow the first note of every four, or the click, with the index finger going up / pinky going down (doing the standard four-finger, four-fret exercise up and down every position on an 8-string) is a lot easier to do with legato. I'm starting to record my practicing sessions in Reaper to be objective about them this time now that I'm more serious about my playing than ever before.

 

[Drew]

It was just a general estimate about 200 BPM. I can't even tell what my hand is doing at that point (yet anyway), but being able to follow the first note of every four, or the click, with the index finger going up / pinky going down (doing the standard four-finger, four-fret exercise up and down every position on an 8-string) is a lot easier to do with legato. I'm starting to record my practicing sessions in Reaper to be objective about them this time now that I'm more serious about my playing than ever before.

So, I'm asking because I'm trying to diagnose where exactly the issue is.

*Can you trem pick a single note on a single string perfectly on the beat at tempos above 140bpm? If yes, then your actual single-string picking is probably pretty good, and your issues are either coordination between your hands, or changing strings.
*Can you play a fast repeated lick on a single string cleanly and accurately at speeds above 140bpm? If yes, then by elimination its probably your string changing.
*Can you play meter-perfect legato across strings to a click - not just the downbeat, but 16th notes against a 16th note click, so you know you're 100% on the beat, at speeds well above 140bpm? If yes, then your fretting hand is probably ok and the issue is your picking hand is struggling with changing strings. If no, then your fretting hand isn't tight enough (your picking hand may be struggling both).

It's easy to play 4-note-per-string legato patterns fast and ensure the downbeat is always falling at the right point... But that doesn't necessarily mean your legato is all that accurate, if you're rushing the four notes along one string and then there's an audible gap before you move onto the next one. Note duration and frequency should be exactly the same on a string as changing between strings, and if you're hitting the downbeats and then slurring the rest, that works... but you're not in the pocket.

 

[jsl2h90]

Check out Misha Mansoor's warmup (found out about this after reading Greg from Carbomb's endorsement) and Martin Miller's video on playing fast. These are both gems and contain some info that I feel like isn't already propagated by the 'speed gurus,' aka 'just start slow and turn up the metronome, dude!'

 

[tabqwerty]

I think I've seen the Misha one, I'm pretty sure it's not serious.

 

[tabqwerty]

If you were talking about this:

And not this:

 

[tabqwerty]

It's like that ThioJoe channel on YouTube regarding PCs. It's kind of hard to trust someone after they troll/prank/clown on you after so many times. Yeah, I know this should have been obvious, but it wasn't posted on April 1st.

 

[tabqwerty]

I trust Allen to sell me something more than Misha at this point: http://ultimatepicking.com/

 

[Keith McRae]

one thing that I've found helps a lot is an adaptation of some of Yngwie's philosophy. Whenever I'm trying to play something faster, I focus on eliminating as much movement as possible (how he does it), if you're burning your wrist on speed, take a look at what your right hand is doing and see if you can make the movement smaller.

 

[Drew]

one thing that I've found helps a lot is an adaptation of some of Yngwie's philosophy. Whenever I'm trying to play something faster, I focus on eliminating as much movement as possible (how he does it), if you're burning your wrist on speed, take a look at what your right hand is doing and see if you can make the movement smaller.

Eh, smaller movements don't equate to speed, is one of the things I've definitely picked up on from the work the Cracking the Code guys are doing. Focusing on smoother movements, even if they're bigger, usually will help with speed, and if anything if movements do start to become smaller, it's because the speed itself is what makes them smaller and not smaller movements themselves become faster.

This is doubly so because Yngwie's motion itself isn't all that "small." When he's really tearing it up his mechanic is if anything more pronounced than when he's playing slower.

 

[LeviathanKiller]

Eh, smaller movements don't equate to speed, is one of the things I've definitely picked up on from the work the Cracking the Code guys are doing. Focusing on smoother movements, even if they're bigger, usually will help with speed, and if anything if movements do start to become smaller, it's because the speed itself is what makes them smaller and not smaller movements themselves become faster.

This is doubly so because Yngwie's motion itself isn't all that "small." When he's really tearing it up his mechanic is if anything more pronounced than when he's playing slower.

This is so true. Trying to stay tightly compacted takes a lot of unnecessary time. It's more about spatial awareness and knowing where to come back to in order to hit the next note correctly. Exaggerated movements can help time and guide precision in way, if that makes any sense.

 

[Hollowway]

Also, stay relaxed. And I found it immensely helpful to not splay my fingers out, but instead have a closed (but relaxed) fist. That really isolates the movement to the wrist.

 

[DeanLamb]

Hey man,
I've found slowing waaay down to be the most effective in building up speed while maintaining precision/tightness. I know you said you slow down, but go super slow, and keep everything really controlled and clean. I'll do this for hours with one short section. I won't try to speed it up that day, just stay at the snail's pace and lock in everything together and make it sound super tight. Doing the section really slowly with pick planting also helped me a lot. Rick Graham has an awesome video about pick planting here:


Additionally, if you're looking for some speed-building exercises, I have some tab packages available here:
https://deanlamb.bandcamp.com/merch/guitar-tab-video-package-2
Best of luck! \m/

 

[LeviathanKiller]

Hey man,
I've found slowing waaay down to be the most effective in building up speed while maintaining precision/tightness. I know you said you slow down, but go super slow, and keep everything really controlled and clean. I'll do this for hours with one short section. I won't try to speed it up that day, just stay at the snail's pace and lock in everything together and make it sound super tight. Doing the section really slowly with pick planting also helped me a lot. Rick Graham has an awesome video about pick planting here:


Additionally, if you're looking for some speed-building exercises, I have some tab packages available here:
https://deanlamb.bandcamp.com/merch/guitar-tab-video-package-2
Best of luck! \m/

Can confirm. I was having trouble with executing something I came up with at the speed I wanted. I just stopped for the night, came back the next day going super slow and built up into it and I was then able to do it at the speed I originally wanted. All about progression from slow to the speed you desire.

 

[donniekak]

The problem with that is unless you can cross pick like morse, the mechanics you use to play slow are nothing like the mechanics used to play fast.

Make a video of yourself playing a 16th note run at 40, 60, 80, 100, 120, and 140 bpm. Focus on the right hand. You’ll notice that at a certain range you change picking technique. You’ll go from the cross picking style used to play slower (for most) goes away and you’ll probably start to pickslant.