Improving speed; what's right and what's wrong?

[Will Shred 4 Food]

As I focus on improving my speed -- alternate picking in particular -- I'm having a hard time making sense of all the different advice and practice techniques that I'm finding on the web. I'm using a metronome of course, but there seems to be many differing opinions on the most effective way to practice with it. I've heard that you should practice at or close to your current top speed and ratchet it up gradually; but then I've heard that this will result in plateauing and reinforcement of bad technique. I've also read that it's good to practice a technique extensively at as low as half your top speed to built muscle memory, but it strikes me that my technique at low speed is always significantly different than at high speed, so I don't feel like practicing really slowly like this is doing much to improve my top speed.

I'm hoping to get some opinions and tips on all this. Thanks in advance!

 

[Vasshu the humanoid typhoon]

Re: Improving speed; what's right and what's wrong?

Start slow....then keep the metronome at the same beat, and then practice 8th's, 16th's and 32th's if possible....
And do focus on playing relaxed, and build in a beat in your picking.

I practiced up and down strokes, then switched to down strokes, and then up strokes....
Also went chromatically up and down with all four fretting fingers.
Slowly first...as slow is the hardest to learn actually!

Speed is not hard to obtain.
Switch between 8 16 and 32....repeat repeat until you're sick of it.
Did that routine for as many hours I could spare when I was kid, kept doing it for many years.

Then switched to melody lines over some nice chords.
And in the end forced myself to forget about it later on....

 

[Chickenwings]

Re: Improving speed; what's right and what's wrong?

+1 to vasshu

METRONOME.
if you don't have one, or if you have one but don't use it much you are wasting your time.

 

[Aasinsilta]

Re: Improving speed; what's right and what's wrong?

Moreso than just building speed, it's important to learn how to play in a time signature using the metronome. IE, learn to feel out how to play triplets etc at different tempos, so you can actually implement these ideas rather than just learning to play at one fast speed then staying there. That will open up more musical paths for you.

Doing it slow to start could be really helpful in this respect.

 

[Demanic]

Re: Improving speed; what's right and what's wrong?

Play as fast as you accurately can, but no faster. Muscle memory is by far very important, but you must be able to count passages in your head without thinking, and to change them up at a moments notice. And in tune, or not if that is what you CHOOSE, no slop. Like I am one to talk, but this is what I strive for in my own practice.
Here is an example

 

[LLL]

Re: Improving speed; what's right and what's wrong?

Learn how to alternate pick; scales that use all 6 strings are good exercises.

Also practice your tremolo picking.

Sweep picking isn't just for gigantic Yngwie arpeggios; you can downstroke sweep pick from the 6th to 5th string
for example, then the next note (say on 5th string), upstroke.

Legato passages are good as well and they rely far more on hammer-ons and pull-offs; you
can really fly with this technique once you get it down.

Here's a great book for speed/economy picking:

http://www.amazon.com/SPEED-PICKING-FOR-GUITAR-BK/dp/0793527511

 

[Snake Aces]

Re: Improving speed; what's right and what's wrong?

+1 to vasshu

METRONOME.
if you don't have one, or if you have one but don't use it much you are wasting your time.

+1 to vasshu and +1 to gibson175

You never really stop benefiting from practicing with a metronome. The only time I don't practice with a metronome is when I do some creative jam sessions trying to explore new ideas.

Speed is fancy and I know a lot of speed players. Equally important though is learning some music theory and modes. You can play fast as hell but not sound like you are going anywhere. Finding a nice blend of speed and melodic know how will set you apart from all the other speed players out there. When I hold auditions looking for a second guitarist and they start shredding without paying attention to the rest of the instruments and what they are doing I cut the song off and say thank you, we'll get back to you if we decide you're what we're looking for.

 

[GuitarStv]

Re: Improving speed; what's right and what's wrong?

The way I always approached increasing speed on a passage or something is to play it very slowly (half speed or even below) and ratchet up the BPM a bit, then repeat. If you miss a note, or if your picking isn't even, or if you are getting weird string noises, reduce the speed. You have to play it perfectly befor moving the speed up. Don't spend too much time on it, a 10-15 minute practice session every day yields bigger dividends than a two hour monster session twice a week.