Re: Speed MechaniX practice thread!
Here's the shizzizzle up in my hizzizzle.
I've broken down my practice into two "sections" which I alternate each night.
Section 1 seems to concentrate on Left hand HOs/POs, and Section 2 seems to concentrate on alternate picking.
Section 1 for me consists of Exercises 6 through 17 (though I skip 8 because I don't like it - and if I don't like it I don't play it - that's my rule) Of that selection I actually find exercise 6 to be the hardest. Trills are a definite weak area, and by the time I hit the low E string things are getting a little messy. The 7-5-7-5 slide to 5-3-5-3 always sound sloppy to me also - so I keep at it. Exercises 9 through 13 are pretty neat and I think very useful, and I am working at making each one sound fluid as well as moving up the neck. Exercise 14 can be tough on smaller hands. I play it but won't let this one hold me back if I can't nail it - for smaller hands the D-string stuff can be painful. Exercise 15 is just a plain killer sounding lick - one you could pull out in any situation, and I love that one and it falls pretty easy under the fingers after the 100th time or so (not joking). Exercises 16 and 17 are cool also. I do these exercises in "free time" meaning no set tempo. I go as fast as clarity allows - slowing down when I hit rough spots.
Section 2 for me consists of exercises 25 through 33. I use the metronome for this "set." Ex 25 was hard for me at first and really shed light on my lacking in rhythmic control. I started just droning an open note, and I found it tough to get just the 16th notes to sound good and even at even 60 bpm. What I found to help was to accent the first note of the series, giving it a pulsing feel. This helped alot. I've got this worked up to 120 bpm finally and it's coming along nicely. The other exercises are ranging between 60 and 80 bpm and coming along nicely. I play all of them clean - no distortion. I think exercises 29 through 33 sound really cool. Personally, I can't see myself getting much faster than say 100 to 120 bpm for this series of exercises - but that would still be a huge improvement if it comes out clean. I would be happy with that.
My typical "workout" is 1 to 2 hours depending on life. Just for reference, I've been doing "Set 1" for about a month and just started "Set 2" about 2 weeks ago. I alternate between the two so that my hands get to rest a day since Set 1 seems to stress my left hand and set 2 seems to stress my right.
I plan on staying with these exercises probably through the month of February and then moving on regardless of where I'm at. If I feel I'm ready I'll move on mid-February. But - honestly probably end of the month.
This probably sounds brutally insane and just plain boring to some folks - and I can understand why. I'm not "playing music" here, I'm trying to develop good technique and that requires plain old fashioned work - Rock Discipline if you will. I don't find it to be boring at all - more therapeutic if anything. I figure at this rate this book will take all year. But, my goal is "one year in the shed doing nothing but MechaniX and see what happens on the other side." What I've found in the past is the first few chapters are typically hardest as you start honing your skills, but then learning starts to become much easier once you're in the groove, and progress begins to speed up.
but I will post when I will do it.
) 
