# Training up the speed on the right hand with a metronome



## Naren (Dec 19, 2007)

Well, there's a new song my band's working on where I have to play a riff that the other guitarist wrote (since he switched back to bass because the former bass player wasn't quite surviving in the band, mainly due to 2 of our songs, one of which absolutely requires a very skilled bass player). I can play the riff (which is at around 220-230bpm), but occasionally there are "stumbles" and "stuttering" in my playing. There are zero problems in my left hand, but it seems there are some with my right. I realized here that I need to work on improving the cleanliness and so on for my right hand. The bass player also mentioned that both guitars and bass will have to be locked together perfectly for this to sound as good as possible in the recordings (and I wholeheartedly agreed).

So, I whipped out my old metronome and practiced 8th notes, 16th notes, and even ugh 32nd notes at 160bpm, 180bpm, 200bpm, and 208bpm. I'm not sure if I'm doing the right kind of exercises or what. My metronome only goes up to 208bpm and the actual song that sparked my desire to work on this has 16th notes at 220-230bpm. And these aren't all on the lowest string, so I'll have to practice this on the low B, low E, A, and D strings.

Any advice or information on what kinds of exercises to do with a metronome to improve the right hand speed? Most of my exercises I've done in the past have focused on my left hand and I've never really had any noticeable trouble with the right hand until now. Any help would be appreciated!


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## distressed_romeo (Dec 19, 2007)

What you're doing sounds fine, but have you tried the 'bursts' method? The idea is you practice fast 16th/32nd notes in short bursts of a few seconds, rather than trying to do it for long periods and risking RSI. It's pretty effective. Petrucci explains it in his 'Rock Discipline' DVD and 'Wild Stringdom' book. If you alternate between, say 8th notes and 16th notes at 200bpm, and try and keep the timing consistent as you switch back and fourth, it'll do wonders for your speed, and will help you avoid the trap of racing ahead and losing the timing on faster riffs.

Hope that helps. Sorry if I'm suggesting stuff you already know.


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## Naren (Dec 19, 2007)

Yeah, the area inbetween my thumb and pointer finger (the web-like area) starts to ache after a few minutes of 16th and 32nd notes at 200bpm. I have the Petrucci "Rock Discipline" video, but his stuff is just so friggin' hard. I'm not tryin' to be Petrucci here. Ah... 

Thanks. That advice does help. I'll keep doing what I'm doing and use your "bursts" method (I had been doing like 8th, then 16th, then 8th, then 16th, then 32nd, then back down to 16th, then back to 8th, then back to 16th, then back to 32nd and so on, but for longer than just a few seconds each). Since I'm trying to make a "training regimen" to do for 20-50 minutes a day, I'd appreciate as much specific info as possible.

When I'm thinking about what I'm playing, I never "run ahead" with the riff, but sometimes when I'm thinking about something else, those fast riffs can go out of hand. My main problem is "smoothness" and "cleanness" at high speeds.


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## distressed_romeo (Dec 19, 2007)

Just to clarify, I mentioned Petrucci, but you don't have to only use this method with complicated scale runs; it works just fine with death-metal riffs as well, or simple chromatic exercises along single strings. The 'bursts' method should take care of that aching problem, as it sounds like you're pushing your hands a little too hard right now.
The only other thing I can think of is to keep doing a little bit each day. Twenty minutes every day will give you much quicker results than doing nothing from Monday to Friday, and then doing 3 hours on Saturday.


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## XEN (Dec 19, 2007)

Definitely do the massages he suggests in the video, if you're not already, or have someone do it for you.


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## Naren (Dec 19, 2007)

Thanks. That's pretty much the plan: anywhere from 20 to 50 minutes each day. Glad to hear that the bursts method should take care of the aching. I assumed that it would go away if I could manage to hone that muscle. 

Again, thanks for the advice.



urklvt said:


> Definitely do the massages he suggests in the video, if you're not already, or have someone do it for you.



When I did watch that video, I always skipped the "before playing" part.  Probably shouldn't have.


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## distressed_romeo (Dec 19, 2007)

Definitely watch that part of the video if you haven't already. Seriously, it cut my warm-up time by about 75% when I tried the warm-ups he suggests. Nowadays I always do the Petrucci exercises, and some stretches I learnt in Aikido class before I pick up the guitar.


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## Naren (Dec 19, 2007)

distressed_romeo said:


> Definitely watch that part of the video if you haven't already. Seriously, it cut my warm-up time by about 75% when I tried the warm-ups he suggests. Nowadays I always do the Petrucci exercises, and some stretches I learnt in Aikido class before I pick up the guitar.



Well, I watched it the first time I watched the Rock Discipline video (because I watched the whole video through), but I didn't think all of them were necessary. I can definitely see those massages helping though. The arm stretching? Eh, not so much. Maybe I'll warm up to it.


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## XEN (Dec 19, 2007)

Naren said:


> When I did watch that video, I always skipped the "before playing" part.  Probably shouldn't have.


hehe I hear ya. I tried too, and was like, "WTF??? This shit hurts!!!" I really can't say I practice much at all these days - no band, no gigs, no inspiration - but the massages help a lot when I haven't picked up my guitars in a while. I always want to jump right in and jam, but I know I get locked up if I do.


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## Maniacal (Dec 19, 2007)

My new instructional DVD has a whole section on A) Picking speed development and B) Picking endurance. 

Not much point saying that as its not finished yet, but I am sure it will help a lot of people train properly. 

I am pretty convinced if you work on it properly you can get to 200bpm for 60 seconds fairly quickly. 


After 220/225bpm things get pretty tricky. Especially for long periods of time. 

Naren, if you can play 32nd notes at 208bpm then you have a lot to teach us all.              

Jon


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## Naren (Dec 19, 2007)

Maniacal said:


> My new instructional DVD has a whole section on A) Picking speed development and B) Picking endurance.
> 
> Not much point saying that as its not finished yet, but I am sure it will help a lot of people train properly.
> 
> ...



 That's why I put a  sign up there. It was like quarter notes: in time, even, no problems. 8th notes: in time, even, no problems. 16th notes: in time 95% of the time, even, pain inbetween my thumb and pointer fingers, 32nd notes: not in time, uneven, more pain. I thought "If I can do 32nd notes, 16th notes should be a breeze." I occasionally still try to do 32nd notes, but I've mostly given up on that because it's pretty pointless. (Also note that when I was trying 32nd notes, I wasn't playing anything in particular, just the open E string).

My metronome only goes up to 208bpm, so I unfortunately won't be able to try 8th notes or 16th notes as 220bpm. I've been leaving it at 200bpm.

Last night, I took DR's advice and did the burst method, practicing for about 25 minutes. I could do 16th notes for 60 seconds at 200bpm with little to no problems in cleanliness, but that webbed area I mentioned starts to ache like crazy. I'd just stop and start massaging it, which helped out. I tried the tricky riff from the new song and I felt I was playing it cleaner with less than half as many stumbles and stutters. So I think it's having some effect. I'll keep this up everyday for at least the next couple weeks.


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## sakeido (Dec 19, 2007)

IT sounds like you got it figured out but I didn't get fast and consistent until I focused more on playing totally relaxed. Otherwise it is just like you say, where I would stumble (from freezing up from tension or just too much burning in my hand ahah) every now and then playing fast. As soon as I dropped the speed way down and focused on playing totally naturally with a focus on effortlessness and ergonomics (changing from playing with my fingers to my wrist in the process), I managed to make big bounds in solid consistent speed after that.


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## Unknown Doodl3.2 (Dec 20, 2007)

I'm trying to get my hand worked up to those speed really relaxed to play some of the DM riffs that I wrote. I'm guessing this burst method should do the trick for rhythm oriented speed picking???


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## Slamp (Dec 20, 2007)

Naren said:


> My metronome only goes up to 208bpm, so I unfortunately won't be able to try 8th notes or 16th notes as 220bpm. I've been leaving it at 200bpm.




Play 32nd notes at 110bpm for the equivalent of 16ths at 220.


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## Santuzzo (Dec 27, 2007)

Wow, you guys are FAST !

16th notes at speeds above 200BPM!!! 
that's badass ! 

I have played guitar for many years, and alternate picking has somehow always been a struggle for me.
I tried picking from the wrist, did that for a long, long time, could not gain any speed, so about 3-4 years ago I switched to elbow picking a la Vinnie Moore, and with that technique I gained more speed, but still not super-super fast or anything.
Today I managed to do a tremolo picking exercise (for those of you who know Stetina's Speed Mechanics, it's exercise 25 from the book) at 170 BPM (16th notes) and for my standards that is pretty good !I was sztill sort of relaxed, maybe a bit tense, but not too cramped up, so it was good. I thin I might maybe reach 180BPM within a few weeks, but i'm not sure. But I'm still far from 200BPM. I actually can't imagine that I will ever be able to tremolo pick that fast.

Many of you might say elbow picking is wrogn technique, but trust me, I have tried wrist picking, and it just did not work for me. And in my opinion elbow picking is fine IF you DON't cramp up in the arm, BUT STAY RELAXED !

Oh, yeah, I might add, that my alternate picking struggle is most likely due to the fact that I'm a lefty playing righty, at least that's what I think, cos I see so many other guitarists who haven't played as long as I have and who actually never seem to practice as much as I have and still do, but they still can pick so much faster than me. And then I see you guys in threads like this one talking about tremolo picking 16th notes at 200 BPM !!! that's incredible ! 

Anybody else who has a hard time with getting their alternate picking up to shred-speed?

Lars

PS: maybe I will post this in a new thread....I don't want to hi-jack this thread.


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## Jongpil Yun (Dec 27, 2007)

Well I used to be able to trem pick 16ths at 184 (right at the middle of the "Presto" setting on my metronome) or so I thought. I made a recording of myself and slowed it down to 1/4 and matched it with a simple kick drum thing in FL studio and... I was all over the place. So back down to 144 for me, which is as low as I can go and be as precise as I'd like.

Now excuse me while I go homes and takes a shower to wash the shames off of me.

To quote Skwisgaar, "But seriously, you only cheats yourself if you cuts corners with crappy guitar playing."

Get a microphone, make a recording of yourself playing around the limits of what you think are your abilities, and if you're not embarrassed, you're doing well.


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## Naren (Dec 27, 2007)

So I've been practicing pretty much every single day, focusing on 8th notes and 16th notes at 180bpm, 200bpm, and 208bpm. I can definitely see that my 16th notes at 200bpm (and around there) has gotten a lot smoother and effortless. 

And, santuzzo, I pick 100% from the wrist. 16th notes at 200bpm isn't much of a problem, but that "webbing" inbetween my thumb and pointer on my picking hand starts to hurt after a little bit, even when doing the burst method. I guess you just have to get used to it. 

I've realized the problem I had with the new 16th notes at 220bpm song is that I haven't been playing it relaxed, which REALLY helps steady my playing. If I play those notes at that speed relaxed, it's pretty consistent and steady. Not perfect, but getting there.

So I'm progressing in the right direction.


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## Jongpil Yun (Dec 27, 2007)

Whatever you god damned bastard, 16ths at 220bpm? Get the fuck out of here, you motherfucking fuckface fuck.





















I'm jealous


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## DDDorian (Dec 27, 2007)

+1 to pretty much all the advice in this thread. It sounds so cliche, but speed really is a byproduct of accuracy and control. The best way to develop speed is to work on something (be it a riff, exercise, whatever) at a tempo just above what you would consider your comfort speed. Be brutally honest about your progress, and don't touch the metronome until you can pick away for a considerable stretch at your chosen tempo with perfect accuracy; stamina is just as big a factor as technique, especially for more aggressive riffing, so being able to keep a steady stream of 16th notes at, say, 180bpm for five minutes at a stretch will make the transition to faster tempos much easier to negotiate. If you have the means, record yourself playing these exercises and listen back to them every week or so. It's easy to be overly critical (or forgiving, for that matter) but the tape won't lie, so you might find that in a week you've actually become tighter and more precise than you gave yourself credit for. Good luck


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## JJ Rodriguez (Dec 27, 2007)

Santuzzo said:


> Wow, you guys are FAST !
> 
> 16th notes at speeds above 200BPM!!!
> that's badass !



It's not picking the trem picking notes that fast that's an issue for me, but working the left hand to be accurate at those tempos. Speed picking is easy, syncing up your left and right hand is the tricky part. I can pick more than fast enough trem picking, it's when you get me to do shit like that chromatic exercise in Rock Discipline that I start fucking up


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## Santuzzo (Dec 27, 2007)

JJ Rodriguez said:


> It's not picking the trem picking notes that fast that's an issue for me, but working the left hand to be accurate at those tempos. Speed picking is easy, syncing up your left and right hand is the tricky part. I can pick more than fast enough trem picking, it's when you get me to do shit like that chromatic exercise in Rock Discipline that I start fucking up



Oh, yeah, that's still a completely different issue, I agree. But I was just saying, for me the issue already starts at my tremolo picking speed.

Bit then again, I think, I can tremolo pick at 160BPM, and if I managed to get my left hand in synch to that, it would be pretty wicked fast !


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## Naren (Dec 27, 2007)

DDDorian said:


> +1 to pretty much all the advice in this thread. It sounds so cliche, but speed really is a byproduct of accuracy and control. The best way to develop speed is to work on something (be it a riff, exercise, whatever) at a tempo just above what you would consider your comfort speed. Be brutally honest about your progress, and don't touch the metronome until you can pick away for a considerable stretch at your chosen tempo with perfect accuracy; stamina is just as big a factor as technique, especially for more aggressive riffing, so being able to keep a steady stream of 16th notes at, say, 180bpm for five minutes at a stretch will make the transition to faster tempos much easier to negotiate. If you have the means, record yourself playing these exercises and listen back to them every week or so. It's easy to be overly critical (or forgiving, for that matter) but the tape won't lie, so you might find that in a week you've actually become tighter and more precise than you gave yourself credit for. Good luck



Stamina is probably a bigger problem for me than anything else. I'm sure I could do 16th notes at 160bpm for 5 minutes. 16th notes at 180bpm for five minutes would undoubtably be very painful. I'm sure I couldn't do 16th notes at 200bpm (or any higher) for five minutes.

I've noticed my smoothness and accuracy getting better through practice, but I haven't really noticed my stamina getting much better. The 16th notes at 220bpm part of the song I've been referring to is only like 1 minute long and then it drops down to mostly 8th notes at around 180bpm (with a 16th note and quarter note thrown around in there), but I still am having trouble with primarily stamina. My accuracy is still not perfect, but I'd say it's maybe 90% accurate with the metronome now, which means I'm on the way to where I want to be.

More practice, I guess.



Jongpil Yun said:


> Whatever you god damned bastard, 16ths at 220bpm? Get the fuck out of here, you motherfucking fuckface fuck.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



You do realize that I'm not referring to lead guitar, right? I'm primarily a rhythm guitarist who plays solos and lead guitar occasionally. I'm referring to very fast tremolo-picked rhythm guitar stuff on the 4 lowest strings of the 7-string guitar.

My left hand is nowhere near fast enough to do lead guitar involving 16th notes at 220bpm. I'd have trouble playing a solo with 8th notes at 220bpm. Most of my solos are more medium speed. I'm definitely not a shredder.


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## Jongpil Yun (Dec 27, 2007)

Yeah, I know what you're saying, but I can only play at about 160bpm now getting 4 consistent notes per click, regardless of left hand movement. I can do 16ths at 112bpm doing 4/3nps scales and such fine, but my maximum tremolo picking ability is nowhere near yours. Then throw in stuff like powerchords alternating with tremolo picking on different strings and I'm screwed.


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## Maniacal (Dec 27, 2007)

The best thing I found to do is treat your right hand training like a workout.

3 sets of 180 second 16th note bursts with a 30 second rest between each set. 
The next time you do it, increase the bpm by 1. 

Then for speed - 30 second "reps" playing a bar of 8ths followed by a bar of 16th at a fairly demanding tempo. Have a 30 second rest then increase the bpm by 2 each set. Even though I am into my Holdsworth and Henderson big time I still really want a really good picking hand. Treat it like a sport and always try and push the tempo.
By training like this I am stuck at 260, which is fast enough for most things. 
I cant seem to get it any faster simply because I find it very difficult to remain relaxed at such high tempos. Accenting every 8 rather than every 4 has certainly made things a lot easier. 

I managed to get the Petrucci chromatic exercise at 240bpm which was good for me. But I dont think exercises like that are especially good for coordinating the 2 hands anyway. 

Being relaxed is the key to playing fast on guitar and drums. And in fact any instrument. 

Jon


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## _detox (Dec 27, 2007)

I also suffer from inaccurate fast picking.  

I'm pretty sure that not all my picking comes from the wrist, which is probably a bad thing. If you take like the breakdown in Future Breed Machine by Meshuggah or Black Label by Lamb of God (which if anyone has noticed, are the SAME rhythms..), I get tired really quickly. I feel like I'm picking too aggressively or something. When you pick a pattern like that, does your arm near your wrist move as well as your wrist? Mine does. 

So I'm going to try this burst method to see if that will help convert me to wrist picking.

And also, I hold my pick with my index and thumb, but I have my other fingers closed up into a "fist." Not extremely tight, but it's just become more comfortable for me.. Is this a bad habit?


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## Maniacal (Dec 27, 2007)

The burst method is great for increasing speed with the left and right hands. 

However, it sounds like you might be playing with tension?
If you try and play something that you cant play fairly easily your body is going to tighten up and fatigue. 
Sounds like endurance is the problem, not speed. 

My arm moves slightly when I approach higher tempos, but I am still picking from the wrist. 
I think wrist picking is the best way of playing, I havent seen any arm pickers play tech DM riffs. String skipping seems to be very tricky with the arm...and muting at the same time?? I dont think so.


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## Naren (Dec 27, 2007)

Maniacal said:


> The best thing I found to do is treat your right hand training like a workout.
> 
> 3 sets of 180 second 16th note bursts with a 30 second rest between each set.
> The next time you do it, increase the bpm by 1.
> ...



Thanks. That's some great advice. I'll try this as well. Last night when I was practicing, I had to keep stopping to massage my hands because they started to ache so much.

And you are so right about being relaxed. I noticed that if I played certain riffs I was having trouble with - relaxed, I could play them much more naturally and smoothly.

240bpm is beyond my level. I'm pushing it at 220.  260 is unimaginable for me. 

But, through my practice, I've realized that my main problem isn't so much speed as it is stamina/endurance. Any advice on how to build that? Just through consistent practice?



Maniacal said:


> My arm moves slightly when I approach higher tempos, but I am still picking from the wrist.
> I think wrist picking is the best way of playing, I havent seen any arm pickers play tech DM riffs. String skipping seems to be very tricky with the arm...and muting at the same time?? I dont think so.



 Same here. For slower stuff like 120bpm riffing, you could pick with the arm, I guess. But, once you get up higher, picking with the arm would completely disable a lot of the stuff that you do.

I have another song in my band which is 16th notes tremolo picked at 160bpm. I've never had any trouble whatsoever playing it, but if I tried doing it with my arm, I'd fail. I mean, the riffs involve string skipping with 16th notes at 160bpm and then it goes into a non-tremolo picked part with palm muting after that. I can't imagine trying that arm picking style. I naturally adopted wrist picking because arm picking just didn't work.


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## Santuzzo (Dec 27, 2007)

For me elbow/arm picking is the only way I can get some reasonable speeds with tremolo picking.......
Tried wrist for so long (I'm talking something like 10+ years), but hardly any result, it was like  

And when I switched to elbow, like I said, all of a sudden I could pick so much faster, I'm still nowhere near insane speeds, but I have seen immediate improvements, so for me it seems to work ! 
I have seen Vinnie Moore pick like that, and he certainly is one of the top alternate pickers !
Funny thing is, which I found out later, he is also a lefty playing righty.


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## DDDorian (Dec 27, 2007)

Naren said:


> But, through my practice, I've realized that my main problem isn't so much speed as it is stamina/endurance. Any advice on how to build that? Just through consistent practice?



I'd say the pain you're experiencing is coming from the amount of effort you're putting in in order to keep up with the higher tempos. Through simple repetition you could build up to speed, but every time you increase the tempo you'll experience the same sort of pain as you're not refining your technique, just building muscle. If you go back to what you might consider an excessively slow tempo and really work on minimising the tension and movement of your picking hand for extended stretches until your new economised technique become second nature, then the strain you experience when trying faster tempos will be lessened and in turn you'll be able to progress much faster.

Also, make sure to practice this technique with left-hand patterns, not just chugging on one note, or you'll end up out of sync. I'm in the opposite boat in that my left hand is way faster than my right. It's hard work to sync my hands back up as I can never really be sure if I'm picking a note on time or if I'm just hammering, especially when it comes to string-skipping stuff. Right now I'm working with something I took from a Mike Amott lesson in a guitar magazine, which is a Carcass-style string-skipping riff, and looks something like this:







which could also be economy-picked (that's how Amott prefers to play it). Because it is a thirteen-note pattern, you end up using opposite pickstrokes when it loops around, giving the exercise a bit of extra mileage. I also practice it like this:






Picking in threes adds an extra challenge because when you cross strings you're alternately starting on up- and down-strokes, and like before, it swaps over when the pattern loops around. Enjoy!


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## Naren (Dec 27, 2007)

Thanks again for the advice. Building muscle, eh? Then I guess I'll have to work on that too.

Left hand has never been a problem. Don't think I really need to work on that. There is an exercise that I've been using for about 6-7 years now where I start out on the 1st fret of the lowest string and play all four fingers string-skipping to the highest string, move up a fret and do the same thing backwards, then up a fret and so on until I get to the 17th fret or so. It really helps, specifically because it isn't B-1,2,34 E-1,2,3,4 - but instead is B-1,3,2,4 A-1,3,2,4, E-1,32,4 and so on. There are different variations I do of it, but I'm not really working on the left hand at all right now. While I'm practicing 8th and 16th notes at 200bpm, I do fret with my left hand and switch to different strings, but my left hand is pretty much playing randomly because I'm only truly focusing on my right hand.

If I have to go to a slower speed to build up muscles for endurance, I guess I'll go back to 160bpm and work from there up to 208bpm. Hm...


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## Jan (Jan 5, 2008)

Same problem here, picking 4 notes at each stroke at 160 is the fastest I can play with RELATIVE (= poor, to be honest) accuracy. I would sometimes go up to 170 but since my accuracy suffered, I decided to give it up and slowed down. I'll have to try the burst method now (by the way, I figured it out myself some time ago but never really used for REGULAR practice).


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## guitarplayerone (Jan 5, 2008)

you are racing the metronome.
your current speed gains are a result of getting 'hyper-warmed-up', as opposed to any permanent gain in technique.
slow down to 120, and work up to 160 in 8 BPM increments ONLY when you NAIL 16th notes for a few minutes in a row in a given bpm.
yes, I know it's ego-bashing to go from 210 to 120- ive been there. Do it. your technique will thank you in the long run

Unless you are a MACHINE with 16th notes at 160, I wouldnt even try to go up to 180, forget 200 and beyond until you nail the notes perfectly. any longer than that, and you are just playing as fast as possible and hoping your hands sync up, thats not how you build speed, thats how you increase sloppiness...

This concept is something that I resisted for a long, long, time, but when I finally gave into it, is when I really developed speed: 
if you are not 100 percent accurate, you cannot play at the tempo. it RUINS technique, technique isnt something that is forced into your hands as you push them to the limit, it is something that comes out naturally as a result of large amounts of CORRECTLY practicing relaxed, and completely accurate.

Unless you aren't aiming for complete control, which is fine, and usually the case in black metal, and some other genres. But I like my technique to have the ability to go in between 'utterly robotic' and 'relaxed fast playing'

it comes through in your sound when you are struggling, is what I'm really saying...
my


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## Santuzzo (Jan 6, 2008)

Great ideas here ! 

I recommend recording yourself to a click while picking at what you think is your "clean" top picking speed. Then use a slow-down software and listen back to check if it really is clean.

I just did that and I was amazed......at higher speeds, I was sometimes not picking 4 but only 3 notes per beat....so, clear sign to slow foen the speed drastically and build it up again.
I found out, I can tremolo pick clean at about 160BPM, but I have to work on my stamina there.
I'm doing this open string exercise (ex.nr.25) out of Stetina's "Speed Mechanics" book and I will now record myself regularly playing this at my top speed to see if it really is clear and accurate !


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## Apophis (Jan 6, 2008)

nice idea


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## Santuzzo (Jan 13, 2008)

I been working on this exercise for tremolo picking out of Troy Stetina's Speed Mechanics book (exercise 25).
And instead of getting better, it just seems to get worse. 
This is so frustrating  
I don't know why that is? 2 weeks ago I could play that exercise faster and at much more ease...I really don't understand this.

It's driving me nut, even to the point of having fits of rage.

I also noticed, I can motsly get rid off all the tension in my picking hadn/arm/shoulder, but my lower back will tense up.
Practicing while sitting seems to help, but I think, I should practice while standing most of the time....

Anybody else have this???


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