In need of speed

Hey folks Fyl here, need some good finger excercises to develop some speed. I played for about 15 yrs then left the guitar for 8yrs and just picked a Ibanez Jem up and I can't do much on the fretboard these days. :eek:

you should learn Eugene's Trick Bag (off Crossroads 1986). the most impressive guitar piece known to man. That's a fact, or my biased opinion. one or the other...

here's a link to a good chunk of the song
http://www.vai.com/audio/clip_crossroads-etb.mp3

I've got the arpeggios to about 3/4 speed and most of the other stuff to about 4/5 speed. It's a devil and I've been working on it for months. One thing I will say though, it has done wonders for my alternate picking.

15 years and you don't know how to practice?! sorry if that sounds rude. try playing scales especially chromatic scales. make sure you sound each note perfectly before speeding up-a metronone can help guage your progress-basically play the guitar as much as possible but make it challenging so that you make progress.

Troy Stetina's Speed Mechanic's is a great book.

As Teejay said, play plenty of scales, they may be the poor mans shred techniques but they will get your alternate picking back. Also, I picked up a few nice tricks from Rusty Cooly (the guy is insanely fast), very basic exercises.

I stopped playing after 10 years for 5 years. After about a month or two at the most my playing to leagues ahead of anything I was able to do previously. I practised a few scales to get the fingers working again but they get boring after a while and do nothing for your creativity.

Try coming up with new complicated licks, hum the lick first, then work it out, then practise the hell out of it. Record it, then listen to it in your car for a few days untill it drives you mad. Everytime you listen to it, imagine yourself playing it exactly. After a day or so you will be literally hearing it everywhere you go. I guarantee you will be faster when you go back and pick your guitar up a few days later (this is a proven technique for learning physical movements through visualisation). It's like riding a bike, you will never forget how. After years of playing the synaptic pathways are there in your brain, you just have to reactivate them. Listen to the best players even if you don't like them: Steve Vai, Theodore Ziras, Michael Romeo, Rusty Cooly, Frank Gambale, etc., they will give you great new ideas that you never had before that you can add to your old style of playing.

Oh yeah.... then practise untill your arm burns and your fingers are raw!

Thanx for the help bro.

learn scales. play them slow, then play them faster, play them slow, than play them faster than you did before and so on and so on... Make sure your clean and accurate, that your picking and your fingerings are right on with each other. That's basicallly how you get good.

[QUOTE=ScottMoney]you should learn Eugene's Trick Bag (off Crossroads 1986). the most impressive guitar piece known to man. That's a fact, or my biased opinion. one or the other...

I quite agree man, Eugenes Trickbag is amazing...I have also been working on it for months...the change it has made to my alternate and sweep picking is amazing...I'd definately try nail that piece(I'm still trying after almost a year)

hey Teejs
am still a beginner, tryina learn on my own. i play a few chords, can do moderately with tabs. in the sense i can pick up few chunks of maiden leads. not gettin the speed. wanna know some sites that gimme video lessons online. better if its comin free. if not any other means of learning that u wud suggest

Have you considered or ever heard of the 24 combination approach? Example. You can play 24 different combinations of "1234". I will only list from the index finger here.. 1234, 1243, 1324, 1342, 1423, 1423

You can do this starting from each finger. It is a good exercise to help separate out the mind from the hands. I believe that guitar is 80 percent mental ability and 20 percent physical.

These exercises can help with speed but like anything else I think the real answer to speed is to practice alot. Stevei Vai once stated in one of his training videos that he got himself to the point where he would practice one riff or line for one full hour.

He started out at 5 minutes, then 10 the next day, and so on until he was up to 1 hour. You need to get intimate with whatever you are trying to play, especially if you are looking for speed.

I personally try practicing my picking with a quarter also because it forces me to hold my picking hand so the quarter is "flat" against the strings, as it should be. Guitar players tend to lean the pick on an angle, but if you want speed you gotta be perpendicular at all times between pick and strings.

Good luck

:)

or, you can always get speed the cool way...

anyone have a tab of that crossroad thing from vai? i want to learn it too

haha, its all about google images.

Its funny cause I was playing Need For Speed, the video game, and my friend got infront of the TV screen started niffing baby powder. He started screaming im in NEED FOR SPEED.