Originally Posted by: g----ranti'm doing the whole john petrucci thing where i go up by 8 every time.

during these school holidays i've gone from the 180's to bordering on 200, not there yet but almost...

but i reckon anything over 150-160 bpm would be pretty fast, and 150 is probably the hardest to improvise with straight 16ths on. playing faster makes you hink less or something, i dunno, but my teacher always has me playing at 150 only using my thumb to push the pick, then only the wrist, then only the arm, and when your using the arm its definately easier to play at 180 than 150.

The thumb pushing the pick sounds like Circular picking but only using your wrist and then only arm sounds like it could cause some damage at 150bpm Semiquavers. :confused:

*Edit* Also not questioning the credibility of this how are you going up at 8bpm at a time. I believe this is ment to be used till you get to your playing limits, then start raising by lower ammounts if not it could cause very sloppy sounding high tempo playing?