fast picking

I cant do it, i mean, i can go realativily fast, i can hit eithnotes at 120bpm

but i couldnt go into the fast stuff, my friend has been playing not even as long as i have and she picks pretty fast. its like it came naturally to her

I use thick piicks, im not sure thats the problem tho haha
anybody have any lessons for hand exercises?

One thing you can do is pick the open E slowly at first, make sure your picking is clean and even. The idea here is to pay attention to your picking hand. Gradually you wanna go faster and faster, and then when you're going as fast as you can, keep it at a steady rate until your arm hurts and then slow down. Secondly, rest the pick across your first knuckle on your fretting index finger, and place your thumb across the back of the pick. Choke up on the pick as much as possible, the idea being you want as little of the surface area of the pick going through the string as possible.

Another one is to start at the 15th fret. In between each note you want to pluck three open notes between, and use alternate picking. The pattern goes 15000140001200011000120001100080007000500030002000300000000000
start on the high E and move your way across all the strings.

That's just one of many excercises you can do. The most important thing is, however, to start off slow. I might suggest 80 bpm. Remember if you can't do it fast. you're not gonna be able to do it slowly. ALWAYS use a metronome! This is probably one of the most important things you could do. Try and increase 5 bpms everytime you feel like you've got the previous bpm down pat.

One trick is to increase the metronome way passed the speed you can play. Try and keep up to the best of your ability. Chances are you'll have trouble, but when you got back to the bpm you where working on, it won't seem so hard anymore.

I'm not much of a teacher man but I hope that helps, even a little. Keep it heavy

Originally Posted by: enochthestrangeanybody have any lessons for hand exercises?

Try these for building speed:

http://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=451
http://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=287
http://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=253
http://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=419
http://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=213

just curious what r those numbers that u have posted regarding the fast picking is that the number of string and fret could u please explain how to interpret and read...

Originally Posted by: enochthestrangeI cant do it, i mean, i can go realativily fast, i can hit eithnotes at 120bpm

but i couldnt go into the fast stuff, my friend has been playing not even as long as i have and she picks pretty fast. its like it came naturally to her

I use thick piicks, im not sure thats the problem tho haha
anybody have any lessons for hand exercises?

Using thicker picks really shouldn't hurt your picking at all. Pick thickness, is really all about personal preference and what feels right for your playing style. The big name players out there are all over the map as far as that goes....Paul Gilbert uses a .60mm Tortex (pretty thin), Dave Mustaine uses a .73mm, Hetfield and Hammet use .88mm picks....Vinnie Moore used to use an Extra Heavy pick filed to a point (not sure these days)....Guys like Eric Johnson and John Petrucci use the Dunlop Jazz IIIs....Some of the real uber-shredders like Francesco Fareri use those little 2mm and 3mm Dunlop Stubby picks. Myself, I prefer the little 1.14mm Tortex Jazz picks....
There's no real right or wrong answer on that...It all just comes down to the feel that you prefer. Do you like a little flex or "snap" to you pick? Do you like the pick to be more rigid and responsive? Or somewhere in between it all? The more that you play & practice, more that your own preferences will pan out with time. Picks are a fairly cheap item to mess with...So try buying 1 or 2 of many different styles, sizes & thicknesses and just mess around with them until you find that few that fit your own feel preferences.

As far as exercises go...There are sooooo many out there to mess with, that it's impossible to really list them all here. But some of the best starter routines are still just the good old 3 & 4 note per string chromatic drills that are not so much scale oriented, as much as just drills for building up the physical picking skills. Just start at the 1st fret of the low E string and using your Index, Middle and Ring fingers...Just go 1-2-3 on the E, 1-2-3 on the A, 1-2-3 on the D, 1-2-3 on the G, 1-2-3 on the B and 1-2-3 on the High E. Move up 1 fret and reverse the pattern to come back down to the low E string again...Move up 1 fret & keep on repeating this whole pattern up & down the neck. To do it with a 4 note pattern, simply add in the pinky finger to the pattern...So that it goes 1-2-3-4 on each string & repeat until your fingers bleed. :eek: LOL

Be sure to try and always work with a metronome or drum machine to help you keep time....Which really is important. A tightly played slower lick, will almost always sound better & more impressive than a ridiculously fast, sloppy one. So start off right, by paying attention to the meter/tempo that you are working in. Start with a tempo that is exceedingly easy for you to execute and work with it until you can do it without having to think about it at all. Focus on keep the movements of both hands as minimal as possible, while still articulating the notes clearly & evenly.
Once you can complete the routines pretty regularly start bumping up the tempo bit by bit. When you start to struggle with execution or consistency..drop the tempo well back within your comfort zone and focus one the fundementals again for a while. You can use the trick of going a bit beyond your threshold to help you break out of a rut and onto the next level...but always make sure to go back and drill on the fundementals again within your comfort zone, to keep from developing any sloppy habits.

As far as on the site here....I've got a 3 note per string "Shred Lick" tutorial goign, that I just started putting together that uses the A Aeolian mode (A Natural Minor) as it's base & is geared more towards the intermediate/advanced type player.
3 Note Per String Shred Licks
But when you really get down to it....It's just a 1-2-3 type drill, but using a scale instead of just chromatic runs. So it's really only as difficult as the tempo that you choose to play it at. No reason at all, that you couldn't slow it down and tackle something along those lines as well. There is also many good speed related lessons by The Jonezter on this site as well...so you could try giving those a search as well.

Best of luck to ya!

Don

Great advice there by Chipshank, just to reiterate what he said about pick size too - its 100% down to personal perference. Trying to break it down to the width of the pick versus the drag coefficient as the pick passes over a string of a certain gauge just isn't realistic.
Back when I started out I was so broke after getting my first guitar that I couldnt afford the bus fare to get into town to buy a pick so I used my video card and student id (credit card sized piece of plastic. I even used coins when I had... but they were the very last resort!
Now that I can afford the 50 cents for a pick I use hard Dunlop .6mm exclusively:-)

As far as picking fast goes its not about being able to move your right hand up and down that is the problem or being able to move your left hand fast enough, it's getting the two synchronised that's will get you from 50bpm to 200bpm over night.

Here's a good exercice developed by Michael Angelo Battio to determine how fast you can realistically expect to get in a short space of time.
1) Pick an open string up/down/up/down (alternate picking)
2) Start slow then build up over a minute or so to as fast as you can possibly go without losing rhythm or accuracy
This speed is you current 'maximum picking velocity (MPV)' - so now you know how fast you can go all you have to do is get your left hand to move in tandem with your right.
3) IMPORTANT - once you hit your MPV look at how you are holding your pick and picking hand position and make sure that you hold it this way all of the time - even when you play slowly. This will probably change over time but if you are beginning and you want to get from A - Z in the shortest space of time then you should try this for a while. I would say 99% of sloppy players are sloppy becuase they practice playing fast and are 'ok', practice playing slow and are 'ok' but they can't switch from fast to slow in the same piece becuase they hold their picks, guitars and fretting hands in different positions depending on the tempo. When you become an advanced player you will start playing around more with your pick position and picking hand angle etc depending on what you are playing but by that stage you will already have gone from A -Z and back through everything in between.
Bottom line: don't worry about switching picking position untill you have mastered the above.

If you think your left hand can't move fast then try a basic legatto run to see how fast you can get right now (this can get a lot faster with a little practice unlike the 'MPV' which takes a long time to increase).
Anchor your first finger (1), then simply drum your fingers 123123123123123123 etc as fast as you can - you'll realise it's a lot faster than you have ever played before.

Now all you have to do is include this along with the drill and exercises the other guys mentioned (chromatic 3 and 4 note per srting exercises are best when starting becuase you don't have to worry about scale positions etc). Start out extremely slowly and focus 100% on the movement and honing the movement down to something that is comfortable and gradually build up speed. Get this right and you will have a firm grounding to improve on.

Look at the way you hold your guitar and the way you sit. A lot of shredders put the guitar between their legs resting on their left knee with the head stock pointing up somwhere between rib and shoulder height - simply because this takes the pressure off the wrist and is a comfortable way to sit for hours on end while doing mindless speed drills! If you lose the rhythm then don't try to play any faster and ALWAYS play with a metronome or drum machine. Set yourself goals and move the speed up in 5bpm increments - even after 1 week of this at 15-30 mins practice per day you should notice considerable improvements in speed and accuracy.

The above will help you with the raw mechanics of alternate picking - it's not about playing something that sounds 'good' or cool. Give it a go and it will help you to see the potential speeds you can achieve over the next few weeks/months.

Hope that helps.

Tony Todesco (?), a studio guitarist out of LA, told a group of Berklee students that, when playing 32nd note passages, for example, only the first and last notes matter - everything between can be random. Any thoughts about that approach?

Yeah...I remember reading that quote years ago in Guitar Player, I think..
I am going to cop out and say Yes & No to that.....LOL
Tommy Tedesco, was probably one of THE biggest names in studio session work ever...at least in the guitar world. So I am going to defer a bit to someone like that, who knows a heckuva lot more than I do about that sort of stuff.

But there is two sides to the issue of course....
Fast OR Slow....You can honestly get away with playing a ton of "wrong" notes, if you set it up & resolve it in a satisfying manner for the listener. Which means that technically, you still really need to know your stuff to make that sort of thing work on a consistent basis. Kind of akin to Eddie Van Halen's comment about falling down the stairs and landing on your feet.
The key is that where as the average Joe can take a header down a couple flights of stairs & possibly get lucky and pull it off every so often...A trained stuntman has a much better chance of doing effectively on a regular basis. So too will a trained musician fare much better more often, than someone who just randomly flails away at notes & hopes for the best.

Part of the deal is, that with an incredibly seasoned player like a Tommy Tedesco or Steve Lukather who have done soooo many sessions under a great deal of pressure for soooo many years...To them it becomes almost like an autopilot mode of sorts when they peel off a fast run/lick/passage. They've had so many years of honing their craft, that they have become so innately aware of how to flow smoothly around the fretboard...that it becomes 2nd nature to them. They focus on the setup & the resolution and the rest falls into place through years and years of drilling & repetition.

The average learner out there with only a few years under their belts, does not have that level of innately programmed ability in them yet....so for them, YES...it is still very important to know what you are attempting to play. The more time you put in....The more likely that you are to land feet first at the end of a 32nd note flurry. :D

Then again on the other hand....The avg listener out there is not going to be as attuned to what is actually going on within a very fast passage like that. The typical human brain just is not trained to sort out all of that info coming at them that fast. And with guys like Tedesco & Lukather being in the biz of playing music that goes directly to the masses they are no doubt well aware of that & I would be inclined to believe that what he says is very true on that level. For the vast majority of people out there...it's not going to matter.

But again....LOL....Most of those people are not really going to be seeking out blazing guitar work in their daily listening habits. Which in turn means that the likely audience for 32nd note runs, is going to be fellow guitarists...whom as we all know all too well, rarely miss a chance to point out when something is sloppy and.....well...just plain "sucks". LOL

I personally think that the core issue is, that the faster & faster you play....The less overall value that one given note actually has on the passage. If you're going to play a slow B.B. King type passage, you'd damn well better nail every note spot on...because with fewer notes in play...each much will matter that much more to the whole. Someone like King may play only a few notes over the course of several measures & within that time frame, many phrasing nuances will come into play. There is much more information/energy going back & forth between the the fingers and each single note.

For someone like a Shawn Lane...playing some ridiculously fast 32nd note passage...the fingers are on each note for such a short time...fractions of a second...that by it's very nature, there is no possible way for the human body to impart as much info/interaction into each individiual note. So the feeling being imparted to the listener comes more from the passage as a whole, rather than a single or a few notes. With added emphasis being placed on the opening and closing notes, as Tommy Tedesco mentioned.

So yeah....Yes and No. ;)

Don