picking technique to play at 180 bpm?

hi everybody
can anybody give me some tips to improve my right hand picking technique? i can do the flight of the bumblebee at 152 (original) but when i try to increase the speed to play it even faster it always starts sounding like crap 'cause my right hand just isnt fast enough ( when i do it legato with my left hand its no problem...). so can anybody help me? any good exercises or other things to do?
btw: i try to play only with my wrist

Originally Posted by: aiwass
Also, a little trick I picked up the other day from a sick shredder called Matt Moliti: Although it's common to make your pick strokes wide and exaggerated at slow speeds, making them smaller as you go faster, try to make your pick strokes as tiny as possible, barely even leaving the string, REGARDLESS OF THE SPEED YOU ARE PLAYING AT.

Thats pretty good advice actually. I knew about that for playing fast but i always forget about small movement when i'm playing slow :(

But from my experience, I think that when you build up speed you should at first do with the wider strokes and then try it with the samller movement, cuz you might end up with messy technique, like I did. I had to change my practice habits, and it sucked.

thanks for your replies :-)
i never payed attention to how wide my strokes are when i practice something slow. i think i'll try to some attention to this now.

but how is it possible to play even only a single note at over 200 bpm? when i'm playing fast my pick stroke get really small, but it seems impossible to get this fast... so any tips on how to play a single note extremly fast?

well - its just a matter of starting out slow and praciticing. when i first started to concern myself with the shred aspect of guitarship (my word!!) i was like "how the hell should i EVER be able to play even close to what [insert any given shredder here]???" - hell .. in the beginning i was not even able to fret a major barre chord without breaking my fingers.

and now i manage to play 16th notes at over 220 bpm and some sweep-arps at 36nd notes at about 280 bpm (which sunds pretty much like getting an extralife in mario bros.)

but i never ever used stuff like that in any of my compositions (yet - but not realy planning on doing so in the near future) :D

Hahaha, extra life in mario bros....

Im jealous! I wish I could get my guitar to sound like mario bros!


- J

[QUOTE=Slow Diver]But from my experience, I think that when you build up speed you should at first do with the wider strokes and then try it with the samller movement, cuz you might end up with messy technique[QUOTE]

I agree

well i practiced picking only a single note with a metronome but i can't get above ~170 (i practiced this everyday for some weeks :-/ and i did start out slow and it sounds clean at 160-170... but i can't do it any faster without getting tense). maybe my picking technique is wrong or something... how do you pick at 220?

now here is what i just wrote to some dude who asked me for help:

to gain speed you say? well first off - speed is of no vital importance to music. having said that here´s the deal:

work on your right hand picking technique. at first you should get the tremolo technique done.
tremolo picking is basically just playing one note over and over again as fast as you can ( or as fast as the musical situation requires).
perform it by alternate pick the string as fast as you can. YOU CANNOT SHRED FASTER THAN YOU CAN PLAY THE TREMOLO except with tapping and sweeping! Your fastest tremolo is the limit.
you can push this limit by practicing the tremolo. use very little pick motion. practice the motion slow.
IMPORTANT: your picking motion should be THE SAME no matter at what speed you play. most guitarrists tend to make larger/different pick motions when they play slow.
there is a whole bunch of guitarrists out there who can play a fast lick but when you tell them to play it slowly they are like breaking their fingers.

there are basically 3 picking teckniques.
Alternate picking
Alternative picking (often also refered to as economy and sweep picking - economy picking in that case is basically a mixture of alternate and sweep)
Legato
with alternate picking you do a steady up and down motion. like this one (v = downstroke ^=Upstroke):


v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v etc
E||--------------------------------------||
B||--------------------------------------||
G||--------------------------------------||
D||-----------11-12-11----------11-12----||
A||--11-12-14----------14-12-11----------||
E||--------------------------------------||


With Alternative picking you do not change the picking direction when you change the strings. is called economipicking aswell because it requires less motion and it sounds a bit smoother.


v ^ v v v ^ v ^ ^ v ^ ^ v ^
E||--------------------------------------------||
B||--------------------------------------------||
G||--------------11-12-14-12-------------------||
D||-----------11-------------11-12-14----------||
A||--11-12-14-------------------------11-12-14-||
E||--------------------------------------------||

see?

an legato is basically just pick the first note on a string and hammeron/pulloff the other notes.


v v v ^ ^
E||--------------------------------------------||
B||--------------------------------------------||
G||--------------11h12h14h12-------------------||
D||-----------11-------------11h12h14----------||
A||--11h12h14-------------------------11h12h14-||
E||--------------------------------------------||

those are the 3 and you should practice all of them.

Whatever you practice - practice it SLOW!!! and practice with a metronome!!

keep your fingers always close to the fretboard. do not lift them off the fretboard more than a few millimeters. always use all 4 fingers, not only the first 3 like the bluesers from the 60`s. build up your speed gradually.
play as clean and precise as possible. there are heaps of shredders who noodle around the fretboard at blistering speeds, but half of it is only a formless blurr for they have a sloopy technique. you dont want to be just fast - you also want to actually hear all the notes you play. this can ONLY be acceived by practiveing slowly and precisely to a metronome using the above techniques. all the 3 techniques are equally important! develop a good left and right hand muting for you just want to hear the note you actually play without string noise from the other strings.

well.. i hope that will help you a bit

now here is what i just wrote to some dude who asked me for help:

to gain speed you say? well first off - speed is of no vital importance to music. having said that here´s the deal:

work on your right hand picking technique. at first you should get the tremolo technique done.
tremolo picking is basically just playing one note over and over again as fast as you can ( or as fast as the musical situation requires).
perform it by alternate pick the string as fast as you can. YOU CANNOT SHRED FASTER THAN YOU CAN PLAY THE TREMOLO except with tapping and sweeping! Your fastest tremolo is the limit.
you can push this limit by practicing the tremolo. use very little pick motion. practice the motion slow.
IMPORTANT: your picking motion should be THE SAME no matter at what speed you play. most guitarrists tend to make larger/different pick motions when they play slow.
there is a whole bunch of guitarrists out there who can play a fast lick but when you tell them to play it slowly they are like breaking their fingers.

there are basically 3 picking techniques.

• Alternate picking
  


• Alternative picking (often also refered to as economy and sweep picking - economy picking in that case is basically a mixture of alternate and sweep)
  


• Legato

with alternate picking you do a steady up and down motion. like this one (v = downstroke ^=Upstroke):


v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v ^ v etc
E||--------------------------------------||
B||--------------------------------------||
G||--------------------------------------||
D||-----------11-12-11----------11-12----||
A||--11-12-14----------14-12-11----------||
E||--------------------------------------||


With Alternative picking you do not change the picking direction when you change the strings. is called economipicking aswell because it requires less motion and it sounds a bit smoother.


v ^ v v v ^ v ^ ^ v ^ ^ v ^
E||--------------------------------------------||
B||--------------------------------------------||
G||--------------11-12-14-12-------------------||
D||-----------11-------------11-12-14----------||
A||--11-12-14-------------------------11-12-14-||
E||--------------------------------------------||

see?

and legato is basically just pick the first note on a string and hammeron/pulloff the other notes.


v v v ^ ^
E||--------------------------------------------||
B||--------------------------------------------||
G||--------------11h12h14p12-------------------||
D||-----------11-------------11h12h14----------||
A||--11h12h14-------------------------11h12h14-||
E||--------------------------------------------||

those are the 3 and you should practice all of them.

Whatever you practice - practice it SLOW!!! and practice with a metronome!!

keep your fingers always close to the fretboard. do not lift them off the fretboard more than a few millimeters. always use all 4 fingers, not only the first 3 like the bluesers from the 60`s. build up your speed gradually.
play as clean and precise as possible. there are heaps of shredders who noodle around the fretboard at blistering speeds, but half of it is only a formless blurr for they have a sloopy technique. you dont want to be just fast - you also want to actually hear all the notes you play. this can ONLY be acceived by practiveing slowly and precisely to a metronome using the above techniques. all the 3 techniques are equally important! develop a good left and right hand muting for you just want to hear the note you actually play without string noise from the other strings.

well.. i hope that will help you a bit

oh... thanks alot :-)
i'll try to learn these things... i think i got to change my technique while playing slow.

Originally Posted by: AzraelYour fastest tremolo is the limit.
you can push this limit by practicing the tremolo. use very little pick motion. practice the motion slow.
IMPORTANT: your picking motion should be THE SAME no matter at what speed you play.

after practicing it the last two days i got minimal picking movement, especially when playing slow and i can do it up to 180 bpm. but i still can't push this limit above 180. is it just practicing it for a long time or am i practicing wrong? :confused:

Originally Posted by: Petzafter practicing it the last two days i got minimal picking movement, especially when playing slow and i can do it up to 180 bpm. but i still can't push this limit above 180. is it just practicing it for a long time or am i practicing wrong? :confused:

you are not expecting to learn how to play at 200 bpm within a day, are you? ;)

ahm... two days :-) well... no... i'm not expecting to play at 200 bpm, but to tremolo pick at 185 :rolleyes: or anything to see it works :)
ok... well then i'll work on it for a month and then get back here ;)

This is what I've been doing straight for 8 months and I'm talking 4 hours a day and I'm only just starting to get where I want to get with it. Things take time and once you realize that it'll be easier for you.

but be sure to concern yourself with other aspects of guitarplaying/making music aswell! shredding is just a tiny lil fragment of the whole idea

yeah of course i'm learning other techniques and styles...
but this tremolo picking thing is the only thing at which i don't get better, so i wanted to concetrate on it for a while until i got it down. i don't want to learn to shred in a month, just want to get my right hand to be able to pick faster. i've learned to pick at 170 in a few weeks last year. and now i just wanted to get to 180 or 200. but it doesn't seem to work and i thoght i must be doing something wrong and so i asked my question here :-/ i practiced it for hours, tried to use the same motion when playing slow... even changed my picking techique a bit. now i'm getting a bit hopeless... but maybe it's just time and practicing everyday. in those videos i've seen of micheal angelo and others they just say something like "practice tremolo picking" but nobody tells me how to do it exactly so i thought must be doing it wrong. maybe somebody can describe it :)

I'd say don't worry about it. Move on and get back to it when you've mastered some other technique. Some things come naturally given time and experience.

(I didn't mean 100 percent shred per se, more pinky strengthening. I find it's best put to use through alt picking and such but you're absolutely right.)

For some it helps to go even faster first instead of slower. Instead of going from 170 up to 180, try setting the metronome up to 200 or 220. Let yourself listen for a second and imagine what it would sound like and then try it. Of course you won't get it and it will probably be sloppy. But once your done trying it at the extreme and way beyond your reach, decrease the metronome down to where your stuck and then try again. Suddenly the tempo you were stuck at doesn't seem so fast. This works for some people when they plateau, so try it.

i think this method works when you play licks and want to play them faster. i tried it a few times now, but it doesn't work with me :-/ at least not for my picking speed.
well... can anybody describe his picking motion at 200 please?