Pepper Brown on youtube is a great teacher of picking technique.
Think he taught Buckethead.
Worth a look in my opinion
A lot of speed can be gained by playing repetitive fragments that are common in the major scale and the modes.
Here are a couple that I get students to work on.
Each fragment is 6 notes in length- you should observe strict alternate picking to begin with.
Up to you whether you play them as 8th notes, 16th notes or sextuplets.
I'd probably start with 16th notes though.
There are a lot of approaches but I favour finding a tempo that you can comfortably play for around 3 minutes with minimal mistakes and then stick to that for a week.
Then increase the tempo 5 bpm a week (if possible) or slower if need be.
Play the exercises in a variety of ways ascending, descending, ascending one, descending the other, 2notes up- one down etc.
Normally in a lesson I'd go into a lot more detail with this but it gives you a good idea of the approach.
+1 for Troy Stetina, his books helped me out a lot.
Why would you want to play like everyone else?
Ref BB King.
Good question Sir. IMO there are reasons why we should learn commonly-used techniques and phrases.Originally Posted by ESBlonde
1. So that we can play covers and get paid for it.
2. As an exercise in developing technical skills and agility to use for our own purposes. Someone once asked my why I would want to play like Ritchie Blackmore and I said it was because I think having his skills would allow me to realise some of the sounds I hear in my head, not necessarily because I want to copy his solos note for note (although having the ability to do so would be nice).
He who laughs last ... is still using a slow modem
Fair point but studying music doesn't mean you will end up playing like other people anymore than learning English will mean you can't express an original idea with it.
IMHO the language of music is just that- a language- a vocabulary.
You can do anything you want with what you learn.
Consciously avoiding learning the vocabulary is, imho, the most limiting thing a musician does to him or herself.
i agree with this ..but you dont need to have good vocabulary to make good conversation either..some of my favourite players probably dont have this but know exactly what to play and when to do it..and other players with vast vocabulary say to much..so although i do agree its not the always the route to great playing...
Very true.
A lot of those players existed in a different musical landscape though.
In the 50's-70's (and to a degree the 80's and 90's) it was perfectly possible to make a living just being 'you' as a musician.
These days that is virtually impossible.
Being a working musician you need to be able to genre hop, play in different styles if you wish to eat.
You can still inject a bit of yourself into whatever you do but not as much as one might think.
Or you do what most people do which is to treat music as a hobby and have another job.
just use a metronome and play a speed that you comfortable with......listen to what you play and make sure its smooth and clear..then gradually notch the metronome up just a touch...theres a lot of players can play fast but not inbetween so well so you need to do all tempos...try doing scales /arps /blues scale ect. using alternate picking...then try the same with a legato type of thing...Tom Quayle has a good tutorial for this..but dont run before you can walk or you will fall...
Reply With Quote