Interesting Ways of Developing Speed?

[Bellycaster]

Anything rather than doing all 5 positions of the Major Scale in the CAGED system.

I'm not interested in becoming a shred demon. I tend to go for styles more like Gilmour, Clapton and other genres. Generally players with speeds less than Yngwie, BUT, I do need to develop a little more speed.

Technically, going up and down the scale 4 times properly with no mistakes I am at the 88bpm(4 notes per click) stage, so 352 per minute.

Impromptu runs or scales in certain positions I can do 114bpm(4 notes per click) and can play some fastish licks. This is not mega impressive, but like I say, I don't base my playing on speed alone, I just want to get up to around 125(4 NPC) technically perfect on everything I do.

Just so that I can if I want, sometimes you need a quick run in there.

The trouble is I give this regime(5 pos in CAGED) 1/2 per night and I only have 1.5 hours approx spare and it is BORING and frustrating sometimes I have glitches and wonder why I could do 100 yesterday and not today etc.

I give another 1/2 hour to working my way through the Ross Bolton Funk Rhythm Guitar Tutorial Vid, which is anything but boring and is something I want to accomplish, in time.

I also like to have a bit of time to learn songs that I love to develop my transcribing skills, but it's time, time , time!

I know I have to dedicate a certain amount of time to it, but it needs to not make me want to impale my speaker cab with the headstock of the guitar.

I like to switch on the gear at weekends and get carried away with the pedalboard and enjoy the sound of my rig, but we all need some technical proficiency in areas we lack in, do we not? I made myself a promise to do this in 2013.

Basically.....HELP.

[welly_59]

I'm about the same speed as you and basically do the same exercises as you. If you find anything more interesting then please let us know!

[Bellycaster]

I'm about the same speed as you and basically do the same exercises as you. If you find anything more interesting then please let us know!

I will, then I will be out of this Straight Jacket and can stop typing with my nose

Seriously though, there are too many things and methods on youtube, so let's hope some teachers can put us out of our misery.

[Dulcetjones]

The trouble is I give this regime(5 pos in CAGED) 1/2 per night and I only have 1.5 hours approx spare and it is BORING and frustrating sometimes I have glitches and wonder why I could do 100 yesterday and not today etc.

Even though this is boring, it's essential. When you experience glitches you should back the BPM's down 5 or 10, until you find a speed you can do it with no glitches and then stay at that speed as long as you can stand it before pushing it up again. This does work. When I used to do classical guitar concerts I would practice playing the most difficult pieces in my repertoire at half speed the day before, it's amazing how much clarity this gives you when you play them at speed again.

[tonyteech02]

I have some bad news. I took flamenco guitar lessons at age 65. Golf would have been less frustrating. I remodelled my technique completely by playing solidly on scales for two hours a day. I can achieve with fingers ie no pick. about 200 at 4 notes per beat after starting at 80 bpm thats clean and all scales that I do. Drove me mental but I did it. With a pick I can do about 220 and 200 with a thumbpick (sharkskin) Sorry there is no magic method. I wish there bloody was just slog over however many hours you can spare. And you do get bad days where it simply does not work so well - its called tension and being human and you just have to grit your teeth and keep going. My teacher is a very nice guy and one of the rudest and most critical people I have met has dragged this out me. Stay happy and enjoy your playing. I do it because its my business

[barney.]

When you practice start the scales or whatever with a upstroke ...most people.start with a downstroke ....doubg it this way will highlight your weakness and make it clear what needs work....that's iff it does ...

[octatonic]

Agree with tonyteech02- you just have to do it.
There are many paths to this- there is no one approach that works for all people.
Best to find what works for you and stick to it.
Be obsessive though- the guys that fail are the ones that put in a big effort for a few weeks and then lose interest.
1-2 hours a day is good but more is better, provided it is effective, structured practice- not just mindless noodling.
Mindless noodling has its place though.

I reckon working on fragments is the way to go.
Get small fragments of 6 notes across two strings.
124 or 134 finger patterns are good.

Work on accelerating the speed over a couple of weeks- around 5bpm per week.

I do most of my paying at around 60-70% of my maximum and then do a bit of speed playing towards the end of a practice session.
I got the idea from Steve Morse- he did a clinic and it was one of the ideas that hit home.

[JAYJO]

[QUOTE=Bellycaster;1447764



I also like to have a bit of time to learn songs that I love to develop my transcribing skills, but it's time, time , time!

.[/QUOTE]This is what i would be doing. Lots of it.

[mattf77]

When you practice start the scales or whatever with a upstroke ...most people.start with a downstroke ....doubg it this way will highlight your weakness and make it clear what needs work....that's iff it does ...

This is great advice.
If you want to improve picking, a four notes per string chromatic routine all the way up the neck and then back down is very effective.
Alternate pick starting on a downstroke, then do the routine again but with alternate picking starting on an upstroke.
Then do the whole thing using only upstrokes.
Then do the whole thing using only downstrokes.
Your arm should be about ready to fall off at this point, but your picking technique will be like lightning in no time.
Got this from Al Di Meola who is no slouch!
This however..... is not interesting to listen to.... for which I apologise to my long suffering wife.

[drae]

Interesting thread! I've definitely been slowly trying to improve my picking speed also, but thinking that there must be some tricks and stuff that I'm missing. But from the above info, probably not!

Another thing to try to mix things up a bit is to do scales in other formats rather than straight up and down. So examples,
- in 3rds, i.e. 1, 3, 2, 4, 3, 5...
- up down 3's, i.e. 1, 2, 3, 2, 3, 4...
- repeat the above in 4ths and 5ths.
- in 4 and 5 can also go up down in small runs, i.e. '1, 2, 3, 4, 3', '2, 3, 4, 5, 3' ... timing get's complicated!

Do you also play other than 4 notes per click? Triplets is another way to mix it up and helps with timing.

I don't know if these are any ways to actually help with straight speed, but they do help to really 'know' scales.