guitar holding me back

[CAWDAVID]

i have been playing a vintage sg for a little over a year now and i am finding that i am not moving from the point that i am at

i play the piano and run scales and such on the guitar so i am not lacking basic technical skill but when it comes to playing fast it seems as though the guitar cannot keep up

the action i funny, the fret wires are too small and so on

is this me being defeatest and not giving the guitar a chance or is it that the problem is with the guitar

[DeviousESimian]

It could be that it'd benefit from a good setup. I've seen people play SGs frighteningly quickly, but in general you'd want big frets to play quickly easily. Mostly, though, I'm afraid it's just about practice and muscle memory and that sort of thing. Might be worth seeing a decent teacher for a couple of lessons to see if there's anthing in your technique that's holding you back?

[CAWDAVID]

well i'll look into having somebody check out my technique and hopefully win a better guitar (coz im skint lol)

[manicguitarist2]

Where are you based?
Post something in the guitarist section about this - there is bound to be someone living near to you who is willing to help out,

[robward01]

Guitars only do what you make them do ...no such thing as a slow guitar maybe a lighter set of strings and a tinker with the action might help you a little but no substitute for technique. I would suggest lightening your grip, a lot of players hold too tight thus cant move very fast. good luck...

[Rocker]

The obvious question is: why do you want to play so fast? Not trying to irk you or anything like that, just curious.

[Amberience]

Learn alternate picking techniques, don't just downstroke each note, this is a BIG part of playing fast.

[mgrowe]

I teach guitar (www.elyguitarlessons.co.uk)and my advice is you need to slow down to speed up. I know that sounds daft but if you play slow with a metronome and gradually speed up as you can play accurately and with no mistakes the co-ordination between your hands will improve and so will your speed.
Playing fast is all about that co-ordination and getting the synchronization between hands.
Pick a scale or part of a solo and play it at 60 BPM then when you can play it without any mistakes at that speed go to 65 BPM and so on until you can play it a little faster than it actually is with no mistakes then go back to the correct speed..
The discipline of doing that will help you a lot.
Also get yourself a guitar teacher but make sure it is a good one as there are a lot of dodgy ones out there. It may cost more but the extra money will be worth it.

Hope that helps