Shadowofravenwo

Hey all

Been playing about a year and a half. I'm trying to increase my speed. I know forcing it is bad, and I notice without making a conscious effort things like chord progressions and scales go faster. So here is my question, does speed naturally increase at it's own pace? Should I just enjoy the focus but not straining focus needed to play properly?

In other words, will playing faster just happen and right now I should just focus in getting technical aspects right and let the speed increase come when my speed increase comes?


Thanks

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Zaphod_Beeblebr

Yes.

I wish there was more to say than that.

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Shadowofravenwo

But that spoke volumes my friend.

Thanks

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Sickz

It does.

What more people should understand is that focusing on playing well at a slower tempo benefits you more. Like instead of chasing speed with playing your scales up and down you should just go through your scales at a nice slow tempo where you feel that you can play them relaxed and accurately. Speed will come by itself when your ready for it, you just have to practice well.

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Shadowofravenwo

So if I tense up or I feel like I'm forcing it mentally, I'm not relaxed. So it shouldn't be a mental strain either if I understand you correctly.

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turtleboy

It's simple. Like learning to read or any other thing. When you're learning you must go slow and learn letter by letter until you learn to read the whole word right. Later as it goes you learn to read whole sentence, row, page, book etc in no time. Such is the deal with guitar playing. When you learn it slow, but good, you can incrase your speed to whatever you want.
Sorry for bad english tho, I'm not native speaker and it's late Hope it helped!

Shadowofravenwo

That was perfect Turtleboy. I'm a teacher so I totally got the analogy. My concern was because I didn't know what I was doing wrong before I got a teacher, I had to play super slow 35 bpm in some cases. I was worried that I has stuck at that speed, and had to push myself to get faster.

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Freepower

Yep, just don't worry about speed. Practise sounding good and feeling relaxed and the speed will come.



Sounded fine to me.

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bburritt1

Totally speed is for the birds. Take your time and play it correctly. Chicks dig the fast stuff but they also want to hear the soul notes! Its time and repitition. Once you feel comfortable and relaxed the speed will follow.

Shoot at 1 1/2 years i was on Metallica's catalog screaming at my hands to move! Now i can play any f there songs at any speed. And that came from playing it over and over and over.

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J2G

When I first started, I wanted to get fast immediately, but that's cause I started so slow it was insulting (doesn't everyone?)
But now I'm about a year in, I just want to play sexier and cleaner, I've noticed speed came without me even focusing on it. And at random times when I solo I'll bust out a fast little lick and it's pretty cool.
We're around the same experience, but I definitely think speed will come naturally brutha man! Keep playing!

Shadowofravenwo

Thanks guys. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't in a rut that I would have to force myself out of. Maybe that's a huge disadvantage to metronomes. You get too fixated on numbers.

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Shadowofravenwo

I noticed I am taking my finger far from the strings when changing or what have you. Should I focus on that? Or is that something that will correct naturally?

Cheers

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Freepower

To a certain degree it will correct naturally, however it's a very good idea to work on it as it will improve every aspect of your playing. Take a look at this -

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chainsawguitar

Yes, it is true that a certain amount of speed will come naturally, but this does not mean that attempting fast speeds doesn't have it's place.

Sometimes, when you attempt to speed up, you start to make mistakes. This is both good and bad. You don't want to continually practise fast (because then you practise making mistakes), but also, when you make these mistakes they can help you to improve your technique (by showing where your mistakes are).

So, yes, slow practise is worth more- and you should spend more time on it- but fast speeds can show you where you're going wrong, sometimes. Then you should go back and improve your technique at slower speeds, to get rid of the mistakes.

I hope that makes sense.

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Shadowofravenwo

That did help, thanks.

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bburritt1

I took a page from the great book of Dime and ran with it on finger placement over strings. I was like you had a pretty big gap between finger and string when moving around chords or single notes. I read that he just barely hovered over the strings so he wouldnt get string noise. But it also helped with akward hand positioning. So for me it took a little practice and then it just became second nature.

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zaccda01

I used the book "Terrifying Technique" to build up speed and technique...it has a lot of practice riffs, helped me out quite a bit, especially with alternate picking.

RyanStorm13

I think technique is how you get really fast. Also if your not plugged in, you won't get same effect.

I mean with distorion, I can tap and legato at ten times faster rate than I can alternate pick with normal fingering.

Freepower

Glad to hear it!

I actually did another video on speed building specifically seeing as you and a few others have been asking about it recently.



Hope that helps out a bit more. ^^

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