realsystem

Brilliant Cas and gpb0216, and i also highly recommend "Liberating the Master Musician Within" by Kenny Werner. Brilliant book and a great read.

Take it slow, do Cas' excericise of playing at a constant tempo, 5mins break, 20mins slow, then 5mins bursts etc.

Do it for 21 days, hell, do it for the rest of your life.

With great accuracy comes great speed, remember the story of the tortoise and the hare? (assuming the tortoise did a little speed burst in the last 50 yards)

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Cas, if you still listening, do you have your music online still?
There was a song You had about a year ago, maybe more I can't remember how it went cause there was some pretty fast playing in it and i hadn't even begun to shred then and now I wanna hear it again.

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sixteen times

Public, I have already PMed him about that and right now he is busy with various things, so maybe in the future.

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MidnightThunder

Caressing......
Are we not allowed to post tabs here? Just checking....

Is there anyway you can maybe email me some of those great exercises? I truely can use all the help I can get.


Thanks

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MidnightThunder
AKA: Shawna

MidnightThunder

GP...

The program I have very closely agrees with that....except, it says to find the speed your comfortable with, practice that with great precision, then increase your speed all the up until you can't play it, and then decrease all the way back down to where you originally started. Not only will it be easier on the way back down but your practicing precision but you also finding out what your "speed profile" is.

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MidnightThunder
AKA: Shawna

MidnightThunder

Just to add....the program I have measures singles, doubles, chromatic, scale, pattern and random. It doesn't put a time limit on how quickly you will learn but it says you will see a dramatic difference each week. Each of these things are measured separately and you build from there.

Any thoughts are appreciated

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MidnightThunder
AKA: Shawna

MidnightThunder

gp....

what type of exercises did you practice over and over again? did you come up with them yourself or did you follow something you read or seen somewhere? Just curious because I would like to learn more too.

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MidnightThunder
AKA: Shawna

MidnightThunder

gp......

I admire your self control. I am completely intersted in hearing more of what you have to say about this so please if you get a chance can you explain in a little more detail. I would love to give it a shot. I am far from perfect, and love to learn from those who know more than me which is almost everybody here LOL, and you will never hear me ever ever ever critisizing someone for merely trying to help or contribute to another persons love of music. Sorry, had to say that.

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MidnightThunder
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MidnightThunder

e10...

I was under the impression that even someone who has played 100 years could take months to learn a song depending on the style of music they currently play and the style they are trying to learn. Also, everybody learns at a different pace...it is just my opinion, but it is always best to encourage as opposed to discourage, so time limits would force disappointment down alot of people's throats because some just can't do it. I'm one of those. What do you think? Any thoughts are appreciated, again...I'm here to learn.

I am working with theory now, and oh my goodness there is so much to learn! I wonder if I'll ever get it. I'm just glad that there are alot of people here with more experience than me willing to offer advice or I don't know what I would do.

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MidnightThunder
AKA: Shawna

MidnightThunder

I have to add to this too....sorry in advance and I mean no offense whatsoever....

people like cas are the ones that are helping me to become the guitar player I am today. Now, I'm not that great, but I am learning alot from those people. I do not think these people have no lives, I think they have the same deep love, passion, and determination to strive for what they love. I do too and have a HUGE respect for those who are will to take the time out of their busy schedules to share their knowledge with people they don't even know all over the world to help them.....even when it means that some will turn around and critisize, argue, and belittle them for doing so...

I'm sorry but people pay good money to hear the things that I am learning from this forum. It is a gift beyond anything money could buy. So, for those of you who do this, thank you from the bottom of my heart. You have and I'm sure will continue to give me knowledge, know-how, and confidence in myself to pursue this lifelong dream I've had of playing the guitar with the best of them.

Please don't be discouraged from people who don't understand or share the same passion.

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Corwinoid

There's really no need to post 7 times in response to a thread...

I'll chip in here, and I would have sooner if I hadn't been busy all day... the point of practicing slower is to focus on coordination. By conciously paying attention to the movements your making, and keeping them controlled, refining them, and minimizing the amount of movement you need, your actual technique improves.

To give an example... generally we have the notion of picking our fingers up off the fretboard to change their position. Say your arch to clear a string with your ring finger lifts it about a half inch over the action of the string you're clearing... doesn't seem like a lot. But think about this, if you can focus on reducing the amount of motion you make normally, and bring that down to about a quarter of an inch, you've MORE than halved the amount of effort that motion takes. By the fact that you're focusing on making that movement more cleanly, you're also working on making it more accurate, as a side effect.

The less work you have to do, the faster you can do it.

Now that's just one thing to actually focus on, when you're going slow... slow enough that you have the time to actually think about what you're doing, instead of just throwing your fingers around.

The overall idea is that by slowing down, you give yourself a chance to correct the minor imperfections in what you're doing, and to simply do it better, and more efficiently. By training yourself to do it better--not something that just happens by 'practicing', but by focusing--your entire playing improves, from tone, to technical skill, to speed.

No comment on the speed bursts, btw... haven't tried that yet

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F-3

Very nice thread, this is why I love ug So much knowledge in here, and for free

I did that slow practise thing before, but apparently never put enough consequence behind it...

thanks to everyone who posted in this thread

sixteen times

Excellent thread, I can see this being archived.

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Freepower

^ i demand this archived!

I havent said much so far in this thread, but its an excellent thread a lot of people would like a look in.

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saddam

little question: say you've been playing a solo at 70bpm(the slow practise thing), at what speed should those 'speed bursts' be? 100? 120? 150? 200? 300? 6000? ...

Freepower

also - say you've practiced an hour at this slow pace - are you "allowed" to just go back to playing normal speed for when you want to compose or something?

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gpb0216

Of course! The beauty of this approach is that, in my experience, the forays back into the "normal-speed" world are much more thoughtful and focused and produce wonderful creativity. The 21-Day process refers to the quest for speed, which is where this entire thread got started.

I believe you'll find, though, that the mindset you begin to develop while pursuing the 21-Day approach will quickly draw you back to the "slowed-down" woodshed. It's an absolutely fascinating process. I'm very much looking forward to hearing about your 21-day experiment.

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slash_pwns

So gpb0216 (for lack of a better name), How fast can you play after using this technique for so many years.

(try not to read that as a smart ass coment)

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gpb0216

Absolutely not. I figured this question was going to show up eventually.

My name is G. Patrick Bryant, by the way.

I'm 52 years old and stopped trying to be "fast" the way you're probably thinking of fast a long time ago. In fact, I concluded that I needed to get out of that unwinnable race after listening to the John McLaughlin / Carlos Santana collaboration "Love, Devotion, Surrender" for the first time 'way back in 1972 or so. That record (who uses that term anymore?) still scares the hell out of me.

Having gotten that "confession" out of the way, I'm very comfortable playing just about anything recorded by my guitar beacons Jimi Hendrix, Steve Howe, Alex Liefson and the almost-superhuman Duane Allman. How fast does that make me?

But my ultimate hero, the guitarist whose Gretsch Duo-Jet I'm not even worthy to carry, is the late George Harrison. I've never heard anyone say his name and use the word "fast" in the same sentence. But in my mind, he was the absolute best guitarist ever in terms of taste, stylistic appropriateness and playing a melodic, singing line. Oh, if I could just play like George, may he rest in peace.

Thanks for asking. And how fast are you?

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