Guitar Breakthroughs

[tm21]

Young or old, we've all had that feeling of being stuck in a rut. Whether its a difficult technique we're trying to get down, or a tricky theoretical concept, everyone who has ever picked up an axe has felt that unique brand of frustration that only the guitar can produce.

I'm by no means an expert, but I've found that patience, persistence and practice (the three Ps) always seem to lift me out of the guitar doldrums. So post your biggest breakthroughs, or the small ones that helped in the long run. I'm talking about those Ah Ha! moments...you dont have to be Archimedes to yell EUREKA! when something finally clicks.

I'll go first...I was trying to learn the solo for Mr Crowley, and it was going along ok until I hit this section of fast alternate picked notes on the high E string. Try as I might, and believe me, I tried, I could not play that fast.

I spent the next couple of weeks on youtube, with my jaw on the floor as I watched Paul Gilbert, Yngwie, Buckethead, JP setting their fretboards on fire with ultrafast speed picking. I couldn't understand how they were doing it and felt extremely dejected and even considered quitting (probably the eight thousandth time that thought crossed my mind)! Until I stumbled upon this video: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpJNUGHxC3M"]YouTube- Paul Gilbert Alternate Picking Lesson[/ame]

My guitar playing experience was forever changed. The technique that PG breaks down in that video is very basic. Probably every beginner learns stuff like this on their first or second lesson. But as a self-taught player, I seemed to just do things out of convenience. This video taught me the power of proper technique and opened up a whole new world for me.

Okay, so thats my story...just wanted to share it with you all. Please write your breakthrough moments as well!

 

[epifanto]

great info!

thanks for sharing!

 

[walleye]

whenever i have trouble with anything i just make a riff/repeating lick relating to said problem and pump at it to a metronome, going as slow as i can so that i can play it perfectly. its a good way to do it, because you can numerically see your improvement (as you increase the metronome speed)

 

[roburado]

I just reach a terminal velocity beyond which I just can't keep the hands synchronized, and I can't make either hand go any faster while still keeping it clean. Stuff like losing the sync, not keeping the rhythm of the 16th notes or triplets, etc. start to happen. It's a mess. Mind you, this is still just doing little picking exercises like what he's doing there, doing it on a scale, whatever. This is, of course, with a metronome. I try to do it as cleanly as possible at slower tempos and slowly boost it up, but I just can't improve. It's discouraging. So, I move on and work on other things.

 

[jam3v]

This was a useful video for me as well when I first started taking guitar seriously. Particularly in moving my entire hand down when I wanted to pick the higher strings, instead of just extending my thumb and putting it in that "folded back" awkward position.

Another thing this video taught me is to be patient with the development of my technique. If Paul Gilbert was using that "angled backwards" picking technique for 8 years then in comparison I'm doing a decent job with my technique.

 

[fbecir]

A good technique (courtesy of Steve Morse) for improving your alternate picking is to improve your up-stroke picking.
Indeed, it's easy to down-stroke but much harder to up-stroke. Try to play with your metronome the same phrase just with down-stroke and after just with up-stroke. You will see that you can go much faster with down-stroke.

Now, when you do scale, do them just with up-strokes. You will improve your up-stroke and thus your alternate picking.

 

[beej]

These days I spend more time concentrating on the "up" in my picking. Thinking about it differently has really helped. Pick it up, let gravity take it down. But I still find I've hit that terminal velocity as well, no matter how much I practice.

I'll keep at it forever. But some guys just have it. You watch guys like PG, or Jason Becker and just realize that some guys are insanely gifted.

 

[roburado]

These days I spend more time concentrating on the "up" in my picking. Thinking about it differently has really helped. Pick it up, let gravity take it down. But I still find I've hit that terminal velocity as well, no matter how much I practice.

I'll keep at it forever. But some guys just have it. You watch guys like PG, or Jason Becker and just realize that some guys are insanely gifted.

I guess it's like professional athletes. Some guys just have a gift that boosts them ahead of everyone else--no matter how much everyone else practices, no matter how hard we work at it.

 

[tm21]

what would you say your terminal velocity is? how fast can you get up to?

I definitely dont think that only some people can speed pick. i think if you just tremolo pick at first, and build your tremolo picking up to PG speed, you've already won half the battle. This is actually relatively easy. The next step is to work on legato. Get your left hand as strong as possible, so you can play those runs with just your left hand. The final step is to combine the tremolo picking with the legato. This is the hardest part, because both hands as well as both techniques have to "sync up".I recommend trying it on the high E string. Maybe 15-17-19. Then add the B string, same notes, 15-17-19. Changing strings is also very tricky. You just have to keep the up/down binary intact as you go to the next string.

 

[beej]

Picking on a single string isn't the problem for me, though. It's taking that speed and string skipping, working through patterns that are uneven, etc. Where I am always limited is the upstrokes as I switch.

Lots of good exercises out there for this (Petrucci and Morse have some good ones), but I find it's still very much a "you have it" or "you don't" kind of thing when you get to a certain speed.

 

[bkrumme]

I recall when I first started playing there were several instances of this same "terminal velocity" phenomenon. I just kept at it and broke through the barrier each time. It seems as you progress as a player it takes longer to break through those barriers. It makes sense, also. When you first started playing, the improvement was more apparent because the milestones were easier to measure.

My guitar teacher then told me one thing that I've stuck to: "If you can play something slow, you can play that same thing fast. There's no difference in how it's played, you just need to practice." So I keep at it if I'm stuck in a rut. Gets tiresome at times, but in the end it pays off.

 

[agt]

Even today, I am no shredder, but I was stuck in a rut speed-wise for longer than I care to admit until I read something that should have been obvious all along: relax.

People who can play incredibly fast and make it look effortless do so because to them it is effortless.

Once I really focused on relaxing my hands, arms, and body and started thinking not "how can I play faster" but rather "how can I release even more tension", the metronome numbers started advancing.

Obviously, as has been mentioned, play anything slowly and perfectly at first.

Another technique that worked for me is to set the metronome at a moderately fast bpm and play a phrase using 1/8 notes for one pass (slowly and perfectly) and then a burst of two passes of the phrase at 1/16 notes (twice as fast), then back to 1/8 notes, then 1/16 notes, etc., alternating like that. During the short burst of 1/16 notes, the focus is relaxation and perfect synchronization just like how you did it with the 1/8 notes. When you return to the 1/8 notes, you had better be right on the beat, otherwise your synchronization drifted ... slow the whole thing down until you can come back from the 1/16ths perfectly on the beat, then and only then should you speed it up. Doing the fast picking in short bursts like that really helped me develop my synchronization. When this becomes easy, do a pass or two of 1/8 notes followed by a bust of four passes with 1/16 notes, etc. Eventually the goal is to sustain the 1/16 notes for several passes consecutively with the same relaxation and precision as when you played it half as fast.

 

[bkrumme]

I agree with both agt and sixtyfour. I find it easier to play when I relax. If I get too tense I'll just screw things up more. Also, timing and feel play a MAJOR part to me. If it doesn't feel right, it doesn't sound right.

 

[roburado]

what would you say your terminal velocity is? how fast can you get up to?

I don't know for sure. It probably depends but I'd say that if I were running up a scalar pattern, we're talking sixteenth notes around 100bpm. The longer the run, the harder it is for me to keep up. Beyond that 100bpm limit, things seem to break down in the following order: left-hand accuracy and speed, sync, lastly picking.

My biggest breakthrough was the (way too late) realization that time, rhythm and feel are everything. All the chops and theory in the world won't matter one bit without time and feel.

I believe this is true too. In earlier years of my guitar playing, listening to people like EVH, Nuno Bettencourt, Reb Beach, SRV, Hendrix, Hillel Slovak, John Frusciante, and anyone whoever played on a Steely Dan record really drove home that point for me. People have been harping on using a metronome since the days when I played piano and violin, and I never listened--not until JP said so. They always told me to count. I never did--not until I really, really had to while trying to play violin parts for West Side Story. Up until then, I just did it by feel, by ear. I did myself a great disservice. Now, I think I have decent time and feel for a hack, but when I listen to guys like SRV, Hendrix, or even John Mayer covering Hendrix, I feel like I have so much to work on. I was trying to learn some of Mayer's cover to Axis: Bold As Love using a transcription and Roni Music's Amazing Slow-Downer to help guide me through. It's tough. The metronome is invaluable. So, is Slow Downer, which I just got last weekend. I never would have been able to get the first solo to Kid Charlemagne without a metronome. The second solo? Man, I got a ways to go for that one. I bet Slow Downer can help me with that. I guess Slow Downer is the modern-day equivalent of what people used to do with turning down the speed on their turntables, going from 33 rpm to 16 rpm, or whatever they did. Just prior to that, I guess it was those Tascam CD players that could slow things down for us. At least, now we can slow things down without altering pitch. Slow Downer makes it easy for the mp3 age. I don't know why I didn't get the full version sooner.

 

[roburado]

Another technique that worked for me is to set the metronome at a moderately fast bpm and play a phrase using 1/8 notes for one pass (slowly and perfectly) and then a burst of two passes of the phrase at 1/16 notes (twice as fast), then back to 1/8 notes, then 1/16 notes, etc., alternating like that. During the short burst of 1/16 notes, the focus is relaxation and perfect synchronization just like how you did it with the 1/8 notes. When you return to the 1/8 notes, you had better be right on the beat, otherwise your synchronization drifted ... slow the whole thing down until you can come back from the 1/16ths perfectly on the beat, then and only then should you speed it up. Doing the fast picking in short bursts like that really helped me develop my synchronization. When this becomes easy, do a pass or two of 1/8 notes followed by a bust of four passes with 1/16 notes, etc. Eventually the goal is to sustain the 1/16 notes for several passes consecutively with the same relaxation and precision as when you played it half as fast.

That's a great idea. That reminds me of something similar JP wrote in a column, something similar to the sprints that he had (and I had) run when he was playing soccer (or football, whatever you want to call it) as a kid.

 

[MusicManJP6]

Wow, guys. I think you might be on to something. I'm a downpicking prone player that needs to focus on the up stroke!! I'll have to give this type of thinking a go... Thanks!

 

[bkrumme]

I tried using all up picking last night while running through my scales and exercises. Man was it HARD! At least in comparison to all down picking. I think I've got a new exercise to add to my practice regimen.