Help improving speed and accuracy

[Cliff]

Hopefully it won't be too long or cost too much to get it sorted.

Question for the shredders: how long do you have to warm up before you can expect to play cleanly at your top speed? And what do you do to warm up?

[BenoA]

Good question Cliff. Sometimes, it can take me 5 minutes but sometimes I need 30 minutes to warm up!

As far as exercises, I do a bunch at slow tempo. One is a chord change from Joe Satriani and the other a finger exercise from Micheal Angelo Batio. I also run a few scales, pentatonic and 3 notes per string.

[Cliff]

Thanks for letting me know. I think I was stupidly under the impression that I could dive right in at my max speed, give or take 4bpm.

Did I mention I've started recording myself and then playing back at half speed? I did that this weekend and found that, although I thought I was playing cleanly 6 noters per beat at 88bpm, I was slurring one or two of the notes on each descending fragment. It looks to be a consistent problem I have even at 80bpm, so once again I'm slowing down to rectify it. Man, I just don't seem to be able to reliably get past 8 notes per second (6 notes per beat at 80bpm or 8 notes per beat at 120bpm).

[z1n]

Did I mention I've started recording myself and then playing back at half speed?

Wow that's a great idea! I need to try this. Man dont beat yourself up you've come along way and seem to be on the right track

[Cliff]

Thanks man! I really appreciate that. Listening at half speed is pretty unforgiving. (Also, the GarageBand resampling is terrible: I found a website to do it instead.)

[Cliff]

But on the plus side, playing stuff back at double speed sounds *awesome*

[BenoA]

Recording yourself is a very good way of evaluating how you are doing. I am doing it too! Rock on!

[RR2772]

If the recording make sense to do I agree and I am going into it. I did find a cassette tape for my 4 track and god its recordings are horrible in terms of the playing. Making me wonder why its there on tape. Still at the time back in late '90s I was not into recording and just tried it a tiny bit so there is about 10 tapes in total of that. Then I did record some rehearsels in the 2 bands I was in and some of it was really good. I do improvise alot and some times it comes of really well making one happy that it was recorded.

I got no recording fear holding me back like some guitar players.

The Quad is yet to go to service but I have been getting into it and try to find the tones and getting into using it. It works pretty good despite the years and yet to service but it will be soon. Other than that I am expanding my skill knowledge ( so far the 5 basic scales in all 5 positions) and getting into recording ideas down on tape mindset for further use.

[Cliff]

Hey guys! So I've been hitting a bit of a wall with alternate picking. I'm around 90bpm with groups of 6 (so equivalent of 135 with groups of 4) and can't seem to push it faster and keep the articulation reliable.

In the meantime I've been working on legato too. I feel I can go faster than where I'm at, but on the other hand, today I noticed when I listen carefully that although the first note in each group is on the beat, the remainder tend to waver in time some. Is this just a consequence of playing at this speed, or do I need to slow down and work on more even timing? First is a tapping lick in 6s at 88bpm, second is legato lick in 8s at 68.

[Cliff]

Crowley the kitten helping me with my tapping exercise:

[BenoA]

Funny kitten! Interesting that you integrated some tapping in your practice routine. I have been mainly doing alternate stuff. Keep on my friend!

[Cliff]

Thanks man! You too!

Kitten is a cutie for sure. I started incorporating about 50% tapping and legato and 50% alternate a while back. I seem to have hit a bit of a wall with alternate. Every time I get a bit faster I notice a sync problem and have to slow down again. I think I can play legato better (I know the string noise on that video is bad, but it's a solvable problem), so it seemed to make sense to work on it and improve it further. Plus, most of my heroes (Vai, Van Halen, Rhoads) play with a combination of alternate and legato, so a fixation on strict alternate picking seems counter-productive to me.

[blackhatch]

Hi Cliff!!! please comment, like, a subscribe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IhPjouwOPA

[blackhatch]

Crowley the kitten helping me with my tapping exercise:

what guitar is that?? looks cool... btw great playin!! are you muting the strings at the nut?

greetins from chile!!!

[Cliff]

You really think so!? Thanks! No, not muting at the nut. I was hoping to try and teach myself to do it with that, but maybe it's time to give in and buy a fret wrap?

The guitar is called an Apex by a Venetian builder called Spalt. He does great work:

https://www.spaltinstruments.com/instruments/

BTW - great playing on your Slipknot track - I've just subscribed to your channel.