Do you want to play faster?

[revtime]

Yes its Yngwie.
Yes its a strat he is playing.
Get past all of that and concentrate on the breakdown of his technique and some light bulbs will illuminate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TnddE2k598

 

[WholeLottaIzzy]

I have no desire to be able to play fast. I can play 16th notes at 90bpm at a push and I'm okay with that. I'll take great phrasing, note choice and touch over speed every day.

 

[LiveSimply]

It's a nice series of videos and he has a very thoughtful analysis. Very entertaining and really good quality production for a YouTube video.

 

[revtime]

I have no desire to be able to play fast. I can play 16th notes at 90bpm at a push and I'm okay with that. I'll take great phrasing, note choice and touch over speed every day.

Admirable. But why not have both? Why not be as versatile a player as you can be? Head room is nice. You don't have to drive 150 MPH all the time but isn't it nice to know you can?
There are some subtle little tricks in his technique that will let you stab the throttle every now and then.
Not a bad thing at all in my opinion.

 

[huw]

Troy Grady's whole series is interesting, although he does tend to take a long time to get to the point (look who's talking).

I'm not particularly interested in becoming a "shredder", but every one of his videos that I've seen has had a nugget of useful information that I could take and apply to my own situation. This one is no exception: the idea that the picking cycle contains moments when it's easier to move to a different string ( and moments when it's harder ) is something that I can take away and try to be aware of in my own playing.

 

[EasyAce]

I have no desire to be able to play fast. I can play 16th notes at 90bpm at a push and I'm okay with that. I'll take great phrasing, note choice and touch over speed every day.

I could play superfast once upon a time.

Then I suffered a broken fret hand in a 1992 car accident. The fracture healed but I lost a lot of dexterity. When I picked up a guitar again a few years later, I didn't have even a tenth of my former speed. But I liked my playing a lot more, and so did those who listened to me.

I have only a little speed now. It's useful as punctuation for a phrase but that's about all. As someone said to me after coming up to me to say he liked my playing and my sound, "You just proved you don't have to be a machine gunner to play the blues." I was too flattered to say I wasn't even close to the first one who ever proved it.

 

[WholeLottaIzzy]

Admirable. But why not have both? Why not be as versatile a player as you can be? Head room is nice. You don't have to drive 150 MPH all the time but isn't it nice to know you can?
There are some subtle little tricks in his technique that will let you stab the throttle every now and then.
Not a bad thing at all in my opinion.

You right and I completely agree. I will work on speed eventually, but I want a good solid understanding of note choices and phrasing before I work on speed. Having a good foundation, essentially. I thought today, if I were ever in a covers band and needed to play something fast, I just couldn't do it.

Comes back to a saying I always use - "better have it and not need it than need it and not have it".

I tried watching that video, but found it pretty much unbearable

 

[LenPaul]

theres no revolutionary brand new see the light, do it this way technique to play fast info in that video. Old guys have been doing it that way for years, he did present it in an entertaining way though,,, gotta give him that, I watched the whole thing

 

[houston]

Head room is nice. You don't have to drive 150 MPH all the time but isn't it nice to know you can?

Fully agree, but I'd rephrase it slightly, something like: You don't need to drive 150 to justify a car capable of going 150. Even if you never go over 80, the can that can do 150 will handle the job much better than one that struggles to do 90.

Or, in a band or orchestra, you always want the best players you can get. Even if the material is relatively easy (say, the national anthem), a high school group isn't going to sound nearly as good as advanced players (that often play at 10x the difficulty).

Troy Grady's whole series is interesting, although he does tend to take a long time to get to the point

He sure goes all-out in his production. Maybe he's hoping for a job at Pixar or Dreamworks some day? But then his tone is so "infomercial" sounding. Is he selling something we should be buying?

theres no revolutionary brand new see the light, do it this way technique to play fast info in that video. Old guys have been doing it that way for years, he did present it in an entertaining way though,,, gotta give him that

At least maybe a useful reminder that your picking hand mechanics matter.

I've been a fan of Frank Gambale since the first Elektric Band (cd or vinyl, can't remember) album. But never felt much interest in actually trying to learn sweep technique. Looking thru some of his performance vids not long ago, decided to click on some of his how-to's, just out of curiosity.

For me, even though I still haven't actually tried sweeping (and why the hell not, come to think of it), they were still quite revelatory. Mainly because he points out that whatever you're doing with your left (fretting) hand, there are probably 5 other valid ways to fret the same sequence of notes. And the one you're choosing by default (if not auto-pilot) is unlikely to be the best (most efficient) one for your picking hand.

So even without going as far as diving into sweep and/or econo picking, it was a huge eye-opener to realize how much one puts himself into a box by allowing the fretting hand to do whatever comes easiest to it (again, too often on auto-pilot), and simply forcing the picking hand to follow (and try to keep up). The idea of forcing yourself to learn alternative ways/shapes to fret your notes not only helps to develop picking efficiency (and hence speed), but also really helps to learn and open up your mind to the fingerboard.

It felt kind of embarrassing to realize that however much I'd improved up to that point, my basic approach to playing guitar had not changed since the first time I'd picked one up. So even if breakneck speed isn't your goal, I'd say that learning the basic concepts behind what allows people to play crazy fast can be well worth investigating.

 

[Kamen_Kaiju]

Everyone I know that plays fast has analyzed to an insane degree almost every moment of both hands, to minimize wasted efforts and maximize efficiency.

even down to knowing whether to start a particular run with an upstroke or downstroke, or how to 'turn the pick around' when you change directions quickly. Or whether to do a little Legato to re-set your picking hand.

..there's a lot more to playing fast then just playing fast.

Plus there's economy (sweep) picking, alternate picking, legato,...all should be studied. Though they lead to the same place (playing fast),..they do it differently. And sometimes the technique that sounds right for one part of the song is all wrong for another part of the song/solo.

Best to be able to do it all, so you have options and aren't limited in your ideas by being tied down to a handful of abilities.

 

[punkbird]

Everyone I know that plays fast has analyzed to an insane degree almost every moment of both hands, to minimize wasted efforts and maximize efficiency.

even down to knowing whether to start a particular run with an upstroke or downstroke, or how to 'turn the pick around' when you change directions quickly. Or whether to do a little Legato to re-set your picking hand.

..there's a lot more to playing fast then just playing fast.

Plus there's economy (sweep) picking, alternate picking, legato,...all should be studied. Though they lead to the same place (playing fast),..they do it differently. And sometimes the technique that sounds right for one part of the song is all wrong for another part of the song/solo.

Best to be able to do it all, so you have options and aren't limited in your ideas by being tied down to a handful of abilities.

My teacher is that way. He'll have me pick through a part and watch, then tell me every stroke thats slowing me down. Its frustrating as hell sometimes. The guy can play insanely fast though, faster than any of the shredders I grew up around, and hes a jazz player. My speed has increased in the past two months more than I ever though possible at this point in my playing.

 

[Kamen_Kaiju]

and that is why a real teacher is much better than a Youtube video.