Lessons to improve speed!

[paradice]

Anyone here went for lessons purely to try and improve technique be able to play faster?
Or if you're a teacher, had anyone came to you for this alone?

I know (have read) all the ways to improve. Posture, which muscles to use, metronome, no metronome but can't quite play some stuff I'd like to.
I think some of the problem is from years of bad technique (I never realised how accurate some players were until I saw them on YouTube, I just used to scrabble over notes to try and make the noise the fast runs make!)
I know it's said that some people are just faster than others and maybe I've reached my limit but I'm thinking a teacher is worth a try.

 

[sliding tom]

Never had anybody come to me only for speed.

But here's an important tip: everything that you want to be able to play fast, start slow until the "muscle memory" has built up. Then slowly pick up on the speed...

 

[paradice]

Maybe I underestimate the time/effort required. I'd like to be able to come up with my own faster runs. I can imagine what I want but struggle when the speed goes up

 

[hrfdez]

Get this book,

Guitar Fitness, An Exercising Handbook, by Josquin Des Pres.

Excellent book. I use it everyday as a warm-up before doing my lessons and practice session.

You can start at a comfortable 60BPM and increase to 180bpm.

[ame]http://www.amazon.com/Guitar-Fitness-Exercising-Handbook-School/dp/0793516978[/ame]

 

[Kamen_Kaiju]

Maybe I underestimate the time/effort required. I'd like to be able to come up with my own faster runs. I can imagine what I want but struggle when the speed goes up

lots of practice, lots of pushing yourself to be faster.

If you really want to shred,...be prepared to spend hours every day running scales and doing exercises. There's no way to shortcut the practice time involved.

 

[paradice]

People who can shred ...
Alternating between 2 strings, 2 notes per string, how fast can you pick the notes.
I've realised anything over 120 and I struggle.
On one string I can go much faster but when changing between strings I start to double hit the string and just being sloppy

 

[Sav]

Not sure how much this helps, but recently I've been learning the solo from Master of Puppets (Kirk Hammets, the faster 'main' solo).
When working on the first lick, I noticed that although I was gradually getting faster while grinding at the metronome, the lick sounded like crap. So I inspected my playing and I noticed that I was cutting one or two notes short by miliseconds in order to play the lick faster.
So I decided to work on cleaning up my playing to the metronome first before focusing on the speed.
Then all of a sudden, boom, after I got my muscles mechanised to playing it cleaner, my speed increased much faster without even working on it.
The bigger thing for me was that I was enjoying focusing on making my playing sound better, rather than grinding at the metronome to increase speed.

I'm not sure how much this will help. I've been playing about 6/7 year and still struggle with faster passages such as the Master of Puppets solo. This helped me alot, I hope you find it usefull

 

[LP Traditional]

I found it useful to play three notes per string up and down a scale. Mostly the minor scale. Then i found a video on youtube explaining modes and positions. So when I combine these two it suddenly became much easier tying longer faster runs together.

As for building pure speed I always have to be really warmed up and relaxed. If I force myself to play fast when I'm stiff and not relaxed my timing between right hand and left hand f*cks up and it sounds like crap.

Another great thing if you want to play faster is throwing in passing notes. Playing the pentatonic in A for instance you can play three tones per string by throwing in the B note, the Diss and the Giss going up the scale.

 

[SteveC]

lots of practice, lots of pushing yourself to be faster.

If you really want to shred,...be prepared to spend hours every day running scales and doing exercises. There's no way to shortcut the practice time involved.

Precisely !!!

There are:

No shortcuts.
No tricks.
No tips.

Only: Practice. Practice. Practice.

 

[hrfdez]

If it was that easy, everybody would do it

 

[Eddie 70]

I usually run through the Am pentatonic with the speed trainer here. I may set it at 120 and tell it to speed up to 160 in 4 minutes time. Run through that a few times. Then set it at 150 and let it step up to 200 in 4 minutes.

Drum trainer online - Metronome, Tempo trainer, Speed exercises, 20-300 BPM - Best Drum Trainer .com

 

[paradice]

Picking closer to the bridge is something I totally forgot about, the string has less movement there so easier to be more accurate.
This is one of these fundamental things that even though I've heard it mentioned before, have never put it to practice

Have given up trying to get faster a few times thinking I'm one of the ones who just aren't naturally fast and won't be able to. No surrender this time! (Maybe)