People a reminder! We must be extra careful when practicing the chromatic scale! Why? Because otherwise Franz Liszt will call Pebber again! Go check out the video, Liszt calls and see what previously happened! Of course he promised to call again so it might happen anyway,but is there anyone who is willing to raise his anger?

Hi guys,

Back with the next video, this time shifting the index finger. Still doing 7 notes per beat going up to the 12th fret.

I have to say I'm a bit frustrated. Although I feel my technique improved a little bit (probably not even visible on the video, but I find it a little easier to keep the fingers in the right position), I could barely increase the speed. In fact, I think it's a huge problem for me. I find I tend to hit the ceiling somewhere and I'm stuck at a certain speed for ages.

Dlraben, I took your advice and accentuated the 1s during practice. It's probably not that obvious from the recording but it did help! I'll continue doing this. Cheers!

The first clip is at a slightly more comfortable speed (around 54-56 bpm). I've added the second one because I noticed there is a lot more string noise and I am interested in your opinion on this. Do you think I push the string harder at a higher speed and that's what's causing it?

Thanks for the feedback guys!

Hey. I watched both of your chromatic videos and it looked to me that you were quite comfortable playing the exercise.

Those that are practicing chromatics and the 7 notes per beat playing especially while doing chromatics could better exchange their thoughts or findings on those exercises.

You said that you are stuck at certain speeds for ages so here's some food for thought on that matter. Hope you find some ideas and inspiration.

If you are not happy with your speed you should remember that you are using an acoustic guitar and when the speed increases you pick harder and as you do that you usually tighten your fretting hand also. On the electric people tend to pick as lightly as possible when going faster and that would not translate well to any unamplified attempt at all.

- Some points that great guitarists have made about speed (increasing it etc) usually line up with the idea that both hands have to work in tandem. Guthrie Govan found that many players blame their picking hand, when it is in fact their fretting hand that is not able to keep up.

- The physical fact is that the picking hand can be trained to go faster than the fretting hand. On some notes per second testing done on the fastest pickers the fastest known guy found was Shawn Lane. He has been known to alternate pick lines 18-19,5 notes per second. That is incredibly fast. Now why I put this is here to talk about NPS or such but to show the difference between the right and the left hand. If we take that around 19 notes is the limit that a man can fret notes (per second) with his fretting hand then the limit for the picking hand is higher (Though I don't know if all the notes were fretted, he might've picked the same note more than once). Some guy on a Michael Angelo Batio forum was clocked to pick one note 28 times a second. So in essence what the picking hand can be trained to do, speedwise exceeds the fretting hand.

- Translate this to any player in the world and it seems that the picking hand tends to develop a life of its own faster than the fretting hand. Now this of course if you are practicing. But if the development goes this way it means that there is a point every once in a while where the fretting hand is not comfortable with the machine gun, that the picking hand has become.

- This in mind when practicing it might be good to see if the fretting hand is really tensing up when it is time to up the tempo. Faster you go the more you have to overcome in physics. The longer you go the more likely it is that you can not do it at your peak speed or the speed you are using at the moment.

- How about just picking the string at the tempo you like to try next and see how comfortable you are. Then try to fret those notes just with your fretting hand, because that is what you would do anyway and see if it feels really uncomfortable. It might be that you find that you can even easily pick at the tempo, but the fretting hand is finding the speed increase difficult.

On the acoustic the pick and its angle can also be a problem because more angle means a more grinding sound. Some people flat pick everything on the acoustic for this reason and if they play fast they may do it in sudden bursts. When you see people like Tommy Emmanuel rip on an acoustic he is cleverly using his fingers + pick and he has been with his acoustic forever.

- String action is crucial too. If your action is set quite high you are battling your guitar needlessly.

- Heavy strings offer more resistance too. You don't find people who are shredding away on their Ibanezes do it on the acoustic.

- The pick you use can alter the way you feel the strings and thus how hard you pick.

- The human drum machine Mike Mangini taught John Petrucci something of how he practiced speed. He sits down and plays a steady pulse and then suddenly plays a burst of "notes" and immediately returns to the steady pulse again. He goes on like this for a long time. (According to Petrucci for hours) Petrucci said that he incorporates this idea in to his picking exercises. Perhaps something like this can familiarize the guitar player with the tensions on his hands and how it feels to suddenly go beyond what is the norm. It doesn't have to be super fast, but at any speed.

Just some thoughts on speed. Keep up the good work! Cheers!

there is no point to the picking hand having speed capacity that blows left hand outof the water...when you reach that point stop practicing picking and work on legato playing...sarod is way easier to layer on top of what you can already legato...

Just my 2 cents is for try to playing 7's..... if and when I start try to hit certain notes harder than others its goin to cause the 7's to become lopsided....

Hi guys,

Thanks for the feedback mr gurgle and Nick! Interesting thoughts on the fretting hand not being able to keep up. I guess it makes sense as the fretting fingers move a larger distance. Nick, good idea about practising just legatos separately. In fact, focusing on each hand separately, then working on synchronising them may be the way to go for me. I remember, after a hand injury I was only able to do left hand exercises and noticed a marked improvement (while the picking hand sucked more after this :S )

However, I will keep following Dlraben's earlier advice on accentuating the 1s. I get what you are saying about throwing you off sometimes and odd counts make this even harder as the 1s alternate between up and down picks, but this is more to drill the sound of 7s into my brain. When Frakh was still posting, he mentioned using "marker notes" when picking at insane speeds where looking at a pattern as a sequence of separate notes is not practical. I think accentuating the 1s will help at higher speeds in the long run this way.

What do you guys think?

I've been out of town and so I haven't watched your latest videos yet Case (but I will), but I just want to quickly type that it's ESSENTIAL to accent the 1s. You nailed why. You need the sound and feel of them to become as second nature to you as 3s and 4s likely already are to you. 5s take work too, though 7s are harder. There are zillions of examples of 7s out there from super stars. I'll offer Pink Floyd's Money, Soundgarden (maybe Outshined was offered by Ursin in historical posts?), and Steve Vai has a very large selection of 7s just to span the easy/medium/hard spectrum of technical difficulties. Your favorite artists probably have examples too. Anyway, I don't agree with inserting zero accenting when playing varied timings. Sure, you don't need to ALWAYS hammer the 1. Many feels emerge by accenting others. But accenting is what ends up being interesting to the listener and also helps the player keep time.

Case, watched the videos. Keep it up man. Looks real good. Sound is getting there too. Keep focused on nailing the time and not on the speed. You could even slow down more to nail the time more often, or you can continue at that speed and just gradually lock-in more often. I think you hit the beat enough to know that both your left & right hands are ready for that speed.

You also mentioned getting faster. This chromatic pattern in 7s is not a great one to use to increase your speed. I think it's just too tricky on your hands, and ears to use this one. Can you? Sure, but your progress is going to be really, really slow.

If you want to increase your speed, I would suggest one of a zillion other patterns that involve fewer than 5 or 6 picks per string. Here's one option. Go to the picking across strings thread and open up the old school picking drills link in post #17. Spend a few minutes on each of the 7 exercises and post them at a speed that you can mostly get, but is really pushing it for you. (Just play them an octave lower...) Then let's see if we can figure things out in the manner Nick suggested. We can isolate the movement in your picking hand to see if that one is slower, or we can isolate the movement in your fretting hand to see if that's the culprit. Then you know what you need to work on to get back in synch. How?

Take figure 1 an octave lower (cycling 5-7-9, 5-7-9 on the B and E strings over and over). Say you fail at speed X. Staying at speed X, try to pick 3 opens on B and 3 opens on E. If you can't, you need to work on picking. Alternatively, try legato either with zero picking or only picking the first note of a new string (either pick-pick, or pick-finger). If you can't, work on the left hand. If you can't do either at speed X, then you're not ready for speed X.

Just my 2 cents. Lot's of people are chiming in. Wish they would post videos instead...

Hi Case

Here is my 2 cents. What you are doing with the chromatic scale is great, been practicing it a lot as well.
It seems we have a common problem. Getting the timing down on the acoustic without the excess string noise.
Clean tone and timing at those speeds. Whats the secret practice to getting it down ?
Any ideas?

Keep posting those

If you can just get your pick to sit still on top of the string and use the forarm muscles to twitch diddle the string whenever the string length is changed or the height of the string receides whenever your fingers depress down on some new fret. then your picking will be instantaneous every time you fret a new note. MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE, its skill lies in your cultivation of a type of balance between both of your hands...Your pick forearm muscles must know on an intuitive level how much resistance the string puts up to being diddled by the pick at each particular fret allong the path you are trying to rip sarod chromatics. Your left hand must know on a intuitive level how much of its weight it must be distributed onto each finger as it is either standing on the fret board or coming off of it...Once these things become figured out on an intuitive level where you no longer need to conciously think about them for your hands to naturally default to doing them as such...you will then be at 100% liberty to express yourself with this scale.

also it is good to be aware on an intuitive level what it is exactly that is causing the string to either vibrate or keep vibrating when you are playing pick style stacatto or legatoing these things....pure legato requires the string to get all vibraty shakin up because one of your fingers came down upon it and caused it to hit the fretboard...once your left hand is programed to do this motion iregardlessly of wheither or not you plan on picking that particular note,(in other words the left hands job is the same irregardless of whether or not you is gonna be picking that note) you will find that if park your pick on top of the string , that the forarm muscles dont actually have to do very much work at all at that point, becuase the pick will get "pulled into the fray" of that vibrating string.

Hey guys,

Thanks again for the feedback everyone!

In particular dlraben, I can't tell you how much I appreciate your advice. The method you and Nick mentioned about how to identify which hand is slower and your point about chromatics at 7 notes per beat not being the best way to increase speed helps me a lot. I'll make a video with the exercises on the link you mentioned and another one in a week or so, after pushing the weaker hand to see if there is any progress. I'm hoping the more control I have the less string noise will be produced...

Case, happy to at least try to help... On this:

Zitat

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I'm hoping the more control I have the less string noise will be produced...

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This will be true to some extent. More control clearly will keep you from hitting the other strings more than you should. However, there's really something to be said about experimenting with your muting technique early on. Both your picking and fretting hand should help you here. If you can't control string noise at the slowest tempos, I'm afraid it will NOT magically get better when you play even faster.

No clue about right vs. wrong, so I'll just share the way I like to mute. I like to use scalpel or wrist picking, and when I do I like to rest my palm on the strings above the one I'm picking. Some people are hell bent on Sarod, but my opinion is that nearly everyone that contributes to this forum should just use scalpel and wrist picking and work on their timing instead of trying to pick as fast as possible. Anyway, if I'm picking the low E, then my hand floats. If I'm picking the A string, then my palm mutes the low E. Etc. With my fretting hand's index finger, I like to mute the strings below the one I'm picking. If I'm picking the G string, my index finger lightly mutes the B string and occasionally also the E string. The cool thing is that learning this is pretty easy. It sounds complicated, but if you run scales really slowly only concentrating on this muting for a little bit you'll find that you can catch on pretty quickly. You'll learn this way faster with a ridiculously distorted electric, but acoustic is just fine.

But yeah, let's see those videos after a bit of practice.

Hey dlraben,

That is precisely how I (try) to mute so I guess I will just have to pay more attention to it and put in some practice. I do have an electric guitar as well and play with some overdrive/distortion so that should help too. Vids coming soon... ;)

Printed !!!!! out all the Chromatic pages last night ! starting properly !!! 50 bpm Now i can play these much faster But !!! never as focused practice !!! or in any depth. yes i suck the Little practice i have done! has payed off huge.... this summer.. and even changed the way i play. but thats not saying much !!!. Considering the company of players i'm in... But I took all the short cuts as a kid. Not going to let any of it slide now as a adult !!!
50 bmp's 1,'s ,2,3,4,5,6,7.... Perfect hands !!!! perfect picking....endurance ... then move Fwd with the metronome...and see where it take me.(Lifetime) i really want to put a solid structured approach together for this part of my practice time:) and thought id give a Quick shout out !!! Quack quack... before i start ... Properly.... lol lol and give a chance to anyone to chime in... on Fresh advice and encouragement Really Boring video to come soon i hope lol lol P.s. and yes i have watched, and re watching every video at the moment ! just want everyone active :) Quack quack

Just go for it and enjoy the progress. If someone is progressing others get motivated and so it goes. It is a privilege to be able to learn something that may encourage others to pick up the guitar once again!

I offer fourth the following mindset proposition: Tis kinda a thinking cap (if u will) which is good to don during such "boring" periods of practice times: both for the sake of alleiviating boredom and for the sake of expediting yourself from 50 BPM to Yngwie BPM or whatever you want to call it (I'm just saying it because it has seemed to guidin myself through the snailspeeds) Try using your practice time while you are at thees tortoise paces to figure out, what it is exactly in whatever the thing you happen to be playing here that you are going to do "differently" from here on out...The point is that next week you know you will be more effective and nimble when you play it...million $ Q' is--------->What is it that I need to do differently from what I am already currently doing to play this idea/lick? What innovations could i implement into my default technique that I am using to play it from here and on out??? For me these kinda practice questions are what makes me more united to both my instrument and whatever it happens to be that I am working on. Focuss on that helps me figure out if i am Physically/mentally capable of playing something any better than I currently am...and if so*, by how much am I capable of improving upon it until no further innovations need be figured out and applied to it in order for me to really be able to "bust it out" ... its just my 2 cents

We don't always agree, Nick, but what you say here is very sound advice I think.

Playing slowly gives you more space to listen to yourself properly and apply your critical faculties. Am I making the sort of sounds I want to? Is the tone good? Is it in time? Is it clean, or is there lots of string noise that needs to be damped? Am I relaxed? Am I using as little force as needed, and making as small motions as possible?

Your form is good. But everything looks very tense. You need to relax. Speed will develop over days, weeks, months, years, decades. Do not chase speed. Chase precision, clarity, intonation, tone, etc.

You need to relax your entire body...arms, hands, fingers, neck. Concentrate on being relaxed.

With regards to speed, do not sit at 50bpm. Force yourself to play faster. Even if it is very sloppy and bad. Sit down and push yourself past your limitations. Get angry. Get frustrated. Then go back to 50bpm.

Your hands will never move faster if they can never feel what it's like to move faster.

53659360.jpg - Bild entfernt (keine Rechte)

Quote: uderoche wrote in post #44

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Your form is good. But everything looks very tense. You need to relax. Speed will develop over days, weeks, months, years, decades. Do not chase speed. Chase precision, clarity, intonation, tone, etc.

You need to relax your entire body...arms, hands, fingers, neck. Concentrate on being relaxed.

With regards to speed, do not sit at 50bpm. Force yourself to play faster. Even if it is very sloppy and bad. Sit down and push yourself past your limitations. Get angry. Get frustrated. Then go back to 50bpm.

Your hands will never move faster if they can never feel what it's like to move faster.

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Thank youfor taking the time to respond to my post ! Great to finally meet ya uderoche . funny ! i never really had to ever think about my picking ... lol been playing 30 years . it just sort of happened along the way ! mind you, i never set out to be a shredder. But as ive developed over the last few years ! and started playing over chords :) and now ! more complex chords and flavors. and sounds !!! My bad habits ! or lack of super focused practice ! have caught up with me at 100-110 bmp at 16th notes . I'm not tense at 85-90 ... at least i don't feel that way. but at 100 things change ...lol lol warmed up , playing good !! in bursts no problems :) BUT with rep's baddddd quack quack!!! i've never done rep's before. just enough to learn the pattern ... and then time to use it .....and my reps were in jamming. And Grooving. About 2 years ago by fluke ! i clicked on Pebber's Daily practice video !!! Best video i ever saw!!! and the ass kick i really needed. Blew my mind ! this wasn't only a Guitar Video ! but a video about life . Haven't played the same since lol lol At the beginning of the summer i completely changed my fretting hand !!! Thumb behind the neck . after 30 years..... I've dropped to 50 for a few weeks to retrain and put into muscle memory.A stronger foundation. and get rid of the unwanted finger movments :) 75% improved over the summer :)But the pinky is still wanting to lift a tiny bit.... lol lol... and, i really might being over critical :) but im happy with the progress.... really need more time with the spiders and ladders,Trills :) but ....very happy with the progress... and really learning alot about focus and(concentration)...at these speeds... was playing at 60 fine...but hit a bump,when doing the shifting chromatic pattern . And couldn't keep it together at 60. So dropped to 50 for that pattern....,its better,but still not good!!! I've never done 5's before (consciously) :(.........I'm the avocado KING!!!! sorry !!! just made some fresh nacho's... yumm.This is getting wordy lol lol. Well....should be back at 60 in a few days :)got the timing locked now,and my finger strength is almost there to move up !After watching my fingers so closely for a while now , and the mental battle's I've had, with my hands and tendon's!!!! I'm pretty sure i know how Yoda taught Luke to move the rock's and x-wing fighter !!!Shocked and how much ! that slide affect's 4-4321 lol sad ! just sad. i'll be trucking soon...Thanks so much everyone !!!! Master ! I hear a Grasshopper ^^ Quack quack

People who use these forums to try to put others down (albiet by making erroneous assertions) are TROLLS! Its to them that I would like to dedicate the following:

Ray, Just keep doing what you are doing BTW because I can tell from 1.) how often I see you logged on to these forums and 2.) what you are talking about in your posts, that you have picked up the "inner flame" for working on the gargantuan task of guitar. Also to all other new-(ish) folks here on the forums...wetduck...Mr gurgly burgle...I am quite confident that you will NEVER regret any of the time that I know you must be investing now to get a bunch of that ecoutermentary aka "borring" stuff from the Pebber Brown syllabus crossed of and mastered. I personally struggle much of the time to "be united/at peace" with where I happen to be regarding what I can currently do with guitar....but I think its during these kind of times that we are able to grow and develop both our guitar playing stuffs, aswell as grow as PEOPLE...and from it we grow and refine WHO WE ARE!

Nice going there Nick and thanks for your kind words. I guess the guitar playing and music is always a bit more heated subject than some other art/craft. Mainly I think it is because it's a creative art and mostly learned while battling ones self. It is not a sports arena where others can carry the load and people have to tune themselves in to the team or cheer them on. Playing in a band/orchestra etc. is the next learning experience and usually (at least in bands) it is still quite evident that people remain highly individual and that sport team "it" is not always achievable. Just look at pretty much all of the successful bands how they are torn inside and full of pickering and even fistfights.

Learning to play is also a touchy subject. I heard of one guy who dropped the guitar completely after he started to study in the pop jazz conservatory. Just too many great players intimidating him and probably other things just started to weigh in on him. So yes, it's a lonely profession and none of that cheerleading is promised no matter how good one plays for the team music. Those types of stories just show that music is really an individual choice and also a thing that needs to be internalized (if that's a word) personally. No, one size fits all path exists. There are things that work and teachers like Pebber who has the experience in teaching to know how to scale things so that you may get the most out of your practice, but at the end of the day the player has to really do the work and see what are things that work and what needs to be worked more.

And let us all heed this advice in music!

That is a wise old fish there...Y'all better heed what he says whenever he open his mouth. Heed the wisdom of the Billy Bass