Okay, what's THE excercise for building ridiculous shredder-style picking speed?

[Yngtchie Blacksteen]

Yup, using the same technique for fast and slow playing - MAB does say exactly that, but he means use the technique you use for going fast when playing slow - and work on it until it's accuarate and under control, Troy Stetina and Guthrie Govan say much the same thing. It's a no-brainer when you think about it. You can play slow using all up strokes with your pinkie if you want, but you're never going to pick fast just by practicing that technique with a metronome. That said, I don't think MAB is entirely right, because (practicing for speed aside) I think when playing slow it's fine to alter technique to add dynamics to your playing. Digging the pick in, changing it's angle etc. etc.

Yes, I agree with the last bit, and certainly the first one as well. Practice slow with the same picking style you intend to use when playing fast. It should ensure a smooth and effective transition from slow to fast, and will hinder a lot of issues that might come from using certain picking motions for certain licks and such.

[Brenner]

I'm still getting there myself but 3 'tricks' that help speed things along...

1. you wont be able to pick any faster than you are able to play legato; therefore the faster you can play a lick legato the faster you can pick it. To use Paul gilberts anology you need to be able to steer before you accelerate.

2. hold the pick so less of it sticks out from your thumb

3. play the lick you are trying to get faster but play every note 4 times until you can play this way at a reasonable tempo; then when you go back to playing it normally you will be doing a quarter the ammount of work you were doing before.

[Knottyhed]

WOW WOW WOW! Hold your horses folks! I always thought that you have to have one consistent picking technique regardless of whether you are tremolo picking or string skipping or playing multi-string scalar sequences, etc. Atleast that's the way I'm working on my technique.

NOthing's ever black and white. There's just principles... I spent a long time getting my speed up to where I was more or less happy. I followed the advice I kept hearing about practicing with the same technique to play fast as when practicing slow. It took a while, but it worked. It makes logical sense.

That's not to say I don't use other techniques, sometimes I hybrid pick, or sweep pick, sometimes I play using all upstrokes, or dig the pick in really hard.

All I'd say, is if you're practicing alternate picking, practice using the same technique you use to pick fast. But slow it down and concentrate on refining it and syncing the left and right hands until it is second nature.

Seems there is some controversy over Della Vega's record. I can't find conclusive proof one way or another, but I did find out the official record in 2006 was 250bpm playing 'Duelling Banjo's' - this may or may not still stand. Anyone have a copy of the 2008 record book? I mainly posted it as an example of a technique, but I'm interested now.

[Knottyhed]

World record violin, playing same tune... he talks about learning to play fast (briefly) at 5:00mins

Practice, slow, co-ordination of left and right hand...

[Krank]

NOthing's ever black and white. There's just principles... I spent a long time getting my speed up to where I was more or less happy. I followed the advice I kept hearing about practicing with the same technique to play fast as when practicing slow. It took a while, but it worked. It makes logical sense. That's not to say I don't use other techniques, sometimes I hybrid pick, or sweep pick, sometimes I play using all upstrokes, or dig the pick in really hard. All I'd say, is if you're practicing alternate picking, practice using the same technique you use to pick fast. But slow it down and concentrate on refining it and syncing the left and right hands until it is second nature. Seems there is some controversy over Della Vega's record. I can't find conclusive proof one way or another, but I did find out the official record in 2006 was 250bpm playing 'Duelling Banjo's' - this may or may not still stand. Anyone have a copy of the 2008 record book? I mainly posted it as an example of a technique, but I'm interested now.

 

 

I get what you're saying. It was the term 'tremolo picking' that had us divided. No more.

[Virgman]

One thing I noted from the Pebber Brown video is that he does not play and stretch fingerings. All fingerings within 4 frets.

 

Just his style I guess. His tone is not so hot but I'm sure it's just the amp/recording setup. His licks sound fine to me.

[Knottyhed]

I get what you're saying. It was the term 'tremolo picking' that had us divided. No more.

 

 

That's cool.

[Yngtchie Blacksteen]

Seems there is some controversy over Della Vega's record.

I don't worry about it being a 'record' or not, but I do want to make it clear that the audio has been doctored by Della Vega. The footage has been slowed down, and while you hear 20 notes being played in one second, his hand only makes 15 pick strokes. No one has any reason NOT to doubt Della Vega.

[GreenAsJade]

BZZT Fail.

 

Video captures ony about 25-30 frames a second (depending on the video)

 

The fastest action you can track with this sampling rate is something repeating at 15 reps per second.

 

20 strokes per second sampled at 30 frames a second will *appear* to drop strokes.

 

I'm not saying whether or not this guy is fake, just saying that you can't hope to watch 20 pick strokes per second on a 30 frame per second video.

 

GaJ

[Virgman]

I'm so fast my picking creates a worm-hole in the universe.

 

I've lost many picks to the space-time continuum.

 

[Knottyhed]

I don't worry about it being a 'record' or not, but I do want to make it clear that the audio has been doctored by Della Vega. The footage has been slowed down, and while you hear 20 notes being played in one second, his hand only makes 15 pick strokes. No one has any reason NOT to doubt Della Vega.

 

 

I don't understand how you can count 15 pick strokes in a second? That's be impressive on a good quality video with a high frame rate that you could slow down (you'd need specialist software/equipment). On a poor quality YouTube video like that I don't understand how you'd know? The frame-rates and audio on YouTube are always out of sync to some extent so the fact things don't look quite right is irrelevant. THere's a clock in the background, presumably the second hand is perfectly visable in the original video and would show if anything funny was going on, so I'm impressed the guy was sure the clock second hand wouldn't be visable when it was compressed/uploaded/converted to flash.

 

He claims to be a world record holder, something that is easily verifiable by anyone who owns a copy of the Guiness book of Records so it's also a pretty dumb claim to make if it is not true. If I could be arsed I could walk down the road to the library and find out (a) what the world record is, and (b) if he holds it without pretending to have analysed a crap quality flash upload to see if it is a fraud (which incidentally, would be a allot more effort and would not conclusively prove anything).

[Knottyhed]

BZZT Fail. Video captures ony about 25-30 frames a second (depending on the video) The fastest action you can track with this sampling rate is something repeating at 15 reps per second. 20 strokes per second sampled at 30 frames a second will *appear* to drop strokes. I'm not saying whether or not this guy is fake, just saying that you can't hope to watch 20 pick strokes per second on a 30 frame per second video. GaJ

 

I don't know which is dumber, not realising that the frame rate on a flash video isn't up to analysing something apparently going at 20 oscillations a second and pretending you've done it anyway or analysing a video when you can look it up in a book.

 

Like you though, I'm not saying it's an official record, it may well be bollocks. The YouTube video proves nothing either way.

[jonPhillips]

Virgman is the fastest. He's told you that already.

[Yngtchie Blacksteen]

BZZT Fail. Video captures ony about 25-30 frames a second (depending on the video) The fastest action you can track with this sampling rate is something repeating at 15 reps per second. 20 strokes per second sampled at 30 frames a second will *appear* to drop strokes. I'm not saying whether or not this guy is fake, just saying that you can't hope to watch 20 pick strokes per second on a 30 frame per second video. GaJ

Wrong. It's been checked by someone who knows more about this than anyone, and he accurately concluded that Della Vega had overdubbed the audio. Amateur footage of the event exists, and the playing in that video is TERRIBLE compared to the official footage, so I don't see why people are even questioning the validity of what I'm saying.

[girevik]

 

Well, if you're referring to the 'trick' of vibrating your forearm while picking single strings, that does indeed create the most extreme velocities for most players, but it rarely allows for quick shifts from string to string, especially not if you're gonna pick accurately. Michael Angelo Batio has stated in his videos that you should practice the same picking method slow as you do fast. I'm guessing that he means that you shouldn't shift your picking style when you intend to speed things up, like so many players do. I usually advise against shifting to elbow motion when you're doing your fastest licks, for example.

 

 

I've been trying out Pebber Brown's "sarod" style. I always look for ways to relax my picking hand and arm more, and his approach to thumb movement and the "shaking" makes sense to me. I currently vary between simple thumb extension/retraction and doing the thumb movement with the forearm rotation - with the radius-ulna bones as the axis of rotation - at slow speed.

 

I have noticed in the past when I tremelo picked, I had the tendency to lock the wrist and move the forearm up and down - which is different from "sarod" style because I used zero rotation around the radius-ulna axis.

 

Honestly, I'm exploring this because I like the more relaxed feeling, not because I think its the "best" anything. My old tremelo picking method was "wrong" for me in that there was early fatigue, due to the tension involved in locking up the wrist.

[Krank]

Wrong. It's been checked by someone who knows more about this than anyone, and he accurately concluded that Della Vega had overdubbed the audio. Amateur footage of the event exists, and the playing in that video is TERRIBLE compared to the official footage, so I don't see why people are even questioning the validity of what I'm saying.

 

 

I dn't really give a rat's ass about those things (metal shredding actually isn't my style at all), but part of me is curious about the scandalous side of it. Do you have a link on hand?

[jeremy_green]

You cant use video to verify this - you cant and you wouldn't.

 

You would need to use an audio file and analyze that - would be quite easy. I would assume it was measured this way. The video is just for promotion of the event happening.

[Yngtchie Blacksteen]

 

I don't understand how you can count 15 pick strokes in a second? That's be impressive on a good quality video with a high frame rate that you could slow down (you'd need specialist software/equipment). On a poor quality YouTube video like that I don't understand how you'd know? The frame-rates and audio on YouTube are always out of sync to some extent so the fact things don't look quite right is irrelevant. THere's a clock in the background, presumably the second hand is perfectly visable in the original video and would show if anything funny was going on, so I'm impressed the guy was sure the clock second hand wouldn't be visable when it was compressed/uploaded/converted to flash.

Look, my friend Willie Jordan has been studying shred guitarists and especially fast pickers for years now, and he can tell by slowing down videos whether it's real or not. I realize that since this is apparently an official Guinness record attempt, most people just assume that it's the real deal, and will automatically disregard any claims that something fishy is going on.

 

It's not easy for me to try and change people's minds, especially not when I'm not the guy who's debunked Della Vega's claims. The fact is that he slopped his way through the piece, and cleaned up the audio before posting the video on HIS YouTube page. I don't care about the record attempt per se, since I don't think it has any validity in the first place. What I'm trying to say is that Della Vega's playing is very messy, and that he's great at convincing others that he's this incredible guitarist. The guy got all this exposure, and the guys from Guinness were there to see that everything would go according to plan, and then the cheeky {censored}er fixes the audio and now presents that video as what really happened that night.

 

But hey, if you wanna believe him, go ahead. Jordan Baker, who's done countless transcriptions for Hal Leonard Publishing and Guitar One Magazine, has this to say about the bootleg video vs. the 'official' one:

 

"The audience-perspective bootleg is the same take as the 320 bpm video shown in the original link. Watch for the standing guy's movement at certain points, like shaking his notebook/papers 12 seconds into the take.

 

The problem is that while one version sounds pretty accurate with 4 pickstrokes per beat and most or all of the intended notes, the other isn't even close. They don't contain the same audio. He fails to pick 16th notes at any point in the bootleg, hitting mostly 6 and occasionally 7 notes per 2 beats. In many spots he's struggling (and failing) to fret the right notes at the right time, and somehow those spots sounded fine in the higher-quality video."

 

And here's said video:

 

[YOUTUBE]lDWfc_JpOrM[/YOUTUBE]

[Krank]

 

I have noticed in the past when I tremelo picked, I had the tendency to lock the wrist and move the forearm up and down - which is different from "sarod" style because I used zero rotation around the radius-ulna axis.

 

 

Yeah, that's the kind of tremolo picking I was thinking of. I feel it does {censored} up your technique when transitioning to position picking. One thing I've noticed is how a ton of metal guys are able to tremolo pick extremely fast and controlled for rhythm by locking the wrist, but suck at leads (think Obituary post James Murphy or a host of other more 'extreme' metal bands).

[girevik]

One thing that both Gilbert and Pebber seem to agree on is good upstrokes. Pebber actually says practice them. Gilbert says he started out doing nothing but upstrokes because he didn't know any better (the opposite of me and other guitar players I've known starting doing all downstrokes).

Re: tremelo picking... I was doing it with our old Mono/Mogwai influenced post rock band. That music, back in that time, was all about slow tremelo-picked melody lines with tons of delay. In fact, I don't think one of the Mono guitarists did anything BUT tremelo-pick.

[Jasco]

I think you guys have too much time on your hands if you're this concerned about speed.

[Krank]

I think you guys have too much time on your hands if you're this concerned about speed.

YOU POSTED

[Jasco]

YOU POSTED

[GreenAsJade]

I don't see why people are even questioning the validity of what I'm saying.

The reason we're not "just beleiving you" is because your initial statement was in factual error.

You said that "the video shows only 15 pick strokes where 20 can be heard, therefore it is doctored".

The fact is that a video at 30 frames per second (standard video) can show at *maximum* 15 strokes per second. This is determined by physics: the Nyquist theorem

I think it's fascinating that the exact rate at which the physics predicts you will see the picking is what you reported: a 30 fps video will show 15 picks per second max, and that's what you said.

Now you've subsequently posted a different claim about how the analysis was done. This may or may not shed light on why we should be sure this guy is a fake, but if you post a claim backed by a fundamentally flawed argument, people aren't going to just "question the validity", they are going to point out exactly where you are wrong

GaJ

[Orbit]

Okay, please explain how I'm wrong. EVH comes to mind, not that I'm a fan.

All the posts below come to mind.
EVH's hardly a good picker either