Slow fingers

travellingman

I have been playing guitar for quite a while but my fingers never seem to get any faster. Does anyone know if there is anything special I can do to improve speed, or am I destined to be a rythym guitarist??

bruins1

What is 'quite a while'?

travellingman

Originally posted by bruins1
What is 'quite a while'?

A few years.

exhausted

hello fellow calgarian.

as for the slow fingers, i'm in the same boat. i would imagine there are all sorts of drills and exercises to improve speed but i've never looked into it.

JofZ

Originally posted by exhausted
hello fellow calgarian.

as for the slow fingers, i'm in the same boat. i would imagine there are all sorts of drills and exercises to improve speed but i've never looked into it.

scales, scales, scales. Finger memory only comes from lots of practice. Stick with one thing, and nail it before moving on. My definition of nailing something is to be able to play it over and over and over with no mistakes.
It also helps to start slow and build speed over time. Get a metronome and back the time down to 50% and keep building.

bruins1

The quick and easy answer is that the more you play, the faster and more fluent you will become. If you practice 10 minutes a week, you probably won't get very far. That being said, my take on speed is that it is overrated. I remember sitting down with a kid a few years back who was into playing speed metal and could play a million notes a second. After about five minutes of watching him play, I was bored out of my skull. There was no emotion and he really didn't have anything to say with his playing. I would take a slow guitarist who plays with emotion and feeling over a shredder any day.

Pacomc79

Clapton said once BB King could do more with 3 notes than he could with a hundred and twenty.

62strat

well what i did before i knew anything baout guitar was just memorize, note for note...the alive solo. playe dit, played it, played itplayed it, for hours upon hours...ya im lame. that definteily kick started things for me.

as for a drill, i like the ol'

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1-2-3-4

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1-2-3-4-

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1-2-3-4-

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1-2-3-4-

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1-2-3-4

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1-2-3-4-

then move it up a fret etc..all the way up the neck......starting with your pointer...then when you get to the end of that, you go back up , starting wih your pinky...did that make sense?

FinsburyParkCarrots

Fluidity and tone are more important than speed for its own sake in lead guitar playing, but one tip I can give you for getting faster on the guitar is this: Don't lift your fingers so high from the fret board after pulling off a note and hammering back down on another one. Keep your fingers so near to the fretboard without touching that they can go back into place on a fretted note when required without any pause. Think about it: if you're playing, say, a solo in eighth notes and you're lifting your fingers off the board exaggeratedly, it's going to take you fractionally longer to bring them down on the fretboard to execute the solo than it would if you didn't really move them off the board by more than a millimetre or so. Practice playing a minor blue pentatonic scale whilst keeping your fingers within a fraction of the fretboard until you bring them down to hit the notes you require, then lift your fingers up only very slightly before changing note.

Hope this helps.

travellingman

Thanks for all of the tips. I have been using some of them, and I will try the others. Nothing but practice I guess.

ski4

Originally posted by bruins1
The quick and easy answer is that the more you play, the faster and more fluent you will become. If you practice 10 minutes a week, you probably won't get very far. That being said, my take on speed is that it is overrated. I remember sitting down with a kid a few years back who was into playing speed metal and could play a million notes a second. After about five minutes of watching him play, I was bored out of my skull. There was no emotion and he really didn't have anything to say with his playing. I would take a slow guitarist who plays with emotion and feeling over a shredder any day.

i agree

MONKEYNUTS

hey 62straT MONKEYNUTS DUn the same as U, lOl. he plaYED DE ALIve solO Over and oVER AGAin B 4 HE STARted wid proPER EXCERCISES tO bUild up speed ANd leaD SKiLLS



BASICALLY IF U WANna plaY FAST U NEED TO BuILD Up speed in THe FINGERS AND CO-ORDINATiON BETWEEN the fretTiN HAND AND PIkiN HAnd. so to do This u HAv to practiCE DOIn EVERy POSSIbLE MOVE UR FINGERS cud maKE [USUALLY WID IN 4 freTS]

Eg. lIKE 62 STRAT sed do THE 1234 PikIn excerCISE Up and down THE GUiTAR NEK. ALSO try differenT PATteRNS Like 1324 or 2314, etc. dis wilL BILD Up co-ORDINATioN BETWEEN LEFt and riTE HAND AND WIlL ALSO HELP U 2 BE ABle to conTROL ALl ur 4 finGERS iNDIVIDUALlY

aLSO WEN DOIn the patTeRNS Like 1234 or 124 or 134 do them pIkIN EACh NOTE, THEN do them bY HAMMERin On alL NOtes then do dem iN REVERSE bY pUlLIn off all DE NOTES [DIS WILl help ur hamMER OnS AND pUlL OFS Which is wir mOST OF DE SPEED WIlL COME FROm]

also TRY jUST DOIN PULL offs ON ONE STRINg for a mInUTE WID ONE FINGER E.G. 9 PULL OF TO 5 On de E strinG. DO THIS FOR A MiNute. it will HURT BUt will buIld up UR finGER STRENth, enduranCE AND ULTimaTELY SPEED. DO THESE PuLl ofS wid all ur finGERS TO BuILD uP ALL UR FINgers strenTh

lIKE SOMEONE ELSE SED keep ur fretIn fingers cloSE TO THe STRINgs

a gud tip 4 DE RIte hand whICH MOST SPEED GuItarists USE IS DAT WEN PLAYIN QUIk instead of movin the pIkIN HAND MUCH FASTER It is far mOR EASYIER AND ECOnOMICAL TO JUST DECRASE DE RANge of movemenT OF DE PikIn hand. obViouslY U HAV 2 SPEeD Up a bIt wid de rite hand BuT By just usin A SMALL ranGE OF MOVEMENt this will iNCReASE UR SPEED GREATly. 2 decrease de raNGE OF MONtIon of de riTE HAND U SHUD B USIN the rist JOINT INSTEAD of de elbow jOINT [ALSO IF U USE dE ELBow joiNT FOR MOVMENt of de rite haND/ARM U WILL DEVELop probLEMS LIKE TENDOnITIS]. soME GUitarisTS EVEN GO AS FAr AS to use the FUM AND finGER JoINt to create thE smaLL PiKin MoVEMENts [yNiGWIE MALSTEEn does diS]

ALSO just brush DE PiK ANgainST THE STRINgs. if u dig THE PiK TO FAR INTO DE STRINgs lIKE U DO DURIN RIDEM pLAYin it will slow down UR PIKin haND


anOTHER GUD TiP IS TO STAY relaXED. IF UR NOT relaxeD TENSIOn bUILDS Up and slows U DOWN AND CAN caUSE MUSCULAr problems in de fuTure. IF U FEEL TENTIOn whilsT PLAYin den slow DOWn and c woT IS CAUSIN de teNSIoN AND TRY AND CORRECt it



alL DESE EXERCises r reallY BORIn and wonT help u wid PLAYiN WID 'FEELIN' OR WID EVEn pLAYiN A SOLo in a certaiN key SO AS It sounds musically GUD but IT WILL MAKE u a tecHnically better PLAyer. so now tHAT UR FINgers can MOve quIKER AND MORE FLuIDLy u shud learn sOME SCALES [PENTATOnIK/BlUES SCALES R PROLLY BEST if ur inTo rok/BLues] so as U NO THEM Like teh bak OF UR HAnd and improVISE WID DESE. ALso learN sOME SOlos or lIKS bY GUITARist u like And pracTICE THESE SLOWLy then quiKlY [DIS IS VERy gud as mosT SOlOS DURIN TEH QUIk parTS DONT JUST GO 1234 ON one strinG THEN 1234 On TEH NEXT. TEHY MoVE ALL oVER THE 6 STRINgs in VERY RANDOM WAYS AT tIMES]


just PLAYIN VERY QUiKly dont maKE U A GREAT gUITARISt DOh as it can B A BiT TO TECHnICAL ANd lak FEELIn buT ALSo just cos U PLAy quiK dont meaN U LAK feeliN as sometIMES SPEED IS needed. DESPiTE WOT ALOt of peopLE saY 'FEELin' and speed can GO TOGETHER BUT IT IS HARd to acHievE


MONKEYNUTS SI SOrRY FOR RAMBLin on and he hOpes atleast SOME OF DIS WILl help u

who's_pearljam?

Monkeynuts, That was excellent.
I've been playing guitar since 1965 or so, and I couldn't put it any better than that.
If you were to write a book, I would read it, except that the editors might do some large and small cap letter work before they publish it!:D

I get bored with fast playing really quick if it doesn't have feeling to it, and there are few people in the world that put feeling into fast playing. Any guitarist that has done it was in their bedroom for hours a day, for years doing those boring exercises over and over and over.

One thing I do know, is that if you can't play it slow, you'll never play it fast, so playing clean sounding pentatonic scales and blues scales slow, with tone, in time to a metronome, is a great place to start. Slowly work your way faster and faster. Also, playing any melody that you hear, even tv commercial jingles, is a good way to develop your ear, which helps you "feel" where the notes are. This helps, too, because if you can play what comes to your head, and know where the notes are, you can play faster because you're sort of on "autopilot".

goto_l

Basically the only problem with slow fingers is if you wanna be a shredder, & even there you can sweep pick & be ok. Some of the all time greats have slow fingers, maybe it's a blessing not a curse.

travellingman

Originally posted by goto_l
Basically the only problem with slow fingers is if you wanna be a shredder, & even there you can sweep pick & be ok. Some of the all time greats have slow fingers, maybe it's a blessing not a curse.

Thanks for the positive thinking! And thanks everyone for your info!

MONKEYNUTS

faNKS WHOS PJ. Its always nIce to get A COMPLIMENt of a real GuITARist/MUSICIAn

Pepe Silvia

Originally posted by bruins1
The quick and easy answer is that the more you play, the faster and more fluent you will become. If you practice 10 minutes a week, you probably won't get very far. That being said, my take on speed is that it is overrated. I remember sitting down with a kid a few years back who was into playing speed metal and could play a million notes a second. After about five minutes of watching him play, I was bored out of my skull. There was no emotion and he really didn't have anything to say with his playing. I would take a slow guitarist who plays with emotion and feeling over a shredder any day.

indeed. Clapton is considered to be great and his nickname was 'slowhand'

bruins1

Originally posted by GlorifiedG
indeed. Clapton is considered to be great and his nickname was 'slowhand'

True, but I don't think his nickname stems from his guitar playing ability. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think he got that nickname a long time ago after breaking a string while playing and taking a long time to repair it.