Mike McCready's "speed"?

Dogman3

I've never wanted to shred like teh brootalz, but I've always had a fascination of the speed that guys like SRV and McCready had when it came to the blues. How is it that they got so damn fast? I can somewhat play fast pentatonic wankery, but sometimes McCready runs from the high e to like the a string in such a blazing speed. How does he do that? Does he bar half the scale and run through it with his index and middle finger or something?

Gossard_Is_God

Dogman3 wrote:

How does he do that? Does he bar half the scale and run through it with his index and middle finger or something?

i believe so.

OffHeGoes29

His playing can not be understood by mere mortals. Maybe when they get that atom smasher working again, they will be able to solve the mysteries of the universe and Mike's technique.

ianvomsaal

To play like Mike is fairly easy - he's not really doing anything too exceedingly
difficult - His style is mainly pentatonic, so just learn your pentatonic scales
all over the neck - they all tie together, so in certain places you can just slide
down (or up) to the next sequence (all depending on where you want to go),
then play another lick or two in the sequence and slide it up again, etc, etc.
It just takes practice . . . mainly, you've just got to feel comfortable playing.

xtremehardy388

ianvomsaal wrote:

To play like Mike is fairly easy - he's not really doing anything too exceedingly
difficult - His style is mainly pentatonic, so just learn your pentatonic scales
all over the neck - they all tie together, so in certain places you can just slide
down (or up) to the next sequence (all depending on where you want to go),
then play another lick or two in the sequence and slide it up again, etc, etc.
It just takes practice . . . mainly, you've just got to feel comfortable playing.

The main riff in that Cream song is a blues scale, right? Which one is it?

jordn6971

OffHeGoes29 wrote:

His playing can not be understood by mere mortals. Maybe when they get that atom smasher working again, they will be able to solve the mysteries of the universe and Mike's technique.

Either they will solve the mystery of McCready or destroy the world.

Dogman3

ianvomsaal wrote:

To play like Mike is fairly easy - he's not really doing anything too exceedingly
difficult - His style is mainly pentatonic, so just learn your pentatonic scales
all over the neck - they all tie together, so in certain places you can just slide
down (or up) to the next sequence (all depending on where you want to go),
then play another lick or two in the sequence and slide it up again, etc, etc.
It just takes practice . . . mainly, you've just got to feel comfortable playing.

I know the pentatonic scale no problem. I'm talking about the speed McCready flies through certain runs, just is blazing!

I'm trying to be able to mix things up. Slow and soulful ala David Gilmour and Albert King, but also be able to pull an SRV. Its a stretch, but I'm trying

lucylespian

It's just practise, but the key is to train the right hand, more so than the left. I can play basic pentatonic runs pretty fast.
I use a red Jazz III pick cos they go faster, and have just worked on clean accurate picking. The left hand manages to keep up, but it was my right I really had to work on.

Dogman3

Its alot of it is in the right hand then?

Alternate picking?

Django

How's your alternate picking?

Look up some picking exercises. This can be a bit boring but it really works.

Accurate picking is half the battle with building up speed

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3I2yahk9tY&feature=related

No laughing at his hair

Pappas

yep thats right its all about getting the right hand up to speed. alternate picking is a must, and the reason mike is so damned fast is because he has done it that many times. practise and practise going through the pentatonic scale and you will feel more comfortable doing it, which will make you do it faster if you want. i have my own special McCready style 'speed runs' that i like to practise on Emin, Dmin and Amin. They usually start with a massive bend on the B string, then i start a lightning run from the E string playing licks all the way up to the G or D string, then a pause then i keep going up to the top of the scale . I always try do it a bit different each time. This has helped me greatly with being able to play the scale at speed

lucylespian

To quote Al di Meola, "it's all about the right hand, the left hand is just a stupid piece of meat". (assuming right hand dominance)

Here's a test. Elderly Woman, and Time of Your Life and Sweet Home Alabama (and about a thousand other songs) all have exactly the same chords. Which hand makes them sound like the song they are, and not the other song ?
The music is in the picking/voicing hand, which is why you use your dominant hand there.

Androgynous Mind

OffHeGoes29 wrote:

His playing can not be understood by mere mortals. Maybe when they get that atom smasher working again, they will be able to solve the mysteries of the universe and Mike's technique.

Agreed, the man is a Legend.

ianvomsaal

I disagree with it only being the right hand - yes having a good right hand is an essential tool, but if your fretting hand is
lacking or slow, and you're just picking fast without being able to fret the notes equally fast, it sounds like a sloppy mess.
If the hands aren't synchronized, you can't really play fast runs efficiently - you'll end up picking notes in between true
fretted notes, and that sounds like jumbled slop. It's all about getting both hands to function as one entity - having them
coincide and coexist together on one plane efficiently and effectively.

To improve this you can play spider-scales with a metronome, which allows you to use all 4-fingers of your fretting hand
while syncing your picking hand up (it’s about control). Make sure you alternate pick every note, and increase your speed
very slowly - doing this will get your hands working as ONE UNIT, and get you playing fast and fluid in no time.
Cheers . . .

- Ian

lucylespian

True, co-ordination is crucial. I was not trying to say otherwise, but I guess I was balancing the emphasis that most people place on the fretting hand, neglecting the pick hand.

By "spider-scales", do you mean 4 note chromatic runs ? I did those a lot to improve my picking speed, and still do at times, not so much now.

ianvomsaal

Yes, 4-note chromatic lines (starting Low to High), then slide up a fret with the pinky and run
the chromatic scale back up ending on the index, then slide the index up a fret, and just keep
the progression going all the way up the neck - it's a great exercise for developing speed and
coordination between picking and fretting hands. It's one part of many exercises on separation
and unpremeditated playing that Scott Henderson showed me back in '99 - then I had to read
Shakespeare while playing it at a fairly fast tempo (wheeeew).
Cheers . . .

- Ian

Dogman3

Thanks for the tip, guys.