I think JustinGuitar is wrong about playing slowly to get faster

Dave_Mc

Philly_Q said:

Honestly, I've never practiced hard enough to have a strong opinion on this, but I've read the thread with interest.

It seems to me that both sides are really saying the same thing, but with different emphasis.

No-one who recommends learning a phrase slowly says you should play it slowly forever - they're just saying make sure you learn the part first, then push it, try to play it faster.  From the other side, presumably no-one's suggesting you should jump straight in at 240bpm and keep plugging away until you get it right.  That will just lead to frustration.

Yeah probably. I also think it depends on how fast you want to get... "pretty fast for a layperson" (that's where I'm aiming, probably still not there yet!) or "hardcore shredder professional". You may have examine every minute movement under a microscope to get to serious speed...

Philly_Q

Dave_Mc said:

Philly_Q said:

Honestly, I've never practiced hard enough to have a strong opinion on this, but I've read the thread with interest.

It seems to me that both sides are really saying the same thing, but with different emphasis.

No-one who recommends learning a phrase slowly says you should play it slowly forever - they're just saying make sure you learn the part first, then push it, try to play it faster.  From the other side, presumably no-one's suggesting you should jump straight in at 240bpm and keep plugging away until you get it right.  That will just lead to frustration.

Yeah probably. I also think it depends on how fast you want to get... "pretty fast for a layperson" (that's where I'm aiming, probably still not there yet!) or "hardcore shredder professional". You may have examine every minute movement under a microscope to get to serious speed...

Like this guy?

Greatape

Am curious - what % of practice time do people spend on accompaniment, rhythm, general musicianship etc and what % on single note technique? 

PetGerbil

Dave_Mc said:

PetGerbil said:

p90fool said:

Rocker said:

Why the obsession with speed?  It is music not Olympic sprinting so put your heart into your playing. 

Careful, the fastest typists are the best novelists around here...

I never understand why people type with more than two fingers ? It's the story that's important! touch typing is a fad that young people get obsessed with...

My mum was a typing teacher. I don't think it's a modern fad... it's very useful, or at least it was pre-computers. Granted, you don't need it as much now (and she had to convert to teaching word processing, lol).

Heh, yeah. I was just sarcasting. I agree it is a very useful skill.

57Deluxe

I know where Justin has his hair cut...

Greatape

Lewy said:

Greatape said:

Does any process make you better at making good musical choices at higher speed? 

Ear training and fretboard visualisation I guess. From what I can tell, though, there comes a threshold where a level of preplanning and organisation is required and whist things may still be improvisational in nature, the player is triggering packages of notes rather than thinking about the merit of each individual one.

Not sure you can really qualify 'stitching preplanned patterns together' as improvisation per se. 

Miles, for example, was pretty vocal post-bop about his bands not doing that. 

cruxiform

I agree with the OP. I've never been one for sitting playing scales with a metronome or slowly learning a solo by 5 bpm a week. I've always tried to nail the lick/phrase as fast as I can until I can play it. Malmsteen or Paul Gilbert licks have always been learnt this way and I'm pretty confident that my method has been less time consuming. I haven't got the attention span to do it the other way.

hollywoodrox

rocktron said:

Here are Ben Higgins' views on Speed Picking:-

Ben Higgins is brilliant ,I put a lot of store in his wisdom he has some good videos on speed picking /tremolo picking and everything to do with getting better at guitar 

hollywoodrox

p90fool said:

Are we playing music here or just trying to impress other guitar owners? Because speaking as someone who spent the 80s running before I could walk I'm 100% certain nobody else gives a fuck how fast you are. 

Obvious there are tiny niches out there for a bit of everything, but nobody has ever, in 40 odd years of playing music, asked me to play a shitload of notes per second. 

It’s good to have though as if you need it to play a certain song you’re screwed if you can’t get certain bits up to speed . 

BillDL

m_c said:

....as someone who learnt via Justin's original beginner/intermediate courses, I do remember videos where he encourages you to play faster, even if you make mistakes.

His mantra, which even you agreed with, is don't continually practice the mistakes, as that's when they become permanent.

It's about pushing your limits, but being able to recognise mistakes, and learning what you need to work on, so you can practise those areas, which you typically do by slowing the movement down. You may not do the slowing down physically, as with some of your analogies like throwing darts you can't, but you still do it mentally, and practise the individual movements.

.........

THIS is what the thread actually needed.  Somebody who HAS actually used Justin Sandercoe's lessons (JustinGuitar.com) to learn.  After all, this thread is directly about JustinGuitar and Justin's teaching methods and advice, but it has been derailed a bit into talk about sweep picking and other twiddly stuff that is NOT what Justin tends to teach.

Watch the following video starting at the minute:second markers indicated and you will hear him talking about the different teaching methods that include trying to play faster (as mentioned by @m_c )

5:47 - He refers to part of his tutorials for chord changes that he calls "one minute changes" where the aim is to make as many chord changes as you can, regardless of mistakes.

9:45 - He qualifies the aspect of going fast and making mistakes to get better.

Grunfeld

TeleMaster said:

Lewy said:

The theory here is that the muscle memory you build playing something slowing may not be much good to you when trying to play fast because the movements are different...as different as sprinting is from walking. 

I'm not sure I agree that this is the case. Walking and spiriting engages different muscle groups in different ways. Playing guitar uses pretty much the same muscles and digits in pretty much the same way....

I'd be interested in hearing a physios take. @Grunfeld ;

@TeleMaster -- dunno!  We're sort of rehab, think this is a bit different.  There are physios who specialise with musicians and I wonder if they'd know.  

For me though, it feels like something happens around 130 bpm which feels like changing from walking -- like that daft-looking Olympic speed walking -- to running, where your feet come off the ground.

Again, for me, I'm mostly in the land of power walking.  But just occasionally I'm running.  It feels different.

What about that bloke on YouTube who films guitar playing up close and slows it down -- Troy geezer, has he sussed it out?

Arjailer

(double post)

Greatape

Oh sure: 

Arjailer

p90fool said:

Are we playing music here or just trying to impress other guitar owners? Because speaking as someone who spent the 80s running before I could walk I'm 100% certain nobody else gives a fuck how fast you are. 

Some music is fast by it's nature / convention. We don't all play 12 bar blues.

digitalkettle

Grunfeld said:

What about that bloke on YouTube who films guitar playing up close and slows it down -- Troy geezer, has he sussed it out?

Troy Grady (Cracking the Code)...yep, I think he has

TeleMaster

Grunfeld said:

TeleMaster said:

Lewy said:

The theory here is that the muscle memory you build playing something slowing may not be much good to you when trying to play fast because the movements are different...as different as sprinting is from walking. 

I'm not sure I agree that this is the case. Walking and spiriting engages different muscle groups in different ways. Playing guitar uses pretty much the same muscles and digits in pretty much the same way....

I'd be interested in hearing a physios take. @Grunfeld ;

@TeleMaster -- dunno!  We're sort of rehab, think this is a bit different.  There are physios who specialise with musicians and I wonder if they'd know.  

For me though, it feels like something happens around 130 bpm which feels like changing from walking -- like that daft-looking Olympic speed walking -- to running, where your feet come off the ground.

Again, for me, I'm mostly in the land of power walking.  But just occasionally I'm running.  It feels different.

What about that bloke on YouTube who films guitar playing up close and slows it down -- Troy geezer, has he sussed it out?

I liked this MDT. Let's do it more often. 

p90fool

Arjailer said:

p90fool said:

Are we playing music here or just trying to impress other guitar owners? Because speaking as someone who spent the 80s running before I could walk I'm 100% certain nobody else gives a fuck how fast you are. 

Some music is fast by it's nature / convention. We don't all play 12 bar blues.

None of my paid work is 12 bar blues either. 

As I posted earlier, there's a niche for every style, but nobody is obsessed with sheer speed for the sake of it like guitarists are. 

Having the wherewithal to play four chords in an infinite variety of ways will definitely make you more employable on stage and in the studio than shred heroics in my experience, although that obviously has its place too. 

To me guitarists' obsession with speed is akin to Jack Dee's comedians' comedian/wallpaperers' wallpaperer analogy. 

CoffeeAndTV

I was one of those who learned picking via Paul Gilbert’s Intense Rock, when it was on VHS.

I can’t remember exactly how I learned during the initial phase, but it was likely a series of small improvements in accuracy until it sounded cleaner.

What I do a bit now is to slow down when practicing technique, (something I still do), if I feel it’s not controlled as much as I’d like and speed up later.  

What I always say about anything fast, is it will sound faster if played in time. 

Bidley

p90fool said:

As I posted earlier, there's a niche for every style, but nobody is obsessed with sheer speed for the sake of it like guitarists are. 

Having the wherewithal to play four chords in an infinite variety of ways will definitely make you more employable on stage and in the studio than shred heroics in my experience, although that obviously has its place too. 

To me guitarists' obsession with speed is akin to Jack Dee's comedians' comedian/wallpaperers' wallpaperer analogy. 

But nobody here is talking about speed for speed's sake, only the complainees. The only obsession is this wierd complaint about other guitarists playing something that you don't like.

That's something that seems exclusive to guitarists - this idea that playing fast is somehow lesser or entirely exclusive from "musical" or "taste" or "feel" or whatever entirely subjective-used-as-objective term you want to apply.

Not everybody wants to play what you like playing, like you don't want to play fast.

I think this image needs to be the banner for the forum.

Arjailer

p90fool said:

None of my paid work is 12 bar blues either. 

As I posted earlier, there's a niche for every style, but nobody is obsessed with sheer speed for the sake of it like guitarists are. 

Having the wherewithal to play four chords in an infinite variety of ways will definitely make you more employable on stage and in the studio than shred heroics in my experience, although that obviously has its place too. 

To me guitarists' obsession with speed is akin to Jack Dee's comedians' comedian/wallpaperers' wallpaperer analogy. 

Not sure why you're assuming that we all want to play as fast as the laws of physics allows. I'm not trying to be Michael Angelo Batio - I'd just like to be able to play some of the solos I can't currently manage.