picking speed

[pop sucks]

How can I improve it? anyone got some good advice? I don't know who to listen to, some people say you have to move your wrist only, some people say you need to put your pinky on the guitar, some people say you have to move both your wrist and fingers... I'm kinda confused, I have a hard time getting it to go faster, and I'm not really fast. Every time I go fast, it seems as if my upstroke sounds 2x louder than my downstroke, even though I try to have my pick stay perpendicular to the body of the guitar.

[the EDGE]

it is something that just takes time. Get a metronome, and start at a good speed till you hear nothing but edge crushing cuts, then go faster. It is like weight lifting. You know you max is 200lbs. so you start lift 75 percent all the time, till it becomes second nature then go up from there till you have passed it. It is another thing to also remember that you can only go as fast as your mind thinks........is that air you are breathing is a train of thought.......

[liuhuparta]

It isn´t really so hard to learn to pick fast even thought it may feel so first.. You only need to have good training methods.. I used to go up and down the neck with four fingers.. like f,f#,g,g#,Bb,g#,g,f#,f,f#g,g#,Bb,b,c# and so on.. Works really fine. You can try some different variations of this.. Some string skipping etc.. when it starts to go better.. This is super good method.. Just need to be patient with it and go first so slow that every sound will sound clear..

Hopefully you understand this cause I can´t allways explain things very well in english.

[JasonDeRon]

These links might help:

John Petrucci Guitar Lessons (Rock Discipline) - Google Video:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2106420736620155604&q=guitar+lessons

(It deals with exactly that problem you mentioned. There is more in this video than anyone will ever have time to practice.)

http://www.chopsfromhell.com/

http://shredacademy.com/home.htm


These might be some help to you, but they won't replace practice, practice and more practice.

[Altruist]

I've improved my guitar work a ridiculous amount in the short period of time since finally owning a guitar (rather than just a bass) mostly by doing repetitive drills. Obviously, being a versatile player requires many different picking techniques, so just basically do a huge variety of drills if you want to become good.

[misterska008]

I'd agree with everyone else, but every so often, drop your metronome to 40bpm or whatever that is and play quarter or half notes for awhile. It'll keep your precision feeling good.

[pop sucks]

The JP video didn't really adress my question...

It motivated me to start praticing seriously though.

His legato stuff is jaw-dropping.

[the EDGE]

some people use their whole arm as one like I use our wrists. Then the nex point is how you want to place the pick in your hand, or should I say your fingers. All I can say is that once you find you best feel, then just start picking with a metronome, and start also down stroking as much as you up and down.....

[pop sucks]

and start also down stroking as much as you up and down.....

What do you mean? I've done that forever, what I have the hardest time in is doing downstrokes only.

Do you mean that for every exercise I do, I have to do it once by starting in an upstroke, and then once strating by an upstroke, to make sure I can alternate pick in any situation?

[the EDGE]

down stroking is the hardest method in terms of creating speed. You look at guys like Hetfield who have learned to relax their wrist inso doing that they can play at 190+ and sound as if they are just like some doing the down up method. And what I would say is start picking down at a good speed, then up the reps till you cannot go any longer. That is your top pick speed for downstrokes. Then pull back about 20 to 30 beats till it feels as if you may be straining, yet you can stay up with it and just start picking at that speed till it becomes second nature then up that, and again find out your max......and yes do this the same way with alternative picking. Doe this make sense?

[pop sucks]

yeah, it does.

[the EDGE]

cool man. Down strokes for me was a hard thing, till I started writing the tunes that needed it, the it just came out man. It is also a good thing to find a drummer who can play faster than you too.....