What worked for you when you were learning to solo fast?

Numina

I've been playing like, 3 years, and can't solo for **** (then again, I never truly "practiced") so i was wondering for everybody else, when you were learning to solo fast, what worked best for you, i ask because i just want to avoid the crap that won't help me.

Duff_Man

just break it down into segments then take it one step at a time and play it over and over again till u are able to play it as fast as possible then adjust it to the track ur learnin and repeat. works for me anyway

leninbenjamin

yeah what Duff-man says worked for me too.

you also need to practice finger exercises religiously i found to get up to and maintaining speed.

Voodu Child

What are you trying to do, improvise or just play covers?

crosstownk

Scales - up and down, arpeggios, etc - but then I'm talking about piano (I'm assuming you mean guitar), but its similar for most instruments, tbh. Practice - eventually you will find what works for you.

bluto63

Finger excersises help, keep practising them before you sit down to play. Then when learning a piece, start off slow and work on clarity rather than speed. Then when you've got it perfect, speed it up. Repeat until the desired tempo.

Really there's no way to speed up without practice

BossArky

Need to get your fingers and brain co-ordinated and fit. Start with finger exercises 1-2-3-4-3-2-1, etc up and down on each string gradually speeding up with a metronome.

Once you can do these quickly and accurately you should tackle the stuff you really want to play.

Think of an athlete - they have to be fit before being able to do well in their sport. The same goes for your fingers and co-ordination.

Don't expect to play some lightning fast solo's before being able to bang out minutes and minutes of repetitive exercises. Do them whilst watching CV and the time flys.

Fingers Mcginty

I've been playing guitar on and off for 2 decades and it's only in the last 2 years that i've learned to play properly. All the exercises in the world won't help if your technique is wrong.
1) I used to play everything using economy picking. For me this was a big hindrance...you have to learn to use alternate picking.
2) Make sure you are holding the pick correctly.
3) Slow things down and make sure you're picking accurately. Bring the tempo up only when there is good co-ordination between both hands.

-=al=-

practicing slowly helps getin independace on each finger is great chromatics and all sortsa weird excercises and techniques anything thats benificial, metranome work too....


and remember...

if u cant play it properly slow u wont be able to play it properly fast

-Freebird-

I just do one part at a time, learn it then learn to play it fast... Learn the next part, then learn to play it fast... Then put it all together... It's a clichée, but it's all about the practice... Practice different scales to get familiar with what note lays where etc etc

BossArky

Alternatively, a bottle of buckfast speeds up the fingers a bit.

icon

Scales, find their different positions and link them, build up speed slowly, and if you make a mistake start again, and practice every day.

..................Luke you will be a Jedi :cool:

JMArr

Same advice as everyone else ...this is how I usually do it (by ear-the hard way)..

Tip 1. practice the solo at half speed and then build up to full speed.
if you are playing the music via your pc then u can use windows media player to help ya (v11 anyway)- on the menu bar go ->play /play speed/ slow ...bingo !:cool: break it down into small pieces first .

Tip2 .now find the right notes and try suss out position for tip#3

Tip 3. Make sure you are playing the solo in the right fretboard position..this can be the trick ..especially if its a long solo up and down the fretboard.
usually much easier to get it bang on when u know this..u saves a lot of time. youtube is good to study live videos for this.E.g.A lot of players use the same pentatonic box positions for rock solos and you will find a lot of em steal licks left right n centre !

Tip 4.Make sure u are using the right fingers to do certain smears hammer ons etc ...again u prob need video to study. will make things even easier.

Tip 5- once u have the above 3 down focus on phrasing and vibrato** and viola !u should have the solo down all this without these two last bits will sound wrong and lame.:D

haunted-room

Fingers Mcginty wrote:

I've been playing guitar on and off for 2 decades and it's only in the last 2 years that i've learned to play properly. All the exercises in the world won't help if your technique is wrong.
1) I used to play everything using economy picking. For me this was a big hindrance...you have to learn to use alternate picking.
2) Make sure you are holding the pick correctly.
3) Slow things down and make sure you're picking accurately. Bring the tempo up only when there is good co-ordination between both hands.

You dont have to learn alternate picking if you know how to do economy picking the correct way. Usually, I find, the people who say you need to learn alternate picking instead just havnt trained economy picking properly. A good example of economy picking would be Jimmy bruno, frank gambale, ney mello. Economy picking is the most efficient way to pick, and it has a different tone to alternate. The problem with it though, is the fact that the metal/shred books dont teach it properly at all. And the dvd's are worse. Its quite hard and takes years to nail it. But you will never nail it if you dont know the correct technique

Voodu Child

haunted-room wrote:

You dont have to learn alternate picking if you know how to do economy picking the correct way. Usually, I find, the people who say you need to learn alternate picking instead just havnt trained economy picking properly. A good example of economy picking would be Jimmy bruno, frank gambale, ney mello. Economy picking is the most efficient way to pick, and it has a different tone to alternate. The problem with it though, is the fact that the metal/shred books dont teach it properly at all. And the dvd's are worse. Its quite hard and takes years to nail it. But you will never nail it if you dont know the correct technique

I practiced both at separate times to reasonable levels. Neither is right or wrong.

Economy picking CAN be more efficient, but in practice its an awful lot easier to bring your picking speed to a pro level by sticking to strict alternate picking. Thats why most shred teachers will advocate it.

To take full advantage of any efficiency benefits of economy picking, guys like Frank Gambale will refinger a lot of what they play to take full advantage of sweeps.

For the OP, i would definitely recommend strict alternate for any drills or practice licks he plays to a metronome.

haunted-room

voodoo_child wrote:

I practiced both at separate times to reasonable levels. Neither is right or wrong.

Economy picking CAN be more efficient, but in practice its an awful lot easier to bring your picking speed to a pro level by sticking to strict alternate picking. Thats why most shred teachers will advocate it.

To take full advantage of any efficiency benefits of economy picking, guys like Frank Gambale will refinger a lot of what they play to take full advantage of sweeps.

For the OP, i would definitely recommend strict alternate for any drills or practice licks he plays to a metronome.

Frank gambale was a bad example, jimmy bruno and ney mello would be better. No re-fingering to get the technique to work becuase if its practiced properly it will work in any musical situation. Including pentatonics and string skipping which some teachers claim cant be done with economy picking. Also, some people think that economy picking is sweep picking, which isnt exactly true. Its a combination of both alternate and sweep picking.
One of the reasons people find alternate picking easier is because its easier to do in time, at first. Straight up and down all the time makes it easy to lock into the beat.
Of coarse, neither technique is right or wrong, but to me, economy picking makes more sense.
However, right hand technique is far too complicated to sum up here. Look at john mghlaughlin (spell?), there is so much variety in the way he picks. He has complete control over his tone, volume and attack. And unfortunatly, picking isnt taught very well by most teachers, especially metal/shred teachers. People can end up with a very weak picking which sounds awful once the distortion is switched off, limiting your musical ability in the future if you get into other types of music...jazz for example.
Also, alot of teachers claim, you should pick ONLY from the wrist etc, which is wrong. Different sounds and attack require different motions and the use of the forearm is very important in picking as it locates the hand etc And there are different types of strokes etc. I could go on forever really.....but ill just stop here

Voodu Child

Aye, but to give good advice you have to look at in context and not what works best for you. The guy who posted the question is just getting into fast playing. Alternate picking is a much simpler technique to get into your muscle memory. Definitely more suited to a beginner IMO

haunted-room

voodoo_child wrote:

Aye, but to give good advice you have to look at in context and not what works best for you. The guy who posted the question is just getting into fast playing. Alternate picking is a much simpler technique to get into your muscle memory. Definitely more suited to a beginner IMO

True, sorry, I got too involved LOL! Yes, start with alternate picking very slowly and watch out for tension.