Speed/Clarity
kalah
What are the best exercises to do to develope ones speed and clarity?
TIA
Kalah
Kirk Roy
>What are the best exercises to do to develope ones speed and clarity?
I don't know what the "best" exercises are but here are some tips:
1. Use a clean sound when practicing - further, I like to use a clanky
sound that really brings out the mistakes/lack of clarity. I'll also
practice single note things (aka, "speedwork) on acoustic rather than
electric...
2. Practice very slowly, ridiculously slow, don't increase the speed until
you can play clearly and cleanly at the current speed
3. Try using short patterns (e.g., on one string do this finger pattern:
13431 rest 13431 etc). You can use such patterns to build burst speed -
your burst speed will have a direct affect on your sustained speed.
4. Use a metronome. Increase your speed in small increments (one or two
bpm).
5. Get a good setup done on your guitar so you know any buzziness or lack
of clarity is you and not the guitar.
6. Try to use speed as a tool to make music. I know you're playing guitar
but that's no excuse for not at least attempting to make music... :)
Kirk, still slow after all these years
Daniel Pugliese
: What are the best exercises to do to develope ones speed and clarity?
Hey Kalah,
IMHO, the best exercise to develop speed, accuracy, clarity, proper
hand positioning, train your ear, expand your knowledge of music theory and
the relationship of notes within a key, as well as the relationship of notes
from one key to another is to play scales very slooooowly, but in tempo. In
a lot of ways, it seems harder to me to keep a constant tempo while going
slowly than it is when going as fast as I can.
Specifically, while practicing scales, it helps the ear training and
the music theory training to play the scales in order according to the
circle of fifths. If you aren't familiar with the circle of fifths, I would
learn it; that little bit of theory will carry you a long way.
I play the major and minor scales through the circle of fifths as a
warm-up and sometimes doing that over and over again is my entire practice
session. For instance I will play the C Major scale followed by the A Minor
scale since they are relative to each other. By relative I mean that they
share the same notes.
I then play the scale that is a fifth removed from the one I just
finished. G Major is a perfect fifth away from C Major, and E Minor is the
relative Minor key of G Major. After I finish the G Major and E Minor
scales, I move another fifth over to D Major and B Minor. And so on, and so
forth...you get the picture.
As you do this, play slowly enough (but still in tempo, I use a
metronome) that you can sing the name of each note that you play. Obviously
it is hard to sing some of the higher notes without really tight underwear,
so you can sing the name of those notes in an octave that is more
comfortable to you.
While moving through the circle of fifths this way, you'll notice
something about how many sharps/flats there are in each key. Pretty cool
stuff.
****************************************************************************
Pugs (Daniel Seung Pugliese) INTP pu...@execpc.com
"You're just jealous because the voices only talk to me!"
****************************************************************************
Dave Cain
"kalah" <kla...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:Jd1z6.10832$tn1.1...@news1.mts.net...
> Hello,
> What are the best exercises to do to develope ones speed and clarity?
THE GOLDEN RULE: Clarity FIRST, speed second.
Pick a lick or a scale, then play it as slowly as you need to to still play
it PROPERLY.
even if you can only play one note per second on a scale without screwing
up, play it at that speed
until you never fail, then try it a bit faster. If you can't seem to get it
right at the new speed, slow down a bit.
Get a metronome and once you can play a lick well at a slow speed, play it
with the metronome. Once you've
mastered it at a particular speed, go up a notch and master that. Don't be
tempted to play a lick as fast as
you can; this will only make you into a sloppy player. This speed will
come, even if you don't think it will.
Also, don't sit down and say "I'm not getting up until I master this lick."
You will progress much faster
with many shorter practice sessions.
Dave
Paul D.
things.
It is a paradox, but playing slower is harder and I just figured out why. If
you make a mistake, it is much more noticable. IOW, if you playing very fast,
the mistake only lasts a very short time, and sometimes can't even be heard.
OTOH, make a mistake on a whole-note at 60 bpm and it last way to long.
In addition, it is more taxing to hold a note longer and sustain a good tone.
What is so cool about getting a good tone at slower speeds is that it makes the
fast playing have that really great sound. IOW, your fast playing will be clean
and it will sound good, whereas fast and dirty playing has that incomplete sound
to it.
A way to really hear how clean you are is to listen to your playing through
headphones if your amp has a headphones jack. You hear everything.
It is also my opinion that until you can play something at slower speeds, there
is no reason to speed it up. OTOH, you have to know when to push yourself a
little and try a faster speed. I don't think you have to play something perfect
before speeding it up, but if you speed it up and make a lot of mistakes, then
slow it down. OTOH, if you can play it really well, then try to speed it up to
a new plataue.
Hope this helps, comments welcome.
Paul D.
morten gjermundsen
http://www.geocities.com/trollstjerne/guitarpages.html
for speed tips and exercises check out:
http://www.geocities.com/trollstjerne/playfast.html
good luck
morten gjermundsen.
"kalah" <kla...@hotmail.com> skrev i melding
news:Jd1z6.10832$tn1.1...@news1.mts.net...
wright
Thanks for the pointer to your site. When I updated QT the sound files has
lots of noise. Perhpas it's my computer.
Has anyone else tried downloading and listening to the sound files?
jmaw