How to shred?

[post.aux.fader]

Hey all. I was wondering if you guitar guru's could gimme some tips on trem (double) picking on the bass strings. I can get a pretty nasty rate on high E, but I can barley get Miserlou on low E (or D, in my case ) Also, I've been trying to figgure out sweep-picking forever, and it just sounds like woody the woodpecker. Any help would be appreesh.

[TheRockDoc]

two former teachers of mine- at one time I could partially keep up with them

http://www.berkleeshares.com/guitar/...itar_shredders then go to choice 7
www.garyhoey.com and go to guitar tips...

[Thunder33]

heavy strings, heavy picks, if you have a middle pick up, lower it all the way. practice practice practice

[sweetpeee]

I agree with heavy pics definitely. Back when I used to do the shred thing, one thing I learned something that made it a lot easier to play fast. Have you ever seen someone playing really fast, making faces and looking like they're straining their ass off? It looks really cool and all...but it's very unneccasary.If you need to do all that, you have a problem

Tensing up slows you down...a LOT! To play fluidly, relax your wrists and fingers.You only need to strike the string hard enough to make a sound...anything else is not economical. For the right hand, there are roughly three way of going about shred type picking.

One is used by Zakk Wyld (Ozzy) and Vernon Reid (LIving Color) and sometimes Eddie Van Halen does it on fast passages, where you sort of bend your wrist near the high E string, so when you are playing, the pick is slanted downward from left to right (if you pick right handed) rather than right to left (which is what most players do). If it suits you, fine, but I find that the angle is probably straining the tendons in your wrist and unless you are constantly playing, you'll probably fatique much faster than someome using a more natural right hand position.Most pictures of Zakk playing will show you what I mean.

The second is used by a lot of Jazz players. You anchor your elbo on the body of the guitar, keeping your wrist rigid and barely bending it if at all, and the action comes from moving your arm up and down. It's as if you forearm and wrist are in a cast...like a whipping action. It's benefit is that the movement comes from the arm and not the wrist so it's less tiring, but harder to control.

The third is the most used...it's just your standard run of the mill right hand technique. It's probably the most natural position. Some curl their fingers, some don't. If you do any work with volume or tone pots and you can reach them with your fingers...open/splayed out fingers may be the way to go.

While your doing all this picking hand stuff, where is the pick in relation to the strings? Is the tip of the pic going waaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyy below the strings themselves? In other words, when you look down, how much of the pic is being used to get sound? Is your thumb so close to the strings that 3/4 of the pick can be seen below the string? You only need the tip of the pic to strike the string to get it to sound out right?

For the fretting hand, unless your doing some heavy ass BB King vibrato, you don't need to take your fingers off the fret board more than 1/4 inch or so above the string. I STILL have a problem doing this. Sometimes I'll look down and there's all this open space between the string and my finger...definitely not good for speed. So if your now fretting a note with a finger,that finger shoud just clear the string so it isn't muting it.Speed is all about economy of movement. Don't waste any effort at all...at least at practice. Once you get it down, you can make all the faces you want.

Hope this helps, J.P.

[Thunder33]

one important thing to remember. It doesn't matter how fast your picking hand is if your fretting hand cannot keep up. Again, practice.

[aaroncomp]

To add onto what thunder just said, do scales, runs, etc. at the speed at which you can do them perfect before speeding up. This may mean, super-slow at first. When you can do it dead perfect, slowing increase speed over time and repeat. Your fingers and mind will build a connection to the piece you are playing and it will be much easier in the end. Requires much patience.

[Thunder33]

Originally Posted by aaroncomp

To add onto what thunder just said, do scales, runs, etc. at the speed at which you can do them perfect before speeding up. This may mean, super-slow at first. When you can do it dead perfect, slowing increase speed over time and repeat. Your fingers and mind will build a connection to the piece you are playing and it will be much easier in the end. Requires much patience.

Exactly! Practice does not make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect.

[Henry Mars]

Practice does make perfect but dosen't do much if you don't know how music is put together. My advice is to learn all of the tunes you can ...practice them in every key until you can do it without thinking. Learn to read real music and pick up Wofhart, Dont Kreutzer Violin studies and graduate to Clarinette studies.
Working on these exersises using sweep picking will improve your "shreading" faster than any thing I know. It isn't easy but it works. If you want to play cleanly there are no short cuts. Use the straight arm technique in the end you will play faster if you do. Playing from the wrist involves too much short joint motion and will slow you down. Practice without an amp (acoutistic prefered) on a gutiar with higher action until you can pick each note and avoid pull off tricks.
That is my $.02.
I ALMOST FORGOT ..... practice three octave arpegieos.

[tourettes5139]

Yessir, I always said that practice makes permanant. But either way, its all the same thing. This is just how I said it.

[reshp1]

If you aren't already, practice to a metrodome. Not only a good way to push yourself and make sure you are playing in time and not slowing down during difficult parts, but it's a very rewarding and objective way to track your progress too.

[punkin]

Originally Posted by Thunder33

one important thing to remember. It doesn't matter how fast your picking hand is if your fretting hand cannot keep up. Again, practice.

My problem has always been the opposite...but then again, I'm a lefty that started out playin piano in college. I find my picking hand getting hung up.

[post.aux.fader]

Thanks alot duders!

[metalhead28]

I figure I'll chime in on this one with a personal story to discourage bad technique. Years ago I played in a savagely fast death metal band and most of our tunes were 240+ bpm of nonstop tremelo picking. I used to play like that by tensing up my arm and just sort of vibrating my wrist. Sort of an exhaggerated version of the way alot of guys tense up their arm to play fast. I developed severe tendonitis and actually had a scare that I would end up unable to play the guitar, at least in any sort of capacity. Well, after cooling off the playing for several months, I got over the tendonitis, and eventually I learned to tremelo pick with methods that didn't involve any sort of tension and didn't cramp up my arm. Long story short...don't tense up your arm. Anyway, to sum up, I do it now with a loose "flutter" of the wrist combined with a sort of twist of the forearm....I don't know if that makes sense...anyway, that doesn't really matter because you'll develop your own way of doing it...My advice is just to incorporate it into your playing while remaining fluid and smooth.
Sweep picking. You'll find all kind of articles and lessons on that all over the web. My advice is the same as everybody else's. Start slow. Start with 2 or three strings to develop a good feel for the actual picking motion. You've got to only pick your fret hand fingers up far enough to kill the notes. Don't release the strings or all hell will break loose and it will sound like shit. I think of it like this...By the time I need to pull my finger away from the string to fret the next note, I'm usually muting that string with my picking hand. Don't disregard pick hand muting when sweep picking. Especially with 5 or 6 string sweeps. Just don't try to be Yngwie right off the bat. Once you can incorporate 3 string sweeps into your regular playing, start to practice four. And so on, and so on. It takes a long time to develop.

[IronFlippy]

Practice makes perfect, but nobody's perfect, so why practice?

Just kidding.

Fretting hand speed is the hardest thing I've come across in playing guitar. All I can say is play scales and quick licks over and over and over WITH A METRONOME! That's the key part to developing speed. What good is being able to play 32nd notes if they're not in time? You'll just get people sea sick. I hate practicing random atonal exercises because they don't get you thinking music. I really recommend getting some sheet music or good tabs for a technically difficult song, and then just practice the hell out of it. Then, you can use parts of it in solos, or create similar licks off the top of your head. Much better than playing a chromatic scale up and down at 400bpm.

[punkin]

Oh yea...those atonal exersizes! Definitely...I give them to my students all the time. I find that many of them tend to "anticipate" rhythms and scales or notes. I especially like to toss in songs that sound familiar but have twisted note values...but I guess this makes it more of a reading exersize doesn't it. I still place a huge value on sight reading.