Slaying The Speed Demon: Speed Picking Secrets for Jazz Guitar
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- Опубліковано 20 сер 2024
- ► To get a FREE PDF of all the speed exercises from this lesson go here: bit.ly/3sYmKCO
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As you can see in this video, I’m pretty excited today.
There’s a good reason for this:
I was lucky to pin down my good friend and virtuoso guitarist Stuart King to record a lesson on how jazz guitarists can build their speed picking.
Why did I pick this topic?
Because learning to play lines fast is a critical skill for any jazz guitarist.
Besides being a great all round musician and a top jazz guitarist (and a nice bloke to boot), Stuart is endowed with incredible chops.
He’s simply the fastest guitarist I’ve played with to date.
It turns out Stuart is one of those ‘hidden guitar yogis’, who has quietly worked out an incredible shortcut to boosting your speed and accuracy on the guitar.
Since recording this video I’ve been practicing Stuart’s approaches daily.
After one week of following the step-by-step process in this lesson, I’ve noticed a significant boost in my maximum speed, and my speed picking accuracy has increased as well.
We hope you enjoy this video and let us know what you think by leaving a comment below.
Cheers, Greg O'Rourke
Find out more about Stuart at www.stuartkingm...
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► To get a FREE PDF of all the speed exercises from this lesson go here: bit.ly/3sYmKCO
► Start Your FretDojo Jazz Guitar Academy Membership Here:
www.fretdojo.com/signup-offer
This works with all instruments! Used it for a while now....Good!
There is definitely something to this. I first heard Shawn Lane talking about practicing really fast instead of building up slowly, and it does work. HOWEVER, you do have to have your picking mechanics straight first. I wish he would have emphasized this.
practice makes permanent so make sure what you are practicing is what you want to always do
I had a teacher tell me once that practicing slowly would help me with the functional part, but practicing as fast as I could would help with the mechanical.
He analogized it to a sprinter. They practice their starts slowly. Once they are running, they don't speed walk to get faster. They sprint.
In four days with the method I made more progress than in 3 months of "slow it down, speed it up with metronome," but only after reaching a plateau with that method. I think it's helpful to use ol' reliable to get your picking down and use this method to get past your limits. Thanks!
Awesome, glad you found it helpful!
spot on this is the real deal,i have been doing this for a few years now,kudos to you
I wish someone would have told me this years ago. I spent a lot of hours gradually increasing the metronome while playing 4 note per string chromatics and got stuck at 125 bpm. Using this technique, I've found that I can pick 16th notes at 150, but my left hand can't keep up. I've always thought my right hand was he problem, but that's not the case. Thanks for getting me on the path to improvement.
MattyBEightyThree No one ever taught me this either, it only took about 25 years of practice to figure it out....it's a bit unorthodox really so it's probably not a common technique, but it works
I think that something Stuart may not have realized is that having already developed his chops, and having already familiarized himself with the lines he wanted to learn to nail at a fast tempo, he then changed his approach.
That is not the same as starting from scratch. You can't "unknow" what you've already learned. It's always in there.
AS I get faster in my older days, I learned this the exact same way. Good job!
So nice to hear a proper accent on a guitar vid. Love the idea of "chunking". Troy Grady talks a bit about it too, and once you wrap your head around it, it makes a lot of sense. Onya!
Wow!only just come across this,tried for twenty minutes and I'm feeling dizzy,still not there yet but I'm getting faster.Thank you so much!
Neil Hawkins you're welcome glad to hear it's helping
It's great that you mentioned studying classical guitar. Classical technique is the same whether you play slow or fast, but picking mechanics with a pick change drastically when the tempo is sped up.
Max Voloshin
Totally false! Many classical guitarists use finger planting when they play very fast but would not do that in a slow piece because you would hear the muted strings...
A most excellent informative and down to earth lesson..you are a master teacher!
Nice axe. Sounds great.
Great video ,excellent tips for building your chops .Thanks guys .
What usually is never discussed is the right hand: holding the pick, angle of the pick, thickness of the pick, wrist etc..
There’s no question fast players of all instruments have a group of lines that they play fast regularly. For guitar that means having the left hand fingering enable the right hand picking which usually trips us up.
Really good advice. Up to speed but mastered in slices. This is also the sure way of transcribing hard passages as well.
Chunking for speed wow thats great ,I use the chunking technique to learn musical passages quicker , never thought to use it for speed ,I think I'll be able to get scuttle buttin down now
This is really excellent, thanks! I just tried this and it improved my speed and accuracy in one session. It's counter to what I've always heard but it clearly works.
thormusique good to hear!
Gotta say, this guy is brilliant. This really works
One of the best speed technique videos I've seen.
What a great exercise....This is exactly what I needed for exactly where I am in my playing....! Thank you for this...!
Cool thanks really enjoyed that lick! Have always sprinted, i stumbled across it by mucking around. So good to see it in a lesson after all these years. Nice
Fantastic phrasing, Pat Martino at his best. Congratulations. And a very legit approach to speed picking.
However, as you studied classical guitar, you know there is a lot more involved.
I learned this approach from Philip Hii's " The art of virtuosity for guitar ".
Which fingers play which notes is a make or break for me when moving the riff down the neck. Still working on figuring out which options are the best ones.
Very useful, I'll be workin' on that one - Thanks!
This is genius. break through time.Thank You.
Great video. I got a lot faster before the video ended, playing along :O
What a great way to practise speed! Thanks to the both of you
WOW... what a great lesson. Let me grab my guitar and try this !!!
Hey guys thank you for an awesome study very helpful
wow best jazz lesson for guitar ever thanks !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Awesome!
Thanks. This makes sense to me. Will give it a try.
Hi, Stuart. I am no highly trained guitar player but I am highly trained as a violinist. We understand a lot about speed and how to get it and we work on this problem for 200 years. So let me give you some advice and the you tell me, what you think about this.
1. Your 4. Finger is in the parking position. There is quite a distance from the place, he soon will be used. The you call him and he starts his way to the fret, he has to be soon.
Keep the 1. Finger always shortly over the position he will be used.
2. Stretch your hand. You have 4 fingers and you could use them for 4 different tones of a diatonic scale. That should be faster than your approach, 4 fingers for 3 tones. I can play this way even in the 1. position, I trained a bit.
3. Avoid shifting. This is a moment without tone. It costs time. Shifting is changing the position of the thumb.You move the arm, there is a heavy weight, this needs a lot of power and time. Ten, arrived, you have to stop your arm, which needs the same amount of power again. Let the thumb where he is, just move your fingers the 2 frets you need. After this step is done, you have time enough to fetch your thumb, meanwhile you play on.
4. The main problem is not speed but synchronisation of left hand and right hand. First the finger has to bring the string down to the fret, then the right hand has to make the move. These movements are shifted for a short time. This is what you have to train and especially with the 4. Finger, the too late one. For training, use for 4 notes 2 times the 4. Finger.
This is the view of a violinist on the movements of a guitarist. Please tell me, can you improve with this, even you, or are there some mistakes here?
Hi Martin,
I know what you mean about the 4th finger and I see many guitarists doing this, some people think it’s bad, but I’ve seen many fast and virtuosic guitarists doing this, and having thought about it over the years and having tried different things, I haven’t found it to inhibit me in any meaningful way.
My perspective is simply this:
Firstly, I don’t think it’s useful to compare violin technique to guitar technique. That would be like telling a professional boxer how to improve their punch from what your karate sensei has taught you. Similar in a way, but not necessarily relevant.
For example, if I were to hold my guitar like a violin, then my 4th finger naturally sits closer to the fingerboard than if I hold the guitar the typical way.
The main reason I allow my 4th finger to be so far away is because that’s where it naturally sits, when I’m in that position. For me, bringing my 4th finger closer to the fretboard and forcing it to stay as close to the string as possible actually requires effort, ie I have to use the muscles in my hand to hold it there, and it also creates tension in my hand. Perhaps if I did that, I may be able to play faster, I don’t know - but I’m not going for world record speed either. For me the best approach is one that involves the least effort and minimises tension in the hand.
Basically the effort for me is reduced by letting it sit naturally and freely, saving up the energy for when I need to use it.
I agree with Stuart's reply here - and also I think because the guitar neck is somewhat bigger than a violin the 4th finger seems to work pretty well. Each person needs to find their own way of approaching the guitar though so feel free to experiment - I don't think it's a right or wrong way to do it. As you can see, Stuart is able to play really fast so his approach has worked for him for sure.
@@stuartkingguitar Hi Stuart!
Thank you for taking me serious. I did the same with you.
I am a studied violinist but like to play the guitar and electric guitar for 50 years, not so seriously, of course. Now i am getting old and didn't understand some things. Maybe we can help each others.
First thing ist the pinky-parking-position, the PPP. If you are a beginner in violin, your 4. finger will sit in the PPP. Here you are wrong. Then you need tension to avoid this, here you are right. It feels ugly first and you have to learn, it is not. But you have to turn your wrist a bit more, the tension is in the elbow and even shoulder but you play with the fingers. On guitar it works in the same way. This is a point I don't understand you jet, but I will try it out.
My next problem is playing scales. We have one rule for the fingering for any scale in 3 octaves, since 1754. Upwards: Begin in the right position. Over the strings to the e-string. Then 1 2 - 1 2 upwards. Downwards: Same way down.
There are some electric guitars with 24 frets, so you could play 3 octaves. Do you have a rule, simply and similar to this to make it? I have searched and found nothing. Why this?
I asked a friend, a harpsichordist and violinist. He told me, play upwards until the first basic tone. Then comes a shift. Play it with the 1. finger. So you can come upwards. I tried it out, it worked fine, but I had only 2 1/2 octaves. Do you have a simply rule that is enough for 3 octaves?
@@FretDojo Not agree. I want to be creative. That means for me to learn all the standards and see what is not defined. There is the room for creativity. I don't want to loose time to invent the wheel again.
best part of the video 1:30
That was great advice and I'm going to give it a try. Thank you very
Very interesting, I think it is helping me. Make sure you warm up first!. The next section of the lick is a bit trickier to get up to 150 BPM. "Hearing at a fast tempo" that is a paradigm changing goal.
I think the next part is harder as well, particularly the part where you need to keep alternating between the second and third strings!
Exactly! That is amazing how you do the inside picking back and foarth so quickly.
YES!!!!! This really works!
That was beautiful. It's gonna help me out a ton! Thank you
very useful lesson, thank you.
Excellent lesson
Wow! I'm going to sell all of my guitars and start collecting stamps.
Brilliant.
Thank you.
Great guitar playing, very fluid!
Years ago I use to work with that repeated note naturally before each lick I was trying to play. But, while playing "for real", I ended up always playing the first not of the lick at least one time before I actually play the lick, which became ridiculous, And I still felt uncomfortable to play any lick right away because I needed that repeated note to put my right hand in the right position. I had to work so hard to get rid of this bad habit. So be carefull people, it could become part of your playing if you do that to much.
Practice makes permanent
Gracias!
Your picking is amazing!
Carl Enquist thanks!
Stuart! Great to see you on youtube!
Lance Ruby hey Lance we meet again!
Stuart King hey man you should Check out my grad school audition videos I've been uploading to my channel. Would love your feed back...mate!
Sounding great Lance!
Sounding mighty Stu!
Thanks mate!
it's so true.
Fantastic!
top guy well explained thanks
Great playing >>>
Thanks for the video, an effective way to get the hands to follow the ear rather than the other way round.....you seem to be using a fairly light string set [plain 3rd?] and a red Jazz 111.....am I right? I've had to change to a lighter set due to some LH issues ....I'm finding life a lot easier with 10-46 on a Gibson 24 3/4 scale....dohhh...that's always what I used back in my blues/rock period.....waaaaay back.
I'm actually using a 12-54 gauge set of strings (with a plain 3rd string) although I use lighter gauges on other guitars. I was using a jazz III pick too - but the bigger size one
Guy looks like Wil Wheaton
Dave Phillips haha my wife thinks the same thing...
Wil Wheaton with amazing guitar talent .. '-)
dead ringer.
Who is Wil Wheaton?
You sound like my mee maw
Awesome.
Hey Stuart real nice
hmmm but what's the technique for even doing that short sprint faster in the first place?
Very interesting. But while it seems well suited to "licks" - how does it work for improvisation where you are coming up with new lines on the fly??
Hopefully working on this sort of thing gives you an extra level of technical freedom to be spontaneous and creative on the fly, so you can focus on that and not think about your technique (or worry that the technique you have would limit you from playing what you are aiming for). What do you think?
@@stuartkingguitar Thanks for responding.. Often it seems the speed hurdle is more the brain keeping up with knowing what to play in time rather than being able to move the fingers fast enough. Hence the common approach of improvising at gradually faster and faster speeds. It's difficult to know how much time to devote to that vs practicing a lick the way you are advocating. I guess you would say do both? Right now I would say my finger speed is faster than my brain's ability to improvise. In other words I can play scales/exercises at faster tempos than I can improvise over chord changes playing continuous eighth notes for instance.
@@marcush2461 hey… in terms of how much time I’d devote to developing speed, I’d say not too much to be honest. Maybe think of it like sprinting which I think I talked about before. It’s probably not useful to spend heaps of time burning yourself out. Especially if it means you are sacrificing other musical things in the pursuit of speed. I’d say the answer is maybe 5 minutes at a time. But consistently which is key. Everyday, or even every other day. Everyone is different and has different goals. Maybe spend 20 percent of your time on technique and the other 80 percent on music.
I personally don’t work on technique anymore - this concept outlined in the video is something I use (kind of like another tool in my musical toolkit) when I need to learn something at a fast tempo. Cheers
Wow 😯
Thanks for this video, I am digging this technique...joining the links is the tough part
luthier47 I agree, joining the chunks is where a lot of the hard work is
Fascinating. Do you strictly alternate up and down on the right hand?
Yeah more or less, I find my rhythm and articulation are better if I do. Sometimes I use a sweep picking/economy picking technique for arpeggios or certain licks, but I'm still more comfortable with alternate picking in general
lesson on picking mechanics please!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Look up Troy Grady if you haven’t yet. He covers the topic more than anyone on the planet 👍🏽
Great speed technique! JJ
Excellent video! What kind of pick are you using? Thank you.
musket 0402 it's a red Dunlop Jazz III XL
I get what he's saying and the point he's trying to make; it's like when batters weight down their bats for swing practice, so that when they are up to the plate, the bat feels lighter and easier; however, he's doing a real injustice to the technique of learning and playing, and jumping in where he is, is a recipe for sloppy, inarticulate playing. The "lick" or pattern needs to be learned first; and learned completely, solidly and confidently before ANY of what he is showing will have the desired effect. The old adage "Slow down to speed up," is never more needed than it is here. SLOW DOWN. Learn the pattern; when you HAVE it, then gradually speed up.
Great Sound!! Which Kind of pick you use? Thanks Maestro:)
Horst Lippitsch the pick I use depends on the context, the sound I want or the instrument I'm playing... but for electric playing I often use a red nylon jazz III pick in the XL size. I think the red one sounds/feels better than the black one! That's what I used in this video
Thanks Stuart real good lesson..do you have any tips for playing without tension? or relaxed at fast speeds?. That seems to be one of my biggest problems. thanks
I have found that it is very difficult to play fast passages if I'm not relaxed or there is tension. The first step is to be aware of it. Secondly, I find that thinking that you need to 'try harder' creates tension, but you actually have to try less... There seems to be a strange mental component to it whereby trying too hard creates tension which actually inhibits you. To thwart your minds strategy, you might watch how relaxed other players are when they play fast to 'convince' your brain that this is the better approach. One thing I find helpful is to take my awareness away from what I'm doing (ie the technique) and bring my focus solely on the rhythm and let my subconscious take care of the co-ordination and technique. For example, I don't think about how to use a fork, it's subconscious, but if I were to, I would probably end up holding it funny!
Got it, thanks Stuart
Interesting approach - thanks for offering this. I'll keep working at it. A few questions - my wrist action is horrible and I find that I'm starting a a very slow speed - not able to "lock in" at 150, 140 or even 130. Is the action better generated from the wrist or the elbow? I'm still a a very slow speed - sort of back to the same process of playing it slowly and then trying to speed it up. Any additional suggestions. Thanks.
I prefer to play from the wrist but I've seen other players do well playing from the elbow. 130bpm is still quite a fast tempo, especially when the lines change direction or have large leaps or arpeggios and so on. So don't worry too much, I was kind of stuck at about 120-130bpm for years until I tried this approach. The natural tendency is to slow it down and start from the bottom up, but it's really worth trying the top-down approach also. Your target tempo might be lower at first, but give it time and hopefully you can increase it to where you want it
Max... when you say you have "horrible wrist action," and aren't able to "lock in" even at 130... it sounds as though maybe you're saying that you aren't getting the pick _moving_ - down, up, down, up - at these tempos. If so, I know the feeling! For years I played SLOW, with a metronome, trying to increase speed only very gradually, and I became really good at playing smoothly, but I never developed any speed. Moving the pick up and down seemed like something my wrist just wouldn't do. 92 b.p.m. was difficult! My particular problem was that I didn't have a _good_ teacher -- I had no one to tell me that I was never going to play fast until I learned to play *totally relaxed*. LOOSE -- you have to learn to play a tremolo (like a mandolin player) while remaining so relaxed that, at first anyway, you actually DROP the pick now and then!
This may sound crazy, but the advice comes from the great mandolin genius, Chris Thile - his teacher, John Moore, taught him this way. Don't worry *at all* about volume. Just keep your 1) shoulder, 2) arm, 3) wrist, and 4) hand & fingers, SUPER-relaxed. No tension anywhere. Now, if you will just practice this way until you get the pick moving, down-up-down-up, at tremolo speed, you're on your way to playing like Stuart King and other fast players. It's a great feeling when it starts happening, and you may wonder why you ever had trouble. Hope this helps!
Cool.
please what kind of metronome are you using?
Yusuf Bangalu it's a Boss DB-30
Sometimes i wonder if its my picking technique or my fingers that stops me from flying
some people find they are better with one hand over the other - keep working on it. A lot of the challenges actually occur in the mind/brain rather than in the fingers in many cases. For example you said "stops me from flying" which to me tells me that there's probably a mental block - funnily enough, saying that to yourself might be what is stopping you
What model Ibanez,thanks.?
shecky308 it's an ' Ibanez AS103NT. I changed some of the hardware and upgraded the pots and pickups to Ibanez super 58s (it had custom 58s). I used it on a few tracks on my album and have been pretty happy with it, although I'm not a big fan of the bridge. But overall it's a really good guitar.... I don't think they make them anymore though
What kind of pick is he using???
Martin Mortensen this one www.jimdunlop.com/product/jazz-iii-xl
what scale are you using in that lick?? Is it just the dominant scale with minor 3rd? it creates that nice cromatisim....
Dani West it's really just the notes from the mixolydian scale, mixed in with a bit of the minor pentatonic and blues scales and some chromaticism
lol it is a dominant scale with a minor third. The minor third is chromaticism and the dominant is mixo so good eye Dani boy
Yes its a nice addition to the mixo scale, the scale i usually use is the bebop mixo scale. Its just a Mixo scale with a major 7 witch creates a mice cromatisism.
16 dislikes by people looking for a shortcut or miracle...a song is learned by joining bits together. What do you want to shred with, a lick or God forbid a scale? Another video will tell ya', you have to hear the fast notes B4 you can play them. You used a spoon B4 a fork, B4 that you were fed by your Mama,think about it! Look out for Tendonitis!
sheldon coopers nemisis
I can play fast with the right hand but my left hand just can't keep up.
Suggestions?
Boldstrummer I find the same thing. It's probably common for players to have one hand that is faster than the other, which is ok. When using this approach I often miss notes with my left hand or the synchronisation might be off or whatever. But as I adjust to the new tempo and continue pushing myself, my left hand speed and synchronisation gets more accurate
Only play open strings for all your solos.
With right fingers is faster and easier than picking, just watch flamenco's guitar players. However, nice video
🤘👍👍👍👌
"dayboo abbum" ? what's a dayboo abbum?
Hey, someone who says practice speed to play faster! While I understand the importance of slowly learning something, I never understood how someone could just become faster if everything they practiced was slow.
Jeff b. Same...I tried playing slow for 5 months, very little progress, I've been playing in short speed bursts for a week or two now and it's like a night and day difference
Does the world need yet another fast guitar player? I don't think so.
shoot- I was hoping slaying the speed demon, meant overcoming the need to show off fast licks at the expense of musicality,and beauty. No such luck.
Shoot - I guess Mozart and those cats were just shallow insecure players who put down everyone's style that wasn't theirs...
What is this weird accent these guys are using? New Zealand? Australia?
Got to be NZ.
Australian ie "Stu's kahndly decahded to sheh weeth us"
'everyone can play fast!.....' - yay! no, wait :(
All the picking speed or fretting hand dexterity in the world will not correlate to "great playing" if the player either has no true talent, ear for melodic vocal construction, sense of rhythm or a scintilla of creativity....capish?
That can be the case, it is still important to work on technique however so you can express yourself in whichever way you prefer
I'm sure glad we took all of the critics and threw them in the lake - because some might try to define exactly what defines "taste"... for all... and we'd all play exactly alike...