Hey guys what’s up? I know that they are a lot of yngwie malmsteen fans on here and I just wanted to let you know a little bit about my playing history. I’ve been playing guitar for over 2 years and been practicing shredding for about a year in november. I think I’m starting to get the hang of it; I practice all my guitar licks in short bursts/sprints. These sprints are starting to come together as I add a note to the burst each time I play. It’s a wicked technique but I can see it working. My style of play closely matches to malmsteen (technique, fingering). However, I am an alternative picker mainly (although I do sweep and ocassionally use economy).
I have a guitar that my friend sold to me for $10 and I have no idea how to play one. I want to play like Led Zeppelin and I have a friend that’s willing to teach me.
How did you learn how to play a guitar? Did you pay for lessons or learn from someone?
Well see its not how long you have been playing, but how many hours of focus you put in each day. Recently I’ve been putting in about an hour or so. I don’t just fool around and improvise, I focus my practice solely into the licks that were given by my instructor.
I can’t shred yet per say, but I can definitely practice in short fast bursts around 100-115 bpm doing sextuplet notes. I would practice a simple lick like:
and so on and so forth. Eventually I’ll be able to play continously or through a whole scale run.
So really if you practice what you are suppose to be practicing and paying attention to technique, then there is no problem really. People who have been playing for ten years or so probably only picked up the guitar for about 10 minutes to a half an hour a day and played and naturally got fast.
I have a guitar instructor I see regularly every saturday. Actually my parents are paying lessons for me at $15 for a half hour (which a good rate by the way). In my opinion, it’s better to get an instructor to show you proper technique. When people are self-taught, it usually takes a much longer time to get better because they have to figure out on their own how to practice and how to approach a lick or a section in a song. However people have managed to pull it off though.
The self-teaching method is entirely free but it is way slower compared to getting an instructor who will show you good technique.
Yeah, it’s really not so much about how long you’ve been playing, but how you were practising. A lot of people make the mistake of taking on far too large parts at once (like several measures) when trying to play really fast. The best way is to cut it into tiny pieces and practise them seperately, bringing them up to speed and then putting them together to a little larger pieces. Oh, and I found it to be extremely important to find a comfortable and very stable position for my picking hand.
I’m not so much into Malmsteen, although some of his stuff is cool. I’m more into the playing style of John Petrucci (Dream Theater) and the likes (Di Meola is great, too). But unfortunately I’m rarely practicing nowadays - so getting to their level (or even near) probably won’t happen.
Aww man don’t give up… it takes self-discipline. John Petrucci is awesome. What keeps me going is the lessons every week plus the fact that I getting closer to their level every time I practice
Naaa, I won’t give up. But it’s a little frustrating that my fast playing is quite inconsistent (and has been so for years now): I’ve got days when I nail virtually every note perfectly at high speeds, and there are as many days when it all sounds terribly sloppy. The speed is there, it’s just missing the consistency. And there’s one little problem: I can’t shred on the low E-string, because I need a certain right hand position for fast playing - my right hand is lying on the strings to make sure it’s always got a stable position and my pick is at the right angle and just touches the string very lightly. Well, I just cheat a little and play all hammer-ons and pull-offs on the low E.
I’ve never had any guitar lessons, but what helped me tremendously were my piano lessons (had a teacher for like 2 years). My piano studies and research for the best practice methods have shown me great ways to make learning new things much easier and faster than before. I guess the basic principles of best practice is the same for every instrument.
Basically. I could teach myself how to play violin. Well the question I have is when you pick, do you move your arm or wrist? I find that wrist is quite articulate. I find it challenging as well to pick lower strings. What I’m practicing is something like:
Yeah man I’ve been playing guitar for over 20 years (holy shit I sound old when I type shit like that…) But yeah for a long while I was trying obtain a god level status at shredding but I suppose after a while I kind of gave up on that quest. It’s not that I had problems gaining speed, it just seemed pointless to play at top speed all the time.
I mean when you think about some of the greatest guitar solos ever written, for the most part the ones that stick out are not great because of the speed at which their played at, but their great because of the passion behind the notes. So more recently I’ve been focusing on playing like I mean every note rather than like I’ve got something to prove to other guitarists.
But hey don’t get me wrong there ain’t nothing wrong with a little shred fest every now and then!
Wow, if you’re playing 32nd sixtuplets at 220+bpm you’re easily the fastest guitarist of them all! That’s like 44 notes per second! Not bad, not bad at all!!
Sixteenth notes or sextuplets? I was talking 115 bpm sextuplets. It rounds to about 230 bpm triplets, which is a little bit slower than 200bpm sixteenth notes.
My style of play closely matches to malmsteen (technique, fingering). However, I am an alternative picker mainly (although I do sweep and ocassionally use economy).
