hello there fellow guitarist.

first, a little bit about my guitar learning experience. i have been playing for quite a while, but nothing fancy, just a bit of chords and bar chords sufficent to sing a long simple songs. i even got to play for a few gigs! a very nice experience for a noob guitarist like me. but my guitar progression never passed chords and bar chords since i play for the past 10 years!

about 5 month ago, i finally decide to improve my guitar technique, so i when for official training. this teacher of mine also teach at yamaha and he shred lightning fast, with nice melodic sound! btw, one of the first thing he told me is that, forget about evrything else i have learned before, and do this only! for 6 to 12 month, 1 to 2 hours a day, practice chromatic scale and NOTHING ELSE. he show me the technique on how to correctly position my hand and and how to pick. he teach some teori as well. after 6 session with him within a month, he told me my technique is fine, now go home and practice, and come back to him once i can pick comfortably fast.

since i got a bit of experience playing, i did not struggle that much, from 40 to 140 bpm on my digital metronome (2 pick per click). i practice 45 minutes a day everyday, except saturday and sunday. somehow, i have been struggling at 150 bm for quite a while, and now i stuck at 170bpm, and it seems does not want to go further. i got a bit sloppy at 160 and 170bpm. 150bpm is clean.

frustrated, i simply push the metronome to 200bpm. about a few seconds of awefull picking, i get back to 170 and it seems easier and less sloppy after that. but when the next day i try 170bpm, it started to get sloppy again worst then the previous day. so i hit 200bpm, and return to 170. occasionally, i get back to 150-160 and it is fine.

another thing i wish to highlight is that i could not last 40 seconds at 170bpm because my picking hand will start to get real sore. i have some screenshot which pinpoint the exact area of where im feeling the strain. if i push to 200bpm, the strain will come in around 15 seconds. i will rest about 30 seconds and start again. and again, after few seconds, the awefull strain will come back. sometimes, i give it a rest 2 or 3 days without guitar, thinking that when i come back to 170bpm, the strain will go away. but i was wrong. surprisingly, my left hand have no strain problem. and i have no strain at 150bpm, unless of course, i scale for more then about 6 minutes non stop.

so, here goes my question.

1) is my guitar teacher teach me the correct thing? he only told me to learn chromatic scale for 12 month and says that once i master the chromatic scale at a very high speed, everything else will be easier. he told me if possible to avoid learning songs.
2) if what he say is right, how do we get pass the 'mental' stage of doing chromatic scale? doing chromatic everyday makes me nuts!
3) is the strain normal? will it go away? or is it CTS?
4) how long should i stay at my 'comfortable' speed, where, in this situation, 150bpm.

hope u guys can give some insight on this. thanx a lot!



extreme strain behind this location.



This post has been edited by nitrofang: May 25 2008, 11:25 AM

learning ONLY chromatic scales will definitely make you learn less in time.
its best to learn a few things at once, provided you can manage. chromatic scales are a good way to warm up both your hands, but you should definitely learn songs for inspiration, and other techniques too

12 months on chromatics?
so hes getting 1-yr free salary for something you can learn by yourself at home?
u need some variety.

also 140bpm at 2 picks per click like u say is actually not that fast.

vary the patterns of chromatics...lots of patterns u can find online.
or even do 3-note per string chromatics.

your strain...sounds like ur picking from the elbow? ie. pivot point at elbow.
or ur forearm is just too tense which it shouldnt be.

hi. thanx for the quick reply.

i will look into this regarding varieties. it seems that my teacher look highly at chromatic not only as warm up, but for hand cordination and strength. i am sure about the warm up, but not sure about the latter.

not exactly. i pay him only for month and he ask me to come back later when i can pick comfortably fast, which i am not sure at what speed.

agree. but thats the fastest i could go. anymore further will invite strainous activity.

i dont think so. my wrist is doing the movement, while my thumb and and index finger hold the pick firmly. my forearm until elbow have only little movement.

This post has been edited by nitrofang: May 25 2008, 12:12 PM

so then why is ur forearm straining?
also different picks will enable u to go faster.
a good fav is always the dunlop jazz III.

harder picks haha

its gud to divide ur practise sessions
like
10min warm up chromatics
20min arpegios
20min string skipping
20min legato (pull off hammer on)
20min sweeping
30min improvisation on 1 scale only

cud use a healthy 1.5hr practise
tats roughli wat jp did....

im yet to disciplin myself on tat

maybe you should read my blog before getting a guitar lesson

1.Wrong , you HAVE to learn songs *by yourself . not with your guitar teacher . That was one of the few mistakes that i made ...by learning riffs / technique / scales ...

you will realized later you are going to be a guitarist who can only play "his own thing" ...and you are too lazy / or canot cover ANY songs ..
and if i throw you a 2 hours gig , you are going to sound the same for the whole 2 hours

2.ok what he said was wrong

3.never experienced

4.You don't . you can try this

75bpm - 10 minutes
150 bpm - 10 minutes
80 bpm - 10 minutes
160 bpm - 10 minutes
85bpm - 10 minutes
170 bpm - 10 minutes ( if not clean , go back to 160 Bpm )

easiest way to increase speed is ..practice half the speed , then double it up

This post has been edited by gapnap: May 25 2008, 03:29 PM

gapnap, i have read your wonderful blog.

looks like i need a friend...

btw, your answer on my question 4, can i use it as my daily routine? my objective is for speed and precision. any particular scale patern which i could use for the routine or should i just stick with the good ol chromatic scale? or should i change to a whole new set of routine?

I'm not very experienced, but play a different scale every day, and after the practice, reward yourself by learning a song, or parts of it

makes guitar playing very fresh, not repetitive and boring, as it ought to be

oh and hardcore practicing won't do you much good either, make sure if you feel you've reached your limit, take a break and come back later. you'll find playing things with a relaxed mind much easier

the hardest part is probably sticking to that routine, I'm having trouble sitting down still to practice using the metronome.

you can use it for your daily routine..but remember ...there are so much more to guitar playing other than speed and technique..
and remember , speed without control ..is nothing..

well..to make life more interesting ..i usually recommend my students NOT to have a routine ..
But have Short term goals ..like .."By 30th June i want to be able to play that 3 string arpeggio's sweep from far beyond the sun" ..

and work towards 30th June . No point making your practice boring . only practice when you feel like it . if you don't enjoy what you are doing , the practice wouldn't be productive at all..

about scales..trust me lah..major , minor , harmonic minor , melody minor,pentatonic is more than enough ..
i have seen stuff like Ninja scales , Arabic scales , Sex scales..but the only place you use em' is when you are writing your own song.
Most of the time you will find yourself using the major minor harmonic minor and melodic minor much more than those tiny scales...

well personally i would have to disagree with his method of teaching. i'm not gonna go into details, but maybe its just that different teachers teach differently.

there is alot more to teach than just that.
(i'm not sayin that its wrong, i actually do teach chromatic scales in the very first few lessons with a beginner student, but with a different purpose behind it; basics to practice with a metronome, left hand finger independance, right hand picking coordination).

You've got to learn the way of the blues, brother.
It's much simpler.
You can play it as fast or as slow as you want but it will still sound sexy.

As for the strain...not sure about that.
Been playing guitar for a while and no injury whatsoever.
(except for finger's skin peeling off. hehe. )

I really don't understand this obsession many guitarists have with playing super-fast. Yes, speed is important, but unless you're set on playing blazing heavy metal solos all the time, you'll gain much more by focusing on the expression of single notes. It sounds basic, but trust me; once you've heard how the true masters play, you'll realize that achieving complete control over your tone is a lot harder than it seems. My philosophy is: why play 10 half-hearted notes per second when I can just play a single, expressive one?

Again, I am not saying that speed isn't important, but too often it is waaaay overrated

Agreed.
Listen to b.b.king.
He plays solos which have got much slower tempos and very expressive single notes.
But, speed is cool.

instead of playing 4/2 with the metronome..try 4/4..

I remember Zakk saying "if you can't use it, don't play it. The brain can hold only that much amount of information, and after years of boozing, that doesn't help either. So don't play stuff you'll never end up using and concentrate on stuff that you might."

Sure, it's good to know what chromatics are, but if you ain't going to use it in your playing, what's the use? Try pentatonic runs or even simple minor/major runs to break the monotony of playing JUST chromatics.

---

Added on March 4, 2009, 5:33 pmI just realized you revived an almost year old thread. TS probably long gone already.



This post has been edited by blacktrix: Mar 4 2009, 05:33 PM

ya blacktrix. haha , looks like today a lot of old threads got revived by 2 forummers

anyway, when i first started , I thought that speed is cool. But now i'm starting to listen to more and more blues and bluesy rock stuffs.

maybe its a sign of growing old :S

perhaps u could say that u've matured in music