The relaxed technique Zach is showing is key to preserving your chops, especially if you play at Mach 1 on a regular basis. Sound technique and ergonomics are super important, especially when you start getting up in years. Even though I did my best to practice both of these, I developed arthritis at the base of both thumbs. Fortunately there’s a surgery that was able to fix both thumbs successfully. I spent about thirty-plus years as a working musician. Guitar was my main instrument, but I doubled on keys and bass. I retired from gigging in 2001, but continued to work on my guitar playing. I used .009s until the arthritis showed up. It first appeared in my left thumb when I was in my early sixties. Cortisone shots and switching to .008s bought me a few years before needing surgery. The right thumb followed about five years later. I just turned 70, I still use .008s, and I try to put in a couple hours of practice every day-thankfully pain-free. I consider myself extremely lucky, especially after watching what Steve Morse has gone through. Playing a guitar requires repetitive motion in your shoulders, arms, and especially your hands. At some point you’re likely to face some degree of discomfort. Some changes in technique, along with various medical and non-medical options can spare you unnecessary pain and time away from your instrument. Here’s to good health! Thanks Zach!
I realize the audio is a little weird. There's like a slight fuzzy sound when I talk. Trying a new mic, and it has this going on. Really bothers me, but i couldn't fix it in post. Is it gonna affect the shred? No. So, don't worry about it
@@ZachAdkinsGuitar i got the Black Lion Audio PG-P type F cheap off thomann for less than 100euro, the electricity in Spanish apartments means overwhelming electrical interference and my DI tracks were essentially unusable until i got the conditioner and the difference is night and day
With arms the size of my legs, I'm sure it's easy to push a pick across a string. :) So many concepts regarding speed but yep, keep the picking distance as small as possible and stay as relaxed as possible w/o dropping the pick. Keep an angle so the pick glides over the string and try to practice slow with the same motions as you'll need fast. But FINDING the exact motions/technique that will work at blazing speeds is sometimes hard for people to do. I always asked myself "am I playing this the correct way?" and mostly you never get a definitive answer because there's so many people with speed but different ways of achieving it. Shawn Lane picked with his pick at a reverse angle which most players don't do. Also every scale and every arpeggio and every line will need to be practiced for speed. Another idea is to play always faster than you think you can play and just keep pushing that boundary. Anticipate in your mind the feeling of how it feels to play it that fast and then just try to speed up the entire movement of your arm/hands/fingers. Low action helps, small string gauges do not. godz... economy picking.... I find that so difficult. Nice vid.
Ive been trying to improve my tremolo picking lately and economy of motion certainly helps. It helps keep it clean and fluid. My main issue is staying loose and not tensing up too much. Good stuff brother. \m/
That's a common thing. You need to slow it way down and bump it by 5 bpm, and the second you start tensing up, you stay at that tempo for awhile until you can relax at that speed. Then push it up by 5bpm. Rinse repeat
Using the “stylus pick” helped me with this problem. When you use a conical tip pick, you REALLY get a feel for how much travel you have verses how much you need. Great video as normal 🤙🏽 cheers
That's unbelievably ... fantastically...incredibly wonderful. I'll be whistling those melodies all week. Your songs just stick in my head ... so memorable 💓
One thing that i have found really helped my speed over all was just practicing scales left hand only and build up your legato speed, once you sync that up with your picking speed, alternate picked speed bursts feel very effortless. * I should say fretting hand only since not everyone plays the same way lol.
I would agree that the right hand can really mess stuff up. The big thing is making sure both hands are perfectly in sync. People can legato really quickly, but when they add the pick they fail. Everything should be brought up together
@@ZachAdkinsGuitar great advice to by the way! But yea, I had to say it because there’s a lot of color schemes but that’s the exact one I’d want. A 6 or a 7? Not sure. Keep at it! \\m//(-_-)\\m//
That one changed the game for me a long while ago. I was like, why didn't I do this before?? The extra tension really helps the rebound of the string and keeps your pick tighter
Basically be as efficient as possible with your picking hand. Got it. I actually realized this doing Slayer rhythms. I figured out that when they're doing the fast reverse gallops, they're letting the string do most of the work and barely moving the pick. Interesting topic.
I change my grip slightly. I use a swinging grip for normal playing and call it my articulate grip. When I shred alternate pick, my put more thumb on it and angle it or slant down, and I think differently. This is what I call my sandpaper grip and the thinking is more like a purely mechanical action to get a machine gun effect from my notes played. Each has a different purpose to achieve what i want to express in the passage of music. You can also think of shred picking as like how those bank teller count wads od notes without the machine
Slow it down as painfully slow as you can. And don't move on until it's perfect. Then increase by 5bpm only. And until you can do it with no effort or strain, then increase by 5bpm. Repeat repeat repeat.
@@ZachAdkinsGuitar It's already made a significant difference. Not only am I able to pick faster, I'm also able to "listen" faster. In the past, I'd struggle to keep time when trying to play fast. Today, I was able to change from 1/8 notes to triplets to 1/16 notes while picking faster than ever before.
@ZachAdkinsGuitar Indeed, a metronome is crucial. Now, I need to start putting some effort into changing time signatures to 5/4 and back. Do you have any tips or videos on quintuplets and other challenging meters? Thanks again. This lesson has pretty much been a game-changer for me. It shouldn't take much longer for me to finally nail the verse in Slipknot's "Duality".
I'm 32 now, started when I was 12. So, about 20 years. But, I would say my peak was about 2 years ago because I was playing more. So, let's say 16-18 years?
Actually there’s a guy I saw about a week ago on a crazy technique and speed video, guy was using a super thick pick, looked like huge width pick. I don’t know maybe he’s on to something?
I've used thicker picks, thinner picks, floppy picks, different material picks. It all comes down to the technique and making sure you push with your elbow and lock that wrist in place. I use Swiss picks, they are great quality and the material is super dense which is nice. Definitely recommend
Yea I know who you're talking about, but he can play just as fast with a thinner pick too. Watch his technique and notice how his wrist is locked, he pushes with his elbow, and he is relaxed.
You have to treat it like a sweep pick. Jeff Loomis called me about this exact thing. He was struggling with the descending economy picking. You literally have to drag the pick with your elbow upward.
@ZachAdkinsGuitar no I apologise. The video was invaluable. That's why I subbed. So many guitar players are snobby. You just lay the truth for people to get better. My fault 100%. Good luck bro. Steve- from England
@@ZachAdkinsGuitar I’m under the distinct impression that one is far better off to learn how to alternate pick fast by practicing fast in very small chunks (two notes, then three etc et) in order to develop the actual muscle memory. Is this not what you say or confirm in the first several minutes of the video? (Along with it is a completely different way of playing technique wise etc as you said as well) I’m confused. When I started way back I did the whole increase BPM slowly. Minimal progress. Then many years ago I did two things: 1. Developed tremolo picking technique starting out ‘fast’ 2. Practiced fast runs in chunks That got me pretty good results Another thing I noticed was that by practicing in these ‘chunks’ an additional benefit is that you mentally ‘chunk’ things into larger units so to speak so you don’t have to think of individual notes (don’t know if I am explaining this well) Am I wrong here?
This dude looks like he would play in pantera. I want to get started with guitar wonder what he would recommend as a start electric guitar ? Wonder what he thinks of @jacobderaps RUclips channel guitar playing ?
The relaxed technique Zach is showing is key to preserving your chops, especially if you play at Mach 1 on a regular basis. Sound technique and ergonomics are super important, especially when you start getting up in years. Even though I did my best to practice both of these, I developed arthritis at the base of both thumbs. Fortunately there’s a surgery that was able to fix both thumbs successfully. I spent about thirty-plus years as a working musician. Guitar was my main instrument, but I doubled on keys and bass. I retired from gigging in 2001, but continued to work on my guitar playing. I used .009s until the arthritis showed up. It first appeared in my left thumb when I was in my early sixties. Cortisone shots and switching to .008s bought me a few years before needing surgery. The right thumb followed about five years later. I just turned 70, I still use .008s, and I try to put in a couple hours of practice every day-thankfully pain-free. I consider myself extremely lucky, especially after watching what Steve Morse has gone through.
Playing a guitar requires repetitive motion in your shoulders, arms, and especially your hands. At some point you’re likely to face some degree of discomfort. Some changes in technique, along with various medical and non-medical options can spare you unnecessary pain and time away from your instrument. Here’s to good health! Thanks Zach!
Thanks so much. Great insight here!!
I realize the audio is a little weird. There's like a slight fuzzy sound when I talk. Trying a new mic, and it has this going on. Really bothers me, but i couldn't fix it in post.
Is it gonna affect the shred? No. So, don't worry about it
AI BOT CONFIRMED
Whaaa
Sounds like the mic is picking up electrical interference, id get this alot in my apartment, a cheap power conditioner sorted it out for me
Yea, I have to get one of those!!
@@ZachAdkinsGuitar i got the Black Lion Audio PG-P type F cheap off thomann for less than 100euro, the electricity in Spanish apartments means overwhelming electrical interference and my DI tracks were essentially unusable until i got the conditioner and the difference is night and day
Dude, your practical tips and insights here are much appreciated. The push with your elbow tip in particular changed the game for me.
Keep me posted on how you're improving, and if you had some other tips to add!
That method makes so much sense. Thank you, Zach! Love it. 🎸
Glad it was helpful! 🙏🙏🙏
With arms the size of my legs, I'm sure it's easy to push a pick across a string. :) So many concepts regarding speed but yep, keep the picking distance as small as possible and stay as relaxed as possible w/o dropping the pick. Keep an angle so the pick glides over the string and try to practice slow with the same motions as you'll need fast. But FINDING the exact motions/technique that will work at blazing speeds is sometimes hard for people to do. I always asked myself "am I playing this the correct way?" and mostly you never get a definitive answer because there's so many people with speed but different ways of achieving it. Shawn Lane picked with his pick at a reverse angle which most players don't do. Also every scale and every arpeggio and every line will need to be practiced for speed. Another idea is to play always faster than you think you can play and just keep pushing that boundary. Anticipate in your mind the feeling of how it feels to play it that fast and then just try to speed up the entire movement of your arm/hands/fingers. Low action helps, small string gauges do not. godz... economy picking.... I find that so difficult. Nice vid.
Great little bits of info in your reply. Thank you so much. We can always learn from each other!
Ive been trying to improve my tremolo picking lately and economy of motion certainly helps. It helps keep it clean and fluid. My main issue is staying loose and not tensing up too much. Good stuff brother. \m/
That's a common thing. You need to slow it way down and bump it by 5 bpm, and the second you start tensing up, you stay at that tempo for awhile until you can relax at that speed. Then push it up by 5bpm. Rinse repeat
Using the “stylus pick” helped me with this problem. When you use a conical tip pick, you REALLY get a feel for how much travel you have verses how much you need. Great video as normal 🤙🏽 cheers
I will have to check out the stylus pick!
I also used it. Gave one to all my students as well.
That's unbelievably ... fantastically...incredibly wonderful.
I'll be whistling those melodies all week.
Your songs just stick in my head ... so memorable 💓
Thanks for the lesson man! I have run into these experiences with my own playing.
Glad to help! 🙏🙏🙏
This was really helpful for me personally, it seems like if there was a wrong way to do stuff I found it. Thanks Again.
Glad it helped!
Truly some of the best advice I've seen. Nice job, dude.⚔️
Much appreciated! Keep me posted on the progress, in invested now
G-d , what a great teacher
Thank you! 🙏🙏
I own 4 music schools with almost 800 students enrolled. Love playing guitar and teaching music to everyone :)
To play faster, first you have to be humble, don't be arrogant. Just focus on your goal and stop showing off.
Fair
One thing that i have found really helped my speed over all was just practicing scales left hand only and build up your legato speed, once you sync that up with your picking speed, alternate picked speed bursts feel very effortless.
* I should say fretting hand only since not everyone plays the same way lol.
I would agree that the right hand can really mess stuff up. The big thing is making sure both hands are perfectly in sync. People can legato really quickly, but when they add the pick they fail. Everything should be brought up together
Yes synchronization is everything. It's sometimes beneficial to look at the hands separately to identify quickly where the problems are.
I hope one day I can afford that exact model and color majesty. Good advice.
Thanks for the comment! It's a killer guitar. 🙏
@@ZachAdkinsGuitar great advice to by the way! But yea, I had to say it because there’s a lot of color schemes but that’s the exact one I’d want. A 6 or a 7? Not sure. Keep at it!
\\m//(-_-)\\m//
5:01 thats what Ive been trying to tell Rick Beato for YEARS!
Some solid tips there! I liked the one about picking closer to the bridge, that makes a lot of sense and I've never heard anyone say it before.
That one changed the game for me a long while ago. I was like, why didn't I do this before?? The extra tension really helps the rebound of the string and keeps your pick tighter
I'll second this I've watched hundreds of videos and never heard this tip.
Glad to hear it is singing new to try. Keep me posted on how it's affecting your playing!
Some of these bluegrass musicians like Molly Tuttle and Billy Strings have crazy picking.
Thank you Zach! Your Video will help me a lot to build up speed!
Definitely keep me posted! Which tip did you like the most?
Basically be as efficient as possible with your picking hand. Got it.
I actually realized this doing Slayer rhythms. I figured out that when they're doing the fast reverse gallops, they're letting the string do most of the work and barely moving the pick. Interesting topic.
Yup! Trying to get that mind muscle connection, and make sure you control the effort
Great lesson...lot of good advice
Much appreciated! Hopefully it helps people reach their speed need
That guitar is gorgeous. I’m going to have to settle for the Sterling. The USA version is a giant investment.
GOOD JOB, WELL DONE
Holy shit! You rule! 🎉
Thank you! Hope it helps!
Dang it, my arm DID fall off!
Are you gonna get it reattached?
@ My sex life depends on it.
Nahhh
I feel like I have the opposite issue. My right hand can play super fast, then my left hand doesn’t move across the fretboard as fast as I can pick.
dude this is awesome and i am subscribed.
Thank you for the sub! Glad it helped. Keep me posted on the updates 💪💪
I change my grip slightly. I use a swinging grip for normal playing and call it my articulate grip. When I shred alternate pick, my put more thumb on it and angle it or slant down, and I think differently. This is what I call my sandpaper grip and the thinking is more like a purely mechanical action to get a machine gun effect from my notes played.
Each has a different purpose to achieve what i want to express in the passage of music.
You can also think of shred picking as like how those bank teller count wads od notes without the machine
Great tips thank-you!
i used to teach very similar techniques way back when. also if you sharpen your pick it cuts movement and gives a better attack to the sound.
Yup. Pick has a lot to do with it once you have the technique down, you can really hone in the other stuff!
Nice economy picking bro!
Thanks for the instruction!! Could you turn off the delay and reverb so we can hear each note with some clarity.
I don't believe a word you said. Your skill is entirely in that Majesty. John Petrucci's spirit that lives in the guitar lends you his power.
I got to 320 BPM for 16th notes tremolo which I was happy about. My issue comes with synchronization particularly on sextuplets.
Slow it down as painfully slow as you can. And don't move on until it's perfect. Then increase by 5bpm only. And until you can do it with no effort or strain, then increase by 5bpm. Repeat repeat repeat.
This is my first time here. Subscribed!
Thank you! Hope it helped and gets you shredding 👍👍👍
@@ZachAdkinsGuitar It's already made a significant difference. Not only am I able to pick faster, I'm also able to "listen" faster. In the past, I'd struggle to keep time when trying to play fast. Today, I was able to change from 1/8 notes to triplets to 1/16 notes while picking faster than ever before.
@anthonystark5412 hell yes!!! Keep it up. Use a metronome
@ZachAdkinsGuitar Indeed, a metronome is crucial.
Now, I need to start putting some effort into changing time signatures to 5/4 and back.
Do you have any tips or videos on quintuplets and other challenging meters?
Thanks again. This lesson has pretty much been a game-changer for me. It shouldn't take much longer for me to finally nail the verse in Slipknot's "Duality".
mans a robot i hear the beeping
A VERY good video.⚔️
Thank you!
Subbed!
Thank you!!! 🙏🙏
Also try a Fender model 358 heavy pick, its tiny but has lots off tone! ♨️
Those are nice! I use the Swiss picks 1.3 jazz plus
"You wanna look like you're not doin' anything". Proceeds to look like he's taking a massive 💩. 💀💀💀
Hahaha. My wife said the same thing 🤣🤣🤣
Yeah I don't really want to bag the guy cause he obviously has some impressive speed but I thought exactly the same thing...
Very helpful tips! Got a sub from me!👍
Thanks for this video. Instantly suscribed!
Glad you dig it! Thanks for the sub 💪💪
How long did it take for you to get that good?
I'm 32 now, started when I was 12. So, about 20 years. But, I would say my peak was about 2 years ago because I was playing more. So, let's say 16-18 years?
I guess COVID helped many guitarists to improve their playing.
I wish I could sit with you so I could learn
I do zoom lessons
adkinsguitarandmusic@gmail.com
use a thicker pick.
Actually there’s a guy I saw about a week ago on a crazy technique and speed video, guy was using a super thick pick, looked like huge width pick. I don’t know maybe he’s on to something?
It's really about whatever works for you and your style.
I've used thicker picks, thinner picks, floppy picks, different material picks. It all comes down to the technique and making sure you push with your elbow and lock that wrist in place.
I use Swiss picks, they are great quality and the material is super dense which is nice. Definitely recommend
I would agree with this!
Yea I know who you're talking about, but he can play just as fast with a thinner pick too. Watch his technique and notice how his wrist is locked, he pushes with his elbow, and he is relaxed.
I can do ascending economy picking pretty fast but sort of struggle with descending. not sure if anyone else can relate
You have to treat it like a sweep pick. Jeff Loomis called me about this exact thing. He was struggling with the descending economy picking. You literally have to drag the pick with your elbow upward.
@@ZachAdkinsGuitar I'll give it my best shot. Thanks man
I prefer one or two notes per second, but with amazing feel and groove. Check out David Gilmour.
Nah I'm good
This is a good instructional vid. Thank you! Another way of becoming a speed picker is to train under the tutelage of Emmanuel Aguilar for a year.
Not sure who that is. But, he must be pretty sick 💪💪
What type and guage of pick do you use ?
These are the Swiss picks 1.3 jazz plus. Badass picks!
Dude the sound is reverb jacked on voice
I figured it out after the fact. But, I didn't wanna re record
What happened to the audio?. Good video
The new microphone. I didn't have it figured correctly
@ZachAdkinsGuitar no I apologise. The video was invaluable. That's why I subbed. So many guitar players are snobby. You just lay the truth for people to get better. My fault 100%. Good luck bro. Steve- from England
Wow do you ever look like Wolfgang Van Halen. Wow!
I've heard 👀👀👀
@@ZachAdkinsGuitar I really admire him! He has gone through a lot with losing his father. My guitar hero. Angus too! ❤️
Women LOOOVE rhythym playerz picking ability if ya know what i mean.
Still subbed
Appreciate it!
@ZachAdkinsGuitar you're welcome. Thanks for helping
That's a weird artifact on your vocal mic.
Yes, it's annoying. But I got it fixed going forward
Why all the delay?
Yeah I agree delay not good when demonstrating picking exercise. Still really good info though
It's just the default neutral dsp John Petrucci setting.
@@ZachAdkinsGuitarwhat do you think of that plug-in compared to others? I’m tempted to buy it but it seems polarising
But I'm left handed 😢
Now play 1 note every 18
seconds 😂
JESUS FIX THE MOSQUITO DISTORTION IN THE MIC
I did. But it was too late after posting
@@ZachAdkinsGuitar BRO YOU ALMOST MURDERED ME WITH THAT
Very skilled but sooo boring in soloing! No feeling whatsoever.
That's your opinion
RiFFAGE
Hell yea
Getting a bit tired of these guitar Olympics.
Quite boring.
The well-intentioned “start slow and increase BPM gradually” is one of the ironically worse and counterproductive pieces of advice ever for guitar
Literally no it's not.
@@ZachAdkinsGuitar I’m under the distinct impression that one is far better off to learn how to alternate pick fast by practicing fast in very small chunks (two notes, then three etc et) in order to develop the actual muscle memory.
Is this not what you say or confirm in the first several minutes of the video? (Along with it is a completely different way of playing technique wise etc as you said as well)
I’m confused.
When I started way back I did the whole increase BPM slowly. Minimal progress.
Then many years ago I did two things:
1. Developed tremolo picking technique starting out ‘fast’
2. Practiced fast runs in chunks
That got me pretty good results
Another thing I noticed was that by practicing in these ‘chunks’ an additional benefit is that you mentally ‘chunk’ things into larger units so to speak so you don’t have to think of individual notes (don’t know if I am explaining this well)
Am I wrong here?
Don't talk more than do.
Don't not use English language right
This dude looks like he would play in pantera. I want to get started with guitar wonder what he would recommend as a start electric guitar ?
Wonder what he thinks of @jacobderaps RUclips channel guitar playing ?
Why ?
I have an idea. Learn to write a melody before you learn to pick really fast.
Nah that's lame
@@ZachAdkinsGuitar haha fair enough bro!
@APK-pn4qh 💪💪💪😎
That’s not what the video is about dimwit.
Jeez
Great tips. Thank you!
You are so welcome!