left hand technique

[steve]

does any body know how I could increase my left hand "fretting power" speed (as I call it). After I was watching "A year and a half in the life of metallica" seeing kirk hammett playing a really fast solo. I've tried to play as much solo's and scales as possible. I've been playing TAB and I've memorized the blues, major and minor pentatonic (1,2 and 3 octave scales) and major and minor (1 and possibly the 2 octave scales

[steve]

). Any techniques to speed up my playing???

[Zero]

All i can say is practice, practice, practice. I know this is probably not the answer you want to hear but, it's probably one of the few ways that will increase your speed. Also, read the stuff Jamey Andreas says. He talks about increasing your speed of playing.

www.guitarprinciples.com

[mjamer]

Live by the metronome!

I really can't stress that enough.. I'm not sure if it really helps in reality.. but in the the sense of showing you that you are indeed improving and keeping that hunger/drive alive and on fire.. it will definitly do that and you'll be playing up to speed before you know it.

I don't want to re-iterate what jamey says, or what countless others say to do (relax!).. I'll just share experience with you =)

I played for the longest time "man handling" the guitar on my solo's thinking that was how it was to be done. When I finally learned about relaxation, tension (biggest part was letting a finger relax after playing a note!) I started over. I started playing with a metronome and playing so very slow watching each finger and making sure it relaxed.. slowly increasing the metronome of course.

After a while I went back to playing some solos i knew .. i actually laughed at that point because it became so clear as to why I couldn't play as fast as i wanted.. I could see/feel it differently than before. Now when I feel myself playing a solo and starting to tense up, I use what I practice daily (relaxation / tension) and it really improves the solo, allowing for more phrasing flexibility and over all fretboard freedom.

Just wanted to share because you truely do see and feel results.

mjamer

[cyberfret]

Once you can play the scales up and down comfortably, try playing them with some different patterns.

Here are a couple to start with. Once you understand the idea, you can come up with your own. All of the examples are written for an A major scale, but you should apply them to all scales. The numbers used to describe the scale patterns are just the order that you would play the notes in the scale.

Scale pattern 1231, 2342, 3453 etc...

E:-----------|---------|---------|-----------
B:-----------|---------|---------|-----------
G:-----------|---------|---------|-----------
D:-----------|---------|---------|-----4-----
A:-------4---|---4-5---|-4-5-7-4-|-5-7---5--- ETC....
E:---5-7---5-|-7-----7-|---------|-----------


You could do exactly the same thing coming back down

E:--4-5-7-4--|---4-5---|-----4---|------------
B:-----------|-7-----7-|-5-7---5-|---5-7------
G:-----------|---------|---------|-7-----7---- ETC....
D:-----------|---------|---------|------------
A:-----------|---------|---------|------------
E:-----------|---------|---------|------------




Or you could reverse the direction coming back down

E:--7-5-4-7--|--5-4---5-|--4-----4-|------------
B:-----------|------7---|----7-5---|-7-5---7----
G:-----------|----------|----------|-----7------ ETC....
D:-----------|----------|----------|------------
A:-----------|----------|----------|------------
E:-----------|----------|----------|------------



Here are some other patterns that you might try. If there are 2 or 4 notes in the sequence, play using 8th notes (2 times per beat) or 16th notes (4 times per beat). If there are 3 notes in the sequence, use 8th triplets (3 times per beat) , or 16th note triplets (6 times per beat).


Scale Patterns

1321, 2432, 3543.....
1234, 2345, 3456......
13, 24, 35.......


123, 234, 345.....
135, 246, 357....
121, 232, 343....
212, 323, 434...


--Shawn