A jazz guitar teacher I once had always told me it’s harder to play slower than faster. He would make me do scale practice with the metronome set at forty.
@@GoFigure621 DUDE! Funny you should comment about this now. Because that's EXACTLY what I'm trying to do at 35 right now! And that's just picking one note. Subdividing it faster then slower. It's very humbling.
Here's my crazy take on speed technique that was influenced strongly by Shawn Lanes words, this works for me at my level: Go fast now, clean up later. Break the sections you're working on into clear chunks, play it methodically slow with no exaggerated motion to embed the muscle memory (you'll realize if you need to go back to this step pretty easily), then start bursting the chunks you've selected. Never graduate the metronome (70>75>80>85) you're just wasting time because going for a slightly faster walk doesn't help you win the 100m sprint. The very last thing you do (in my ruleset anyway) is lower the metronome value or graduate it, unless it's completely eating you alive and it's obvious you won't make it, always lower the length of your grouping first, that's first priority lets say, ahead of lowering the speed- So say the note grouping you had initially chunked was a sextuplet, cut the last note out of that sextuplet, repeat all the way down to 2 if you have to, only then do you cave in and lower the metronome. Pretty extremist from the outside I know, but I've got some absolute speed demons of kids (students xD) to show for it.
In my early 20s I went through a Shawn Lane period and I took his advice on speed to heart (…and it was kind of what I was doing already lol). It works, kids. Try it.
I agree 100%. You don't pick a passage the same way at 60 BPM that you do at 160 BPM. I used to practice slow and work my way up and couldn't understand why I'd hit a wall. Once I realized that you pick and play differently at really fast speeds, I changed the way I practiced. I had a teacher that suggested playing the first two notes of a phrase at speed, then add a third, fourth, etc. There isn't one single way to do this. Another trick I picked up along the way is to alternate playing the passage at full speed and half speed.
@@clarkkent6482 Totally right. If you learn at a slow tempo, your right hand will cheat and bring the pick above the level of the strings in a movement that won't translate to high tempos. Then you're just embedding inefficient string hopping instead of correct escape movements, and tension because you can feel that something isn't right. Professionals can get away with learning passages at graduated tempos because they already know the correct technique; they just want to learn the notes. But if you're plateauing, it really is like learning to sprint by walking faster and faster. It won't work because the movements are fundamentally different (unless you're pushing your pick through the strings really slowly). Even Petrucci recommends playing at silly tempos to break through speed barriers.
Man, I remember years ago wanting to get into jazz and finding your channel and being mostly like “meh, maybe another time” but your videos in the last months have been absolutely nothing short of incredible. Your technique is great, your lines are amazing, and all of your advice is super actionable and easy to understand. Keep up the great work Jens, greetings from Germany
Your lesson videos are now the best on the web. The editing, pop ups, and fun references, make the lesson approachable and easy to digest. Thank you Jens.
Hello from Brazil. Bass and Guitar Player here. When I was Young I had Problems with Not only playing fast but thinking fast too. I could read Very Well but never improvise fast. IMO my thoughts were too accelerated. 1) when I started to speak english (21y/o) my thoughts started to organize in different patterns. 2) When I started to learn German my improvise got more calm. 3) after learning Italiano it got short and Square enabling me to think ahead of the measures. It feels like I am Not faster in fact, but i organize the thoughts much better. 4) Physically talking (besides the technical study) for me was to Go to Gym and Work my muscular Tonus. I learn languages as a hobby...........
transcribing helped me take a step forward in playing faster, though I never really focused on fast playing that much. But I think a key to playing fast is synchronizing what you hear internally with what you want to output. If you can't follow the changes internally and anticipate the changes no amount of fast technique will help you. I think this is where we get stuck, focussing on technique and not knowing the music well enough. Re: foot tapping, alternate feet ;)
Who is your favorite when it comes to up-tempo playing? Maybe an example of a great track? This is another aspect of playing uptempo that really helps: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-msmdbxsjmvI.html
Great lesson and great advice as always Jens. I think McLaughlin, Dimeola and Paco established the whole ramped up tempo playing . Friday night at San Francisco is an album where you can hear some riffs. But I don't think that's straight up jazz.. maybe more Mediterranean fusion... some non functional harmony. You are an incredibly skilled guitarist Mr. Larsen and extremely humble too.
Of current jazz guitarists that can shred, Joscho Stephan is my favorite. His ideas always go somewhere & I love the way he quotes & he just has a lovely sound. If you haven’t heard him play Isn’t She Lovely, you should.
Late artist known as Prince had a song "Joy in Repetition", probably he was meaning more carnal pleasures, but gaining assurance and dexterity thru repetition is not a lesser joy IMHO. It is only about where you put your priorities
In Jazz playing fast means to THINK fast, in Rock and Classical Music it is enough to train your fingers and have a good memory. In Jazz you need to think while improvising a lot about chords, scales etc. AND have well trained fingers, so Jazz is the Kings and Queens discipline.
In all my years of teaching, it always comes back to knowing the fundamentals really, really, well, and I appreciate how you emphasize that in all of your videos. Your approach to developing speed along with the comment from @DSMusic below, give folks some true and tested options to find what works best for them. Cheers!
I really appreciate this lesson. Every tip helps. The first time I heard Joe Pass and NHOP doing “Donna Lee” at an insanely fast tempo (over 300bpm I think) was almost enough to make me give up. Fortunately I found some video lessons from rock shredders that gave me some exercises to work on. They really helped, and my speed increased to a certain degree. Unfortunately now, with a sick wife who needs almost constant attention, I’ve had little time to work much on that aspect of technique. Still, I do enjoy what time I do have.
I'm curious about the details of the Steve Morse inspired exercises that you mentioned, but I haven't been able to find those older video(s). What could I search for?
I've found particularly useful making one string right hand combinations (1234, 1243, 1324, ... All 24 of them). I make each one on sixteenth notes on 4/4 bars, and slide a half step all the way up and down. I do it with no metronome, at the fastest tempo possible. Repeating each group 4 times gives me time to check my shoulders, back, hand relaxation and position, I consider those more important than getting a fast but stressed tempo, so I can speed up or slow down freely (tho I try to avoid that). To complement, I pick one of the combinations and do it with metronome at the fastest tempo possible, shifting strings as a 3 min endurance exercise. Some times I try to get out of my nails the ugliest sound possible, hitting the string wears off the exceed of nail and it helps keeping the the shape smooth. I also change right hand fingering. (I play nylon)
isn't it the same as the Great bebop "guitarist| Bruce Lee said: "I am more afraid of someone who just practiced one kick instead of sombody who practices 10 kick s a day...??"" less is more...???/LoL Rofl!!!
I’m a huge fan of your channel. On the topic of speed, question yourself on the following matter: did you learn to walk slow, and then gradually speed up? I guess not. Muscle memory doesn’t work like that. Personally, my world opened up when I did the opposite of what your suggesting. Don’t get me wrong here. The concept of starting slow and speeding up has been around for many decades and has been distributed by many teachers. Nowadays, there has been more medical research on practising for musicians. What has come out is that practising chunks very quickly while focusing on muscle tension has been far more successful for many people, then the start slow speed up concept.
@@JensLarsen from what I understood it looked like you were promoting the start slow and then speed up practice method, as you literally stated in your video. Of course there are many ways to interpretate that. Just wanted to highlight what my teachers (which some of them where yours as well 😉 ), that although the 'gradually speed up' method you're talking about, does work for a very small amount of people. For most guitar players (especially those who are able to play fast and explain how they got there) it doesn't work
@@ChrisDv849 Well, the method I am talking about here has you play at the top speed of your ability every day, and I get the impression that you don't think that is the case? And I actually mention using smaller patterns as well, though that is not what I did that much,
Thank you. Ha just when I was thinking it seems you don’t mention (I haven’t seen most of your vids) Wes Montgomery you mention Wes Montgomery. BB King said he couldn’t play fast(what??) because his brain isn’t fast(I believe he said that). I think that is my problem at playing fast(er). My brain can’t do it. Also it seems my playing is like my speech, I stutter, doing scales, arpeggios I seem to stutter playing. The only exercise I seem to increase speed is a chromatic diagonal scale I learned years ago in a guitar mag article by Steve Vai. It seems to give me some confidence (until I watch your videos scratching my head haha). I need a brain speeder-upper exercise haha. I love listening to fast jazz guitar with the likes of Wes Montgomery and you Sir. On a good day I can maybe play a blues scale @ 120bpm ha. Thank you
I think it's harder to play fast with legato, like Scofield does does so well, than picking every note. Last year I was working on country guitar playing and my flat picking (alternate picking) got to be pretty fast and clean compared to how it use to be. My approach was similar to yours: start slow and work up to your target tempo: My goal was to get to 200 bpm, being able to play eighth notes in 4 to 8 bar phrases, pick every note and also use some hybrid picking. Well I got there, eventually. But it wasn't easy. However, going back to jazz and trying to be more legato and NOT pick every note at faster tempos has proven to be a challenge. I tend to come up with ideas in the moment (on a gig) and THEN go back and clean them up later. Kind of a backwards way I suppose but I try to improvise in the purest sense of the word when I am playing live so a lot of what I play is what I am thinking of in the moment. Keep up the videos; I have found them very useful. Cheers!
I tried to build up my speed by working with a metronome and increasing the tempo, but I didn't like the results. As the tempo got faster my playing got tighter and sounded tense. When I slowed down to more natural tempos for me, my playing sounded more relaxed and more musical. But I still wish I could play faster!
Jens I'm struggling a lot with playing fast, and sounding clean and articulate. I'm really trying to improve my technique especially when there is a lot of string skipping involved. I feel almost burned out by this topic lately actually hahahaha. Thank you for your always solid content and advices
I found the Steve Morse stuff super useful for this, so maybe look that up. I talk about those types of exercises in this video and the next one: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-6kZJm6k1b0g.html
Another problem besides speed is getting lost in the song. If there is no chordal instrument I get lost easier. Some of my favorite payers seem comfortable working with only bass and drums. How do they do this? Is my ear just underdeveloped?
Heyy Jens great premier! :-) I come from folk acoustic guitar/music and am starting recently to get into a more jazz approach on electric guitar. Unfortunately my right hand technique isn't really good enough to control the "open" strings.. Would love to see your advise on this! Cheers from London UK, Portugal and Argentina now hehe
@@JensLarsen Ohh i see! I am a right hand sided player and on just playing chords i am pretty comfortable with muting with my left hand but when it come to play soloing plugged in on an guitar amp my left hand struggles to keep the unwanted noise muted ^^ Thanks for your reply!
If you can't express yourself in few slow notes, you have nothing to say, Petrucci is one of the most boring and shallow players in the history of history.
One thing I noticed with playing fast is that sometimes your physical patterns are working well for slow and medium tempos but become a bottleneck when trying to improve speed. Do what works and feels comfortable, not what dogma or theory tells you to. In the end it is about the music, not if you used the theoretically correct technique.
Next week Jonathan Kreisberg plays here in Leipzig. He plays fast af and his articulation and time are still totally flawless. He is unique here. Personally I stick with Jim Hall as I always chased the more lyrical Chet Bakeri’sh approach of playing depressing or cool slow swing which fits my character better 😅 and my technique…
Excellent video! I had to rewind the video back from the zen garden of F as I was laughing too hard after the depiction of tapping your foot at 250 bpm. I've had to repeatedly tell myself to stop doing that when I'm playing an uptempo tune, notice my leg is hurting, then look down to see my foot moving at roughly the speed of a pneumatic drill breaking asphalt.
@4:19 I laughed so hard I spit out my coffee. So true tho relax. People try to run before they can even walk . Practice practice. No song was recorded in one take relax and work on it before you know you’ll have it !
I mean.... Some people hit rock bottom, well here I keep seeing new altitudes. Thanks for these videos, really. They don't help me as much as I'd like them to as there are so many of them, but it's always nice to look at them. PRENCISE?!? That one was so nicely put in that I'm still laughing :) If you ever come to Slovenia, be sure to let me know. It'd be an honour to meet you :)
I recall David Occhipinti once telling me about the time he asked Ed Bickert if Ed did yoga or meditation. There had to be a higher state of mind that Ed was in in order to do all the things he did so magically well. Ed just laughed, apparently. The point is I think for him a lot is happening on a subconscious level? I don’t want to speak for Ed or David. But I loved the garden scene in your video, and I think it hits the nail on the Ed. I mean head.
Is there a preferred way to hold the pick while playing uptempo? On an angle vs straight up and down? Or for that matter relaxed grip vs tight grip on the pick?
@@JensLarsen I will have to check more of your music out. I pretty much follow your lessons and haven't looked at what you're doing. Thanks for the reminder, look forward to listening.
Hey Jens, where are the old videos to check out about free form improvising with open triads? at 1:53. I looked and cannot find this beautifully sounding video you clipped.
I don't have videos on free form improvising with open triads, that is just playing open triads and putting them together. Maybe this is helpful: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-6kZJm6k1b0g.html And otherwise search for spread or open triads on the channel
I tried to make videos like that for a whole year, but the audience was really not interested, so I gave up. Here are some of them in a playlist: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-eTOTO4CGrzs.html
My old bass instructor used a precise formula for hard passages. Start with the metronome slow enough that you can play it 5 times in a row perfectly, then add 5 bpm. Repeat. One mistake and you're back to zero. No cheating. Doesn't take long to master things this way!
Nice lesson sir Jens. That JPetrucci Rock Discipline lesson gave me great technique when im started playing elec guitar. Now its your videos. That yamaha sg in the background is still handsome though. Cheers
..Jens!..greetings from NY..a great video about how to practice, and looking at it in various ways man..i almost fell off my chair when you circled the bottle on the shelf, that was hilarious lol..i’m beginning to see that the best educators on YT are covering much more than just licks, you are one the best man, thank you..btw I’ve been listening to Eef Albers lately a bit..nice that you studied with him..stay safe and stay strong..New York..November 10, 2022..
John Petrucci Is the worst example to play fast for a jazz station...he Do It "in position"and condances scales in chromatic parts not in a jazz way(obviously)and like a fingering exercises for beginners.So a good example of Speed picking could be Pat Martino and John McLaughlin with Shakti,Al di Meola too!Pat and John use pedal point for control (with right hand very free without support of the body Guitar by Palm or last two fingers) but...when Pat and John play the scales they think about roots Notes and resolve,generally other jazz Guitar player use arpeggios and more Enclosure!The most important think Is "don't thing about position approach!"(Mick Goodrick school)and thing about notes not scales,Thing ti play on through the chords and not into the chords...play horizontal and not vertical in a box.We Need to listen more sitar !ahaha.Anyway to play like Petrucci in a fast way Is like to walk wearing 200 kilos!There's only One man with Petrucci approch before Petrucci..is Al di Meola(but Is Al really jazz player?):the First 5 albums are the University of right hand picking accurate fast.Friday night in San Francisco Is the Bible of Speed picking Technic,to found the parts of Mediterranean Sundance and Guardian Angel Is a solid school! Steve Morse Is another world,Is the master(the best "Rock"Guitar player)not good for jazz and very very personal,particoular but sounds like Guitar and not like trumpet,horn..like McLaughlin and Martino Sorry for my english
@@ShpookyMetal Petrucci consider "Intense Rock" REH by Gilbert his primary school. ...but few famous Guitar rock players play "into"the tempo and not "up"on tempo without rythm sense!
