What do you do to play fast guitar solos?????

[stratoplayer]

hi, im an amateur guitar player who enjoys TRYING to tackle stato and sonata songs, but the solos are nearly imposible.
i know about the rule of practice practice practice
but i want tips like finger placement, warm up excersices, whatever, help pleez!!!

[khamael]

i 'm not a guitarist, but i can say that...5 or 6 years ago, despite my long classical training i couldnt play Stratovarius's solos or more difficult parts...

now with practice , i can play 90% of the solos ( a little changed, to add a touch of mine, wich i think is essential to ahve your own style)...not as beautiful as the originals but...

Jens's solos like those in Glory of the World or Learning to Fly are REALLY hard, nearby impossibles. Jens is not a god for nothing.


Sonata's or COB's solos are really much easier.

[NeonVomit]

Learn scales. Minor scales especially. Many different fingerings, in many different registers. Once you can play an A minor scale very very fast, you should be able to handle most solos.

[htcdude]

You move your fingers reeeeeeeally fast

[Veripalttu]

I don't know how I learned to be fast, it went like ABRAKADABRA and my fingers started moving really fast.

[NeonVomit]

Also try out different modes. Malmsteen uses lots of different weird modes which you should try learning, again it lots of different fingering patterns.

[Twilightsymphony]

Look at the solo and divide it in its different parts, which makes it easier to remember it right, then start slowly and try to play it properly, theres no use in playing fast but crappy (Janick Gers anyone? )

Play with a metronome to practise alternate picking.

Well finger position is a personal thing. I cant play too fast with my thumb on the neck for example, you´ll have to try.

[Twilight Legionnaire]

Also, about the patterns, it's best if you try to play them on 4/4 compasses at first, and in triplets aswell. I used to (and still do) practice basic fingering while watching a movie or something, without even paying attention to what I'm doing.

Try one string patterns first, on all the strings. When you think you've got the hang of that pattern, try making two string patterns (you don't HAVE to follow a scale here, btw), up and down the arm.

That's what I usually do to warm up. And it's great training Don't forget to hit the strings STRAIGHT, when getting on the lower strings people usually tend to bend the tip of their fingers on the string.

Hope that helped.

[stratoplayer]

sorry to sound stupid/lame but i am mexican and now the names of scales and techniques in spanish (my english is superb in linguistics and pronunctiation but not music techniques) so could you guys provide some more detail please??

[NeonVomit]

um... shit. cant help you with that. My spanish REALLY isn't as good as it should be (im half Colombian) Try asking someone who knows about music and knows spanish what a Minor scale and what modes are.

[Aresius]

mm Stratos solos are not that hard.. i can play some and y play for two years...

You should make some finger exersice first with alternate picking... then you shoud learn some easy songs and ofcurse ALWAYS study music ALWAYS... if you know scales it would be easy. Then you should learn some easy solos like farther time ( fast but easy ). When you dominate playing 6string scales fast then you should start with arpeggios ( sweep picking ). A nice song for 3 string arpeggios is : demon driver(malmsteen). You should learn all the inversions for a chord and play it on the first 3 strings ( like luca ) also 6strings arpeggios are good... remember, just practise

sry for my english

[Holy Light]

take lessons.

[Holy Light]

That was my quick answer. I would recommend not just practicing for speed. Practice for clarity, precision, perfection, tone, and phrasing. Small things like vibrato, bends, and just the sound of your picking has a lot to do with making your guitar playing sound good. I know a lot of people who play fast, but it just sounds bad. After you learn to recognize these elements, you will also notice more about other musicians. I play fast, actually the majority of the time. Just don't forget about these important aspects as well. I also recommend practicing with a metronome at all different tempos. If you want to get real fast, learn how to economy pick. (Example - down, up, down, down, up down, etc...). It's a hybrid of sweep picking and alternate picking. I would first recommend practicing alternate picking.

[khamael]

I know a lot of people who play fast, but it just sounds bad.

i also know a lot of people like this.


they say: "wewewe i play all SoF, solo included...and as speed as Tolkki. "

and when i listen to them, they only suck. Playing not clean, missing parts, notes... just running after speed.


Speed and techinc come with SLOW and INTELLIGENT practice.
Speed is nothing without control.

[Porter]

I know a lot of people who play fast, but it just sounds bad.

i also know a lot of people like this.

*cough John Petrucci *cough* Train Of Thought.

[fifthtea_sausage]

Sorry to be OT here but I love your sig there Porter.
Its true, those two lines are so stupid that I can even not show my friends the song without being called an asshole.

[Jaakko]

It's true that you can reach some "amazing" sounding speed licks in a very short time, but then can happen what happened to me: I didn't work on my technique on all sides from scratch and in just a couple years it generated pretty serious elbow problems because I couldn't play fast alternate picking relaxed, it was more like tremolo shaking the whole arm, bit like Tolkki but I don't have his physics so I guess that's where my problems started, right when I got my DNA

So I have to disappoint you and just repeat what others are saying, start with basics and practise with intelligence, good teacher might be good there if you can't really understand what we mean. Taking the shortcuts might get you further to wrong direction, I can tell from bitter experience, I can never play badminton again dammit. And by the way, for me learning the "right" technique and trying to get rid of these bad habits took so much more time than it would've if started with a good teacher in the first place. I still can't play anything tricky, basically I can only play slow blues with near perfect technique. And I've only practised for 12 years.

[Jaakko]

I know a lot of people who play fast, but it just sounds bad.

i also know a lot of people like this.

*cough John Petrucci *cough* Train Of Thought.

What the hell, Train of Thought guitarwork is brilliant. I love his endless legato run in the Name of God! True though that some things again don't sound as good, JP really has only very few really good trademarks and then again, many tasteless ones. It's not bad but with that technique he should be able to deliver so much more.

[NeonVomit]

Quite an expansion for Porter. Instead of only complaining about Stratovarius he's started on other bands

[EndlessSilence]

i do practice, more practice and again more practice to play fast soli
you should try sweeping and appreggio excercises, some good excerises are on www.powertabs.net to view them, you need www.power-tab.net

have fun

edit: typo

[Aresius]

you shouldnt move your arm while you are playing.. only your hand

[Hellsing]

well , u need more experience ,or more alcool (vodka if possible) or exteroids

[stratoplayer]

well , u need more experience ,or more alcool (vodka if possible) or exteroids

steroids my friend, but anyway alcohol just seems to make me clumsier thus, a sucky musician

[Holy Light]

you shouldnt move your arm while you are playing.. only your hand

This is wrong. If you don't use your arm while picking it can cause tendonitis. My friend had to go to the doctor for this reason. Usually arm and wrist combination is safe because you are using more muscles. When you concentrate a lot of pressure on one part of your arm you can cause damage.

[Jaakko]

you shouldnt move your arm while you are playing.. only your hand

This is wrong. If you don't use your arm while picking it can cause tendonitis. My friend had to go to the doctor for this reason. Usually arm and wrist combination is safe because you are using more muscles. When you concentrate a lot of pressure on one part of your arm you can cause damage.

Yes, you should not tension your arm by trying to not let it move.

What do you think of moving the fingers holding the pick? Some say very strictly it's baaaaad, but again some people like Yngwie and Romeo can make it work. They're not the most accurate in timings though, I guess that's what you lose when you get "oversensitive" with picking.

[Sknight2112]

im really not that great, but the way i learned to play fast and dcent was just the circle of 4ths on major scales (i think thats what its called) over and over. metronome is definately a helping factor, if you can play fast but not in time its useless...

[Aresius]

[quote]
This is wrong. If you don't use your arm while picking it can cause tendonitis. My friend had to go to the doctor for this reason. Usually arm and wrist combination is safe because you are using more muscles. When you concentrate a lot of pressure on one part of your arm you can cause damage.[/quote]


Dude if you move your arm your techinque is wrong.. you have to move your hand but you have to warm up and strech first if you dont want to get tendonitis its basicly what the atlets do before making sports
Sory and when is ay you shouldnt move your arm im saying you dont have to move you arm like a maniac .. you should move your wrist but when you move your wrist your arm moves...[/quote]

[Holy Light]

Well, when you say you are moving your arm and wrist that is right. Some people do play with just their wrist, which isn't good. It's alright to play with a lot of arm. I don't but Greg Howe definitely does. I know his technique isn't wrong.

[Holy Light]

Really whatever gets the job done without hurting yourself is good.

About the fingers. It seems alright, since Malmsteen, Romeo and Joe Stump use that technique.

[NeonVomit]

What works for one person may not work for another. Keep that in mind.