Guitar for fast playing. How to practice the guitar to develop maximum speed - common mistakes when learning to play the guitar at speed

Below is a selection music games and just rhythm games for PC

OSU!

Release date: 2007

Genre: Musical, free

Japanese musical and rhythmic game in anime style. The gameplay component is quite simple, the player has to move the cursor behind the ball jumping across game elements, there are 3 of them in the game. Notes - circles that you need to click on, Sliders - Move the ball through a certain area, Spinners - Rotate the “spinner” as quickly as possible to get as many points as possible. The difficulty is that the ball will not wait for you, and for each missed element the life bar will tend to zero.

But don’t worry, the game offers a huge variety of cards of varying complexity, the number of which is replenished every minute because... The game has a built-in map editor. There is multiplayer where you can compete in speed and reaction with friends.

Beat Hazard

Release date: 2009

Genre: Arcade

An exciting two-dimensional musical indie game, which in gameplay is somewhat reminiscent of the well-known arcade Asteroids, but with more of its own unique “tricks” and modified gameplay. Gameplay directly depends on the music imported by the player - the louder and more intense it is, the stronger your weapon will fire, but there will also be many more enemies (as well as colorful special effects).

The player takes control of a small starship with a top-down view, which resists various asteroids and other space debris that disintegrates into smaller fragments from shots. In the camp of opponents there are also spaceships and bosses. The spaceship always moves facing the mouse cursor, and shoots at enemies there. In addition to strengthening turrets through music, the player can also pick up power and volume bonuses, and can also enter a special battle mode called “Beat Hazard.”

BIT.TRIP RUNNER

Release date: 2011

In total, 4 groups are available to players: Rockers, Urbanists, Clubbers and Karaoke fans. Each group has its own characteristics. Players travel through areas, complete quests, upgrade their characters, and fight their opponents in various skirmishes, including arena tournaments. Areas are constantly coming under the control of one group or another, which entails even more frequent and violent clashes.

Groove Coaster

Release date: 2018

Genre: Arcade

A musical rhythm game in which you need to press certain keys to the rhythm of the music playing. The project has pixel minimalist graphics with many neon effects that appear in time with the music. The game has 36 original tracks in various musical genres (from pop music to rock compositions).

The gameplay is as follows - we have a bright point that flies in space along a given trajectory. Along this trajectory there are other points indicating the pressing of a particular key. All the action takes place to a certain music and the most important thing here is to adapt to its rhythm. The game has two modes - for one hand and for two hands. The second mode is significantly more difficult. The visual component of the levels can be customized.

Just Shapes & Beats

Release date: 2018

Genre: Indie

A musical game with elements of bullet hell, made in a minimalist style and built on rhythm. You control a cube that needs to go through various levels, doing all this to the rhythm of the music sounding at the moment.

Passing the levels looks like this - various geometric objects fly at you, and you, following the rhythm, need to make smooth and sharp movements, dodging attacks. From time to time there are mini-bosses at levels that require a special strategy. Death here does not throw the player into the menu, but is a kind of rewind for a short period back.

Electronauts

Release date: 2018

Genre: Simulator

A music game that is a casual DJ simulator and designed for glasses virtual reality(it is possible to play without them). The player’s task is to mix various musical compositions and arrange the coolest virtual DJ party.

The game has good animation, excellent special effects and large selection various tools that allow you to change tracks, adding various sound effects, etc. The interface is intuitive, and for the convenience of beginners there is a small training session, which, however, does not reveal the full potential of the offered tools.

There are many ways to develop speed. All these ways or techniques, if you like, are very important. By using them evenly, focusing on each in turn and gradually combining them, you will make significant progress in the speed and quality of your game.

First, let's define the main methods for increasing speed:
"Hakuna Matata"
"Hummingbird"
Optimization method
Hand synchronization

"Hakuna Matata"(or inner freedom). Freedom of action is the first thing that catches your eye when you see a professional musician on stage. He manages to simultaneously play the guitar, dance, shout something into the microphone and wink at a girl in the crowd. This all says two things: he is very comfortable and comfortable doing what he does, and he is very relaxed emotionally and physically.

Many beginning guitarists are tense and constrained. From the outside, the practice of such a musician looks like hard work: his forehead is sweaty, the veins on his temples are swollen, he sniffles and puffs with zeal. A person always gets used to playing in this style. It seems to him, “Now I’ll hold my hand and play quickly, quickly,” but nothing works out. The movements are torn and of poor quality. We are not talking about speed at all.

Conclusion: Learn to relax! Start your next session by closing your eyes, breathing and relaxing your whole body. Then pick up a guitar and try to play as FREELY as possible. You should be as calm as a lotus flower at the foot of the Temple of Truth at the top of Fuji. Play slowly and gradually increase the tempo. As soon as you feel that at least one muscle begins to tighten as the pace increases, gradually reduce the pace, breathe and relax. This kind of “zen” should become a habit for you - with relaxed and free hands you will play much faster than with clenched claws.

"Hummingbird". Let's compare two birds: the condor and the hummingbird. Besides the obvious difference in size, they have another important difference - the speed of flapping their wings. Due to the short length of its wings, the hummingbird is capable of developing a monstrous flapping frequency, much higher than that of large birds. Try an experiment: try to wave up and down, first with your outstretched arm, then with your forearm and one finger. Is it true that it was faster with one finger? It's all about the length of the lever and the amplitude of vibration. The more economical your movements are, the faster you can play.

Analyze your playing technique. If you have problems with speed, you are probably raising the fingers of your left hand too high. Start controlling them. They should not extend further than a few centimeters from the fingerboard (unless there is deliberate over-articulation). After all, the further they travel, the more time they spend, and this will slow you down. The same goes for the right hand. When playing with an alternating stroke, try to minimize movements. Play not with your whole hand, not with your hand, but with your fingers or even your fingertips. This will significantly improve the speed.

Conclusion: Try wherever possible to reduce the amplitude of movements, and you will gain speed like a meteor.

Optimization method. This method is to reconsider your game and control every movement, making it the most optimal from a technical point of view. At the beginning of your (and my) musical career, everyone plays “bugger” or “it’ll do.” We often don't pay attention to the pick strokes (up or down) we use, what fingers we press the chords with, what angle we hold our fingers at, and so on. We get used to this sloppiness and when the time comes to play quickly, we simply cannot do it, since we make a million extra and unnecessary micromovements that we are accustomed to. Every musician has such “lefties” and they are individual, so we won’t dwell on anything specific. Try to look at your playing under a microscope. Everything, including the movements of your fingers, obeys the laws of logic and biomechanics. Try to understand why you can’t play this or that piece faster. Perhaps you make unnecessary movements with your fingers or move your hand too far when playing in combat. Maybe you didn’t choose the best fingering (finger order) when playing or chose a less than optimal technique.

Conclusion: be self-critical and always work to improve your technique. And most importantly, when you realize a mistake, do not be lazy to correct it and relearn. The later you do this, the slower speed will come to you ;)

Hand synchronization. And, perhaps, the most important thing that affects the speed of the game is the coherence of the movements of the right and left hands. We can see this in the example of famous self-taught musicians like Jimi Hendrix and Dimebag Derrell. Any guitar graduate from a music school would put on his glasses and say, “Their technique is terribly wrong.” But how fast they played!

You should focus on synchronization, namely on training the harmonious and simultaneous playing of the pick and fingers on the fretboard. Even if you never develop the ability to move your hands super fast, you can still get the most out of your guitar if your hands work together smoothly.

How to develop synchronization? The answer is simple! Yes, yes, my friend - scales! These exercises are many thousands of years old, and they still do not lose their relevance. Play slowly, with a metronome, various scales (chromatic, major, minor, sequences based on scales, etc.) Also, at one time, Shradik’s exercises helped me a lot. The main thing is to start at a slow tempo, with a metronome, and watch the quality and synchronicity. Play like clockwork! As soon as you feel your fingers getting tangled, slow down.

Conclusion: You will get the best result in speed if you concentrate on the coherence of your right and left hands in your training.

As you can see, there are many methods for increasing the speed of playing the guitar, use them all and you will definitely improve your results. I believe in you!

© Dmitry Lebedev

Faster!!! This word, like a beacon on the horizon, motivates many aspiring guitarists. Especially when it comes to the electric guitar. And it’s not surprising, because after listening to the recordings of such masters as Yngwie Malmsteen and Joe Satriani, almost everyone who is able to distinguish a Fender from an Ibanese will be eager to do the same - to repeat these incredible cuts and mind-blowing passages. Are you one of them? Then welcome to a series of lessons dedicated to just one topic: “HOW TO PLAY FASTER?”

From the start I would like to mention that YES - speed is not the fundamental factor determining the skill of a guitarist. And if we compare, say, Satriani and Malmsteen, then, naturally, Malmsteen plays faster. But more melodic, more virtuosic, more sophisticated, I would even say, of course, Satriani. And therefore, these lessons are not for those who do not know how the Lydian mode differs from the Dorian one, but would like to find out. These lessons are for those who really need to increase the speed of their playing, but don't know where to start.

And first of all, it must be said that there are a considerable number of ways to play the electric guitar. Some of them are aimed specifically at increasing the speed of the game. Let's look at them in order.

Alternate picking. That's where we start. Its principle is clear from the name. This is a stroke in which the pick constantly changes its direction. Down - up - down - up. And, despite the fact that the method itself is quite simple to master, achieving mastery in it is damn difficult. A good variable stroke requires good synchronization of both hands - and this takes years to develop.

Legato. By this word I mean a playing technique in which the pick plays a small role, and the left hand does all the main work. Here, as you already understood, no special synchronization is required and therefore it may seem that it is easier to play legato than with an alternating stroke. Not entirely true, because legato requires additional damping of the strings. And already choosing from the need for this jamming and synchronization, everyone decides for themselves what is easier.

Tapping. Eddie Van Halen is considered the founder of tapping. Undoubtedly, this technique had been used before, but it was he who discovered a new milestone in it. When playing by tapping, the guitarist hits (tap) the fingertips on the neck of the guitar, thus producing sounds.

Sweep. Sometimes it is necessary to play a passage located on the fingerboard according to the principle: “one note on a string.” Most often this is an arpeggio. This is where sweep comes to the rescue. When playing with this playing technique, the pick slides up and down the strings, and the fingers of the left hand pinch the desired frets at the right moment.

Economy picking. A rather rare way to play, and probably designed specifically to play as quickly as possible. The principle of the economical technique is a combination of sweep and variable stroke. For a more detailed explanation, I will have to use phrases such as external and internal strokes, and we have not talked about this yet. Therefore, we will return to economical technology in the corresponding lesson.

So. What was the first point there? Oh yes! Variable stroke. As I already said, this is a playing technique in which the pick constantly changes the direction of its movement. A good example of what heights can be achieved in a variable stroke is the composition of Chris Impellitteri 17th Century Chicken Pickin" from the album Screaming Symphony 1996. Be sure to listen if you haven't already. Do you feel the attack of the pick - that dense, buzzing sound? Never in your life, in any other way, be it tapping, sweep, legato or even economical technique, will you achieve such a sound.

When training the variable stroke, there are a few things to keep in mind.

First of all, hand synchronization takes a very long time to develop. And no one has yet become a master after holding a guitar in their hands for just a month. That’s why you don’t have to quit before you even start. It will seem to you that there is no progress in technology, and that someone who produces twenty notes per second most likely has a talent for it. NO! They also trained. Steve Vai trained, John Petrucci trained. And they succeeded because they practiced, not because they had a gift for swinging a plastic triangle from side to side.

This leads to the second point. Put your doubts aside and begin the exercises that will be given in the next lesson. Never play faster than you can. After all, it is much more difficult to correct a poorly designed technique than to do everything correctly from the very beginning. Of course, you need to play at different speeds, but they should not go beyond your capabilities.

Third, alternate between playing clean and distorted. The first is to ensure that you are actually aware of what your hands are doing. Secondly, to learn how to drown out unnecessary sounds.

And since we’re talking about jamming, we’ll put it as the fourth point. This is one of the most important aspects of playing with variable strokes. And, by the way, playing the electric guitar in general. You need to mute the strings with both your right and left hands. The right one rests with the edge of the palm near the bridge and muffles everything below the string that is currently sounding. And the left one, with the inner side of the phalanx of the index finger, dampens everything that is higher. Over time, jamming will become completely natural to you, and you won't even think about what you're actually doing.

Fifthly, all exercises must be performed under a metronome. Under no circumstances should you allow yourself to relax and give up using it. Only with the help of a metronome can you control your speed and develop rhythm. After all, many guitarists can play quite quickly, but are not able to play even a simple melody against the background of drums. It's unlikely that any group needs them.

Sixth, try to play economically. Keep your fingers as close to the fingerboard as possible, control the range of movement of the pick. All this ultimately affects speed.

And the last point, no matter how strange it may sound - play only with an alternating stroke. The fact is that I know that for many (and I was one of them) it is quite difficult at first to get used to the idea that after a downward blow there must be an upstroke and vice versa. After all, when playing slow short melodies (namely, beginners play them), it can be much easier to play down - down than down - up, if the first note is located, for example, on the fifth fret of the third string, and the second on the seventh fret of the second. Don't give in to this desire and you can be sure that it will pass very quickly.

Well, that's enough for one lesson, try to digest everything I've talked about here. In the next lesson we will analyze the external and internal strokes and proceed directly to the exercises.

Note : Common tablature exercises

Exercise for developing guitar playing speed (Part 1, 2)

Tom Hess
Source: tomhess.net

Part 1. How to exercise to develop maximum speed

The scope of this topic is too vast to be able to cover everything in one article. After receiving hundreds of requests for advice on speed development, it seems like it's long overdue to write an article on this topic. Teaching advanced players to become a virtuoso is a very rewarding and enjoyable process for me (as I'm sure it is for most teachers who teach advanced students).

A typical question from a student: What specific strategy should I use to improve speed development?

While my answer may vary from person to person, depending on what I know about that person's current abilities and goals (among other things), I generally recommend different variations of the following strategy:

Stage 1: When you start learning a new technique, determine (using a metronome, of course) your maximum speed at which you can play cleanly. Write this speed down on paper.

Stage 2: Practice at 20%-35% of your maximum speed. Do this for 5 consecutive sessions of your practice. Resist the temptation to play faster at this stage. Make sure you play everything very clean. There should be NO excessive tension anywhere in your hands, arms, wrists, shoulders, neck, head or anywhere else.

Be careful to make sure you are not making excessive or unnecessary movements with both hands. For some guitarists, this first step is very boring. You MUST remain patient with yourself and the practice process throughout this time. This is very important! If you skip this step, you will most likely teach your hands to play incorrectly, ineffectively and ineffectively. At this stage, you develop the proper muscle memory for the technique.

If you are currently learning from a great guitar teacher, your progress will be much faster, easier and better than if you try to do it all on your own. Once you understand stage 2, you can move on to stage 3, but not before! Above I said that you should practice this stage for 5 consecutive sessions of your practice. This is just a general guideline, after the fifth session, evaluate your progress. If you fail this step, continue training at 20%-35% before moving on to stage 3.

Stage 3: Practice at 50% of your maximum speed. Do this for 3 consecutive sessions of your practice. Again, make sure you continue to play very cleanly. Play relaxed without any tension in your hands, arms, wrists, shoulders, neck, etc. Make sure you do not make excessive or unnecessary movements with both hands. Do not advance further until you have mastered this step (this may take more than 3 sessions, but DO NOT advance further into Stage 4 before practicing Stage 3).

Stage 4: Practice at 60-65% of your maximum speed. Do this for 3 consecutive sessions of your practice. And again, with complete relaxation and economy in movements (no unnecessary movements).

Stage 5: Practice at 80% of your maximum speed. Do this for 5 consecutive sessions of your practice.

Stage 6: Practice at 85% of your maximum speed for only the next (1) session of your practice.

Stage 7: Practice at 90% of your maximum speed for the next 10 practice sessions.

Stage 8: DRILL IT! TOTALLY RIPPIN (translation – the game is 100%) throughout the ENTIRE week!

Stage 9: After this week, determine what your new maximum speed is (it will be higher than the one you recorded in Stage 1).

Stage 10: At this stage you will alternate every 3 sessions of classes like: Session 1 = 60%. Session 2 = 85%. Session 3 = 95%. At the end of each session, GET IT (100%) for a few minutes.

Once a week, measure your new maximum speed and adjust the speed of your metronome accordingly.

Warning: NEVER play/practice guitar with pain. You may be seriously injured. This is no joke, I personally know people who have had to have surgery on their wrists and hands!

Part 2. Strategy for increasing speed

Please make sure you have read Part 1 before following the advice offered here in Parts 2. Here I propose a completely different approach to increasing the speed of the game compared to the one described in Part 1, but this new system will not give you good results until you have mastered the ability to play cleanly and accurately at a slow tempo (this is very important).

Unfortunately, the first system described in Part 1, requires several weeks to complete, but the one described below can be completed in one practice session. However, this new approach is not a replacement for the method from Part 1, rather it is an addition to the practice process, intended for more experienced guitarists.

My Pyramid system

For example, you can play a certain technique at the tempo of 100 beats per minute (bpm) of the metronome cleanly and smoothly. Let's also assume that your goal is to play this technique at 200 beats per minute.

Do warm-up exercises during:

15 minutes in winter
10 minutes in spring or autumn
5 minutes in summer

Play at 60 bpm for 2-3 minutes

Play at 75 bpm for 2-3 minutes

Play at 90 bpm for 2-3 minutes

Play at 105 bpm for 2-3 minutes

Play at 120 bpm for 2-3 minutes

Play at 135 bpm for 2-3 minutes

Play at 150 bpm for 2-3 minutes

Play at 165 bpm for 2-3 minutes
Play at 195 bpm for 2-3 minutes
Play at 180 bpm for 2-3 minutes
Play at 210 bpm for 2-3 minutes

As you may have noticed, starting this program will be easy if you are already playing it at 100 bpm without problems. But it will be absolutely impossible to play well on later stages programs. Play it anyway! Yes, I know, it will sound just awful, there will be a sea of ​​​​dirt, noise and other musical chaos. Don't worry about this while doing this program because you won't be doing this every day.

The Pyramid is based on two main things:

1. (most important!) This trains your brain to perform as fast as possible (even if it's played sloppily right now) for you. What you do is as important as psychological training. Achieving high speed (like many other aspects of music) is hampered more by psychological limitations than by physical ones.

2. This allows your hands to move faster than normal everyday activities (even if the movements are blurry and not something you can put in when recording your next solo)

Most difficulties encountered in developing speed arise as a result of synchronization problems between the right and left hands - lack of speed usually does not come from the fact that you cannot move your hands fast enough, but from a problem in synchronization of the hands. Therefore, your practice is usually limited to practicing synchronization (that is, you play mainly at those speeds at which you can play with clear synchronization, rather than trying to achieve maximum speed as such (even if you do not notice it).

Improving your timing skills will improve your overall technique, but you won't actually train your arms to move much faster than you can now...

This system will fix everything. I'm sorry for repeating the same point, but this is really important. This system is a supplement, not a replacement, for normal activities.

Warning: Since this exercise system is extremely taxing on your fingers, hands, wrists and arms, you should avoid any pain during exercise. If you feel pain while practicing, you should immediately stop playing and rest before practicing it again.

Never play with pain or extreme strain on your muscles or ligaments. Follow this rule to avoid long-term health problems. Also, be sure that you are thoroughly warmed up before starting intense training (especially if you are doing my Pyramid program!).

An important role when playing with a variable stroke is played by the shape and thickness of the pick. Many beginning guitarists cannot use a thick pick, while more experienced guitarists cannot use a thin one. It's all about the speed difference. When your speed is quite low (70-80 UVM), and your technique leaves much to be desired (large range of movements, no synchronization between the left and right hands), then you need a flexible, plastic pick, the springy properties of which will smooth out the shortcomings of the technique. And at first it’s much easier to play with such a pick than with a thick one. On the other hand, if you play at a speed of 130-150 UVM, the thin pick simply won’t have time to bend in time and the game will go to hell. I would advise starting with a thickness of 0.5-0.8 millimeters and gradually working up to 2-3.

As for the angle at which you should hold the pick, there is again no consensus. Troy Stetina, one of the most famous teachers in the field of playing the electric guitar, advises holding the pick at a right angle. Andy James, another no less authoritative teacher who can often be seen in video schools from LickLibrary, says that you need to hold the pick at an angle of 30-45 degrees relative to the strings. Ultimately, it all depends on how comfortable it is for YOU to play. Of course, you can’t take a pick by the very edge and expect success. You need to hold it tightly between your fingers, leaving the very tip free. There are many examples of guitarists achieving amazing results by holding a pick between their thumb and middle finger. All this is quite individual and depends mainly on personal preferences. Here is another confirmation of this - there are two completely opposite methods of positioning the right hand. A guitarist like Michael Angelo plays with one or two fingers resting on the body of the guitar just below the first string. And, for example, Buckethead holds the brush suspended. Both have amazing technique and therefore I can’t recommend either method – it’s up to you to choose.

As for the left hand, make sure that the thumb does not stick out too much from behind the bar. And let the remaining fingers hover one or maximum two centimeters above the fingerboard and be ready to press the desired fret at the right moment. This is especially true for the little finger - it is the one that most often and farthest away from the fingerboard of all other fingers.

Before you start exercising, it doesn't hurt to warm up. Remember for that bright future when your speed reaches 120 UVM and above - never play without warming up. It’s like in sports – if you don’t warm up your ligaments and joints, you can damage them. Quite an unpleasant feeling, I admit... After this, for a week or two you can completely forget about playing the guitar, as it causes unbearable pain. What can you recommend? First, rub the fingers of both hands well. Start from the base and gradually, massaging your finger, move towards the nail. Secondly, close your fingers and bend them several times reverse side. Finally, just shake your hands, clench them tightly into a fist and unclench them - now you are definitely not in danger of spraining your joints. All this can be done without the name of a guitar at hand, for example, on the way to a rehearsal, especially in winter, when your hands, frozen in the cold, are not capable of productive work.

Here are a couple more good exercises to warm up. Remember the previous lesson? There we talked about external and internal touches. The first exercise is designed to improve them. Moving from the upper (in height) strings to the lower ones, you practice the outer stroke. Moving in the opposite direction - internal. It is very important to always pay attention to your weaknesses. If you notice that, say, the external stroke is easy for you, but there are problems with the internal one (most often this happens), then pay more attention to the second part of the exercise. Repeat the exercise until you reach the upper frets. After that, you can play its mirror copy down.

The second exercise is designed to practice such an important skill as jumping through strings. An experienced guitarist feels the neck and always knows where his pick is. This is one of the many things that sets him apart from a rookie. Try to perfect this exercise. At first, even without a metronome - here it is not so important. Just feel the distance you need to cover from one string to the other.

Well, it's time to move on to speed development exercises. And the first of them will be a looping pattern in C major, the great property of which is its looping :) That is, you can play it in a circle ad infinitum. Start with 70-80 beats per minute and work your way up to a hundred. In the last lesson I talked about a training method in which you reach your maximum when you can no longer play without dirt, then slow down and slowly increase it again. There is another way that also brings good results. You can go in the opposite direction, just short of reaching maximum speed. Returning to where you started, repeat the entire process. Why can't you reach the maximum? Because in this case, your strength will run out and every time, despite the fact that you reduce the speed, there will be dirt in the game.

The next exercise is again a looped chromatic pattern. Such patterns perfectly develop the endurance of the right hand. For the left hand (I know from experience) endurance is not very important - here it is important to develop plasticity and independence of the fingers. For the right, it's the other way around. Making the same, monotonous movements, the right hand gets tired very quickly. It is in order to avoid this that endurance is needed. Just play for a long time at a slow speed. And, despite the fact that at first glance it seems that this activity is pointless, it is not. Eventually, your right arm will still get tired, but at the same time, its endurance will increase. Such an exercise will be much more useful than a mindless minute-long “rubilov” at maximum speeds.

The following exercise will be your first exercise to develop finger independence. As you can see, it, like the previous two, is located on the top two strings. Don't limit yourself to this! Play everything in all five variations (first second string, second-third, third-fourth, fourth-fifth, fifth-sixth).

Below is a similar exercise, only it involves the middle finger rather than the ring finger. Don't forget what we talked about in the first lesson. It is necessary to alternate between playing clean and distorted, it is necessary to play economically, it is necessary to play with a metronome, etc.

So. You have made significant progress in this lesson. I advise you to reach a speed of 100-105 UVM (7 notes per second) before moving on to the next lesson. There we will begin more complex passages that will cover all the strings, and sometimes the entire fretboard. Good luck!