Shred Guitarists Breaking the Barriers

I spent years working at gaining guitar speed. I would practice for hours and hours on end. It was always the same thing, I would get a little better, and then I would get to a pinnacle where I would just level off, and it seemed that there was a barrier that I just couldnt seem to break.

I truly had a deep desire to be able to get my guitar speed up to the level I would hear the shred guitarists play at, but could never get there. I really got fast, but just not to that level that most shred guitarists desire.

Then I read an article comparing shred guitarists as running V.S. walking fast. Let me repeat that Walking fast V.S. Running. You see I found that there are many guitarists out there including myself that had fingers that could walk the freeboard really fast, but were not able to run.

Once I understood what was going on, I had no idea how to fix the problem. The article I had read pointed out the problem, but never offered a solution. So I went on a quest to try to figure out how to solve this problem. You see its more about HOW you practice V.S. HOW MUCH you practice.

This is something that speed guitarists or shred guitarists figure out, typically by accident. Think about this, when you walk fast, you are not running, and no matter how fast you are able to walk, its still walking, not running.

The trick to being able to run is by walking, then walking fast, then breaking into a run, and believe it or not, its not that difficult to break from walking fast to running, but I did find that personally I had to have something that would push me from a fast walk into a run. I guess you could say I had to be sort of pushed over the hill or the pinnacle.

During my research into this concept, I found a small inexpensive little software program that forced me across that barrier. The concept behind this program is that you set up the software to start you at your comfortable walking speed, then you tell the software with a few clicks where your fast walking speed is, and then you tell it where you fail, or what I call your running speed. Your running speed is the point where all breaks down, the point where your fingers just collapse, or the point where at best you are capable of only playing a few notes of that particular phrase or pattern.

What the software does, is it sets up a select group of finger exercises and patterns and starts a computerized metronome that gradually takes you from your walking guitar speed, to your fast walking guitar speed, and then gradually up to your running guitar speed, then it holds you at your running speed for a short period of time where you are trying your best to keep up, and then gradually slows the metronome down back to your walking speed, and then through a cool down period.

This software does this through a collection of patterns and various picking styles including sweep picking, and alternate picking to get your guitar speed up. The software also allows you to create your own patterns or scale patterns. After about three weeks of working out, and I do mean working out with this program, I finally broke the barrier.

I personally dont believe I could have EVER broken this barrier by myself without this software.
Learn more about this little jewel by clicking the links below.

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Comments

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 at 3:40 PM, by Steven Bask
Wow, this really gives me a different outlook on what i have been doing wrong. Thanks, this has been very valuable. The link about a systematic approach was a huge help. Im inspired to get back to really practicing again.

Tue, 23 Dec 2008 at 5:42 PM, by Jennifer bask
This makes perfect sense, I have been pushing my speed for months now, this is perfect insight. Thanks for the information.

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 at 4:00 PM, by Rick Stevens
I looked at the link about the systamatic approach, and downloaded it. Now i'm just annoyed at how much time i wasted before by practicing shred guitar the wrong way. I stayed up half the night using the program, went to sleep, and literally the next day after giving my brain and fingers a rest, my guitar speed was almost double. Thanks a bunch...

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