level up your shred skill?

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[UEAK]Clowd

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Apr 29, 2008
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So yesterday I was working on a tune with an old friend of mine and he was busting out ridiculously fast solos all over the place, which made me envious because the fingers on my left hand just don't work like that... so now I'm inspired to get crackin' on that.

Any experienced shredders here want to give me some advice on where to get started? I suppose some of the secret is knowing the scales so well that you don't have to think so much about where your fingers need to land, but part of my problem is physical - my right hand can pick twice as fast as the fingers on my left hand can move(accurately, at least)
 
For getting your left and right hand in sync what I did was played chromatics moving up and down the neck with a click track. Basically practicing doing all the different note patterns and such. Also dont just focus on speed. Practice doing bends and getting to where you are hitting the correct notes when doing bends and work on vibrato big time. To me what makes a solo awesome is not how fast it is but how good the persons feel is during the solo. Nothing is better to me than great feel and technique.
 
have a close look at yout technique.
-are you using too large movements (lifting the finger too high off the fretboard)?
-Are you using more pressure and force/strength than needed (just the weight of the wrist is enough to push the strings down for a clean tone, if you're using more you're slowing yourself down).
- are the scales you're playing efficent (for ex three notes per string)?
-is the position of yopur left hand efficent? angle of the arm/elbow (as in "move the elbow closer to your torso when playing lower frets)?
-some more

for all those things there are tons of excercises
 
I used to play those chromatic exercises for hours every day (sometimes almost 8 hours :zombie:) when I was 14 or 15 and wanted to play like Yngwie, Vai, Gilbert and other shredders. All they did was improve my skill of playing chromatic exercises faster :erk: so I can't really recommend those. I'd say write some licks and use a metronome, and every time you reach a certain tempo, put it about 10bpm faster and practice until it's solid again. That's what I started doing when I was older and realized that mindless shredding sucks ass (hell, I even thought players like Fareri were cool when I was 15 :puke:), and it was a lot more fun to do, and made me improve faster too.

I also used to use Guitar Pro a lot, it has a "speed training mode" or something like that, which loops a part in a certain tempo, and always ups the tempo per every loop, until you reach the tempo that you've chosen.

But yeah, try to create some interesting licks etc. to practice with, otherwise you'll get bored and won't improve, or at least you'll not develop your "tastefulness" for shred solos, which I think is a really bad thing. I'm still learning to use the technique I've already acchieved, and believe me, it sucks :erk: My solos still sound really boring, and I always repeat the same patterns over and over.
 
Chik-Fil-A.JPG


back ot, i'm not that great at playing lead guitar, but coming up with a cool lead idea is the best place to start, then it's not just mindless shredding. also, finding where a certain lick is on the fretboard relative to the pentatonic scale helps me with improvising.

my fretting/left hand is actually faster than my picking/right hand, as a result most of my leads are legato and tapping stuff, which is cool for a while but i need to get my picking hand up to speed. try learning some legato licks to help build up the speed of your fretting hand!
 
I know very little when it comes to theory, technique, scales and finger exercises because I'm a self-taught musician.
I find myself playing a lot of arabic and egyptian sounding scales when I practice alone and thats about all unless I'm writing something with a different chord progression.
There ARE some great websites out there that offer tips, tricks and free lessons. Google is your friend.
 
paladin shredder said:
my fretting/left hand is actually faster than my picking/right hand, as a result most of my leads are legato and tapping stuff, which is cool for a while but i need to get my picking hand up to speed. try learning some legato licks to help build up the speed of your fretting hand!
Click to expand...

That right there is precisely why I do those chromatic exercises. Not to match speed but too get my hands lined up together so that one isnt faster than the other.
 
Lasse Lammert said:
have a close look at yout technique.
-are you using too large movements (lifting the finger too high off the fretboard)?
-Are you using more pressure and force/strength than needed (just the weight of the wrist is enough to push the strings down for a clean tone, if you're using more you're slowing yourself down).
- are the scales you're playing efficent (for ex three notes per string)?
-is the position of yopur left hand efficent? angle of the arm/elbow (as in "move the elbow closer to your torso when playing lower frets)?
-some more

for all those things there are tons of excercises
Click to expand...

+1 Those are great tips.
Remember you want both hands to work in sync.
 
On the topic of efficient movement... watch some jazz players. It looks like they're hardly moving... hell, some of them make it look like the guitar is moving itself to the right notes under their fingers.

Jeff
 
Try to make your licks more "compact", instead of changing boxes all the time, try to play the same lick/line in the same position/box.
Another thing is that if you have a lick with 3 notes per string, you should be able to play it by just hitting the string once and using legato for the other 2 notes.

The way ive learned how to play fast is by simplifying everything as much as possible, without actually removing notes or changing the rythm.
 
For scales and scale-to-chord calculating check out www.JGuitar.com, extremely useful site. Can tell you what scales you can play over chord progressions you put into their calculator, and vice-versa. Even if you have a multiple scale progression it'll tell you all options you can do over which chords. If you don't know the chords you are playing, it has a calculator for that too. Just tell it which frets/strings you are playing and it'll figure the rest out :)
 
006 said:
For scales and scale-to-chord calculating check out www.JGuitar.com, extremely useful site. Can tell you what scales you can play over chord progressions you put into their calculator, and vice-versa. Even if you have a multiple scale progression it'll tell you all options you can do over which chords. If you don't know the chords you are playing, it has a calculator for that too. Just tell it which frets/strings you are playing and it'll figure the rest out :)
Click to expand...

Im confused, it says you have to select the scale....but thats defeats the whole purpose :err:
 
  • The chromatic excersises are good for warmups.
  • Learn your Major and Minor minor scales in all positions.(at least learn the boxes nearest to your favorite persistion)
  • Jam over backing tracks freshbt.com has some decent ones.
  • Build a practice routine where you add things that are challenging
  • The Guitar Grimoire series has a lot of repetition in them but their progressions and improvisation book is worth checking out.
  • Use YouTube to your advantage, the guitar lessons on there from the 80's cats are all on there. (Gambale, Gilbert, yngwie, Macalpine, Vinnie Moore, Syu, Jazz Licks, Tapping, Arpegios, Young Guitar, Song Lessons)
  • Premier Guitar also has tons of video lessons. (shred academy)
  • In Trey Azagthoth's -GW Speak of the Devil interview he advises 6 hits of acid just to make sure you really want to be a metal shred guitarist.
  • Instead of surfing the web PRACTICE.
  • Jam with your shredder friend as much as possible.
  • Don't shit on yourself, work on what you don't like about your playing.
  • Practice scales and chording on the clean channel and you'll see what needs improvement a lot faster. Amp distortion and compression can hide a lot.
Good Luck
 
JBroll said:
On the topic of efficient movement... watch some jazz players. It looks like they're hardly moving... hell, some of them make it look like the guitar is moving itself to the right notes under their fingers.

Jeff
Click to expand...

To be fair, most Jazz-guitar techniques don't really apply that well to metal but I get your point.
 
The_Shred said:
Im confused, it says you have to select the scale....but thats defeats the whole purpose :err:
Click to expand...

There's something you're missing then, it's got EVERYTHING and doesn't require you to know anything except the frets you are playing.

If you only have the chords you are playing and want to know what scale(s) you can play over it, follow these steps. If you know the names of the chords, skip to step 3.

1. start with the Chord Namer
2. pick the frets you are using for each chord, it will tell you the name
3. once you have all the names, go to Harmonizer
4. select Chord-to-Scale Harmonizer
5. enter the chord names (in order to make it easier for you) into the box
6. check out the scales it tells you
 
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