when could you shred?

[bleed for me]

i've been playing guitar for about two years now and i'm not sure if i'm actually any good, i'm better than all my friends and i think i'm even better than the guitarist in my band who's been playing for longer than me (i play bass in my band)...so for you experienced guys, when were you able to play some really fast lead stuff and not be able to constantly see solo's which you simply cannot play

and please, be honest...

 

[Misanthrope]

Ive been playing guitar for 10 years

Ive been playing fast solos only for the past 2

That is because it was 2 years ago when i became interested but given my ability/training time relationship ( wich is i got the skill and i never train on them ) i would say....3 to 5 years to start playing the fast solos with any descency.

 

[RETIREDTrapped]

Dude... you've got to practice untill you can do that stuff. It's not like you can wake up one day and 'POW' you can shred. It doesn't work like that.

I've been playing for about 12 years, and honestly? I only really got good at shredding after about five or six years... And thats only because i started to spend about 8 hours a day playing guitar, instead of getting a life and socializing...

Shredding is gay anyway unless it is used properly...!!

 

[Misanthrope]

It depends on each person.

I never, not a single time, practiced more than 2 hours in a row or more than 4 hours in a day. More likely 30 minutes at the time and 1 hour at day tops. And i ignored shred for good 7 years until i decided i wanted to do my own band, then i started working on harder songs ( mainly every death song under the sun ) and kept at it. Then about 2 or 3 years ago i said " well i wanna play the solo of lack of comprehension ( death ) ". So i figured it out and i couldnt play it for some months. Without training more than my usual i just started to get cleaner and cleaner until i could do it, then i took on the spirit crusher solo. At first i just couldnt play it, then some months went by and i retried but changed my fingering a bit and not i play both leads of spirit crusher. From there i worked on my own solos ocationally working and playing cover ones ( i figured out the first one from exhodus piranha and the solo from children of bodom warheart ).

So im a weird beast i guess cause most guitar players practice their ass off, but i know other weird beasts and you could as well be one we cant know, every person is different.

 

[Autumn Falls]

Hey all-

Well I've been playing guitar since about eight grade which was about four years ago.. I'm a junior now. Yet I didn't seriously start taking guitar until I started lessons the Christmas in ninth grade. My teacher is unbelieveable... his technique is killer.. he's a Berklee grad and he introduced me to shred at first through Malmsteen, Gilbert, and DiMeola. I didn't start getting chops until right about when 10th grade starting when I began learning my modes and then as the year went on and I learned how to use them and sat down with a metronome I got better and better... I'm not that great now but I love theory and I absolutely love my modes. I'm a quite bit fast but as I get faster I get inconsistant because my picking hand is a bit faster then my left hand which causes some sloppiness. All that means though is I need to sit down with my metronome more..

Anyway.. Trapped is right.. shredding is cool and fun but gay unless used appropriately.

Brandon

 

[bleed for me]

Originally posted by Trapped
Dude... you've got to practice untill you can do that stuff. It's not like you can wake up one day and 'POW' you can shred. It doesn't work like that.

Shredding is gay anyway unless it is used properly...!!

yea, i know....i know i have to practice and i practice minimum of half an hour a day on weekdays and at least an hour on the weekends...plus i practice on my bass for around that much time too...and that's only a minimum

i'm just looking for a general trend of how long it takes to get to a comfortable position


oh, and could u guys name some stuff your were able to play after you've been playing for two years

 

[yourdeadgroom]

I can't shred, and I've been playing 14 years
I don't have the technique for it, and I'm too heavy handed, it just dosen't happen. I reached my speed peak after about 2 months (that's 2 months when I tried to learn it, I'd been playing for 10 years already), several months later I was no faster, so I don't bother trying now.

I now say things like "speed doesn't matter, good melody is what's important" in the hopes that everyone will believe me and not ask me to shred

 

[RETIREDTrapped]

oh, and could u guys name some stuff your were able to play after you've been playing for two years

Mary had a little lamb.... that one is a KILLER.

I studied classical guitar for about five years, so there is nothing that you would know... a few al dimeola tunes, tommy emmanuel etc.... then i learnt the whole metallica catalogue in about two months... most of that stuff is simple, and kirk hammett's solos blow, bloody pentatonic obsessor

After two years? most of the Master of Puppets album...

 

[Till Fjalls]

Hmmm, I've been playing for like 7-8 years I believe, and I still don't know If I can. I was never really bothered to learn shredding. I mean, I can play a bunch of death solos, well, all that I've attempted anyway, but have never really tried any Malmsteen or Gilbert. I like to think I'm fairly accurate with my alternate picked leads and arpeggios, butI never was very accurate at all until about 5-6 years into playing. i could play easy leads up until then, but I was a little sloppy on technical and fast stuff, ala vai. Things got better though after I learned Tender Surrender and For The Love of God. I can now get through these fairly gracefully, though I do like to add my own little nuances to certain phrases rather than doing it note for note.

But in regards to the two year question, after two years of playing I was probably working on Guns and roses solos, skid row (slave to the grind) Ugly kid joe, tons of slayer songs and leads. Badly though, if my memory serves me correct!

 

[YaYo]

Originally posted by Till Fjalls
Things got better though after I learned Tender Surrender and For The Love of God. I can now get through these fairly gracefully, though I do like to add my own little nuances to certain phrases rather than doing it note for note.

If you can play For The Love Of God gracefully in its correct form then i envy you. That songs pretty damn hard in parts. Well there are 'easy versions' of certain sweeps and stuff i can do, but to play it actually properly im not even close.



As for the original questions. I onyl realised i could shred when one day i saw my friend play this cool little run up the neck. And i thought to myself shit that was fast. And then i realised that i could play about twice as fast. So yeh i cant really say when i first was able to shred. But i started playing guitar very young so it wouldnt be useful for you. I can tell you that from what ive seen most people are mumbling there way through Metallica solos after 2 years if they have put the effort in and know how to learn. Other guys have been playing for 5 years or more and cant play more than the basic powerchords. You decide your own rate of skill learning. 2 years is long enough to get pretty damn good if you spent 10 hrs practicisng a day as Vai did. I heard Vai only started playing guitar at age 14 too, which is unbelievable, so if you put your mind to it you can be shredding before too long.

But as the others have said, its not that important. I havent worked on my shredding techniques for the last 3 years, and as such im not so good anymore. Well i mean im better because i have better pick control and left hand technique and timing and so on, but i havent been soloing too much so i havent learnt to sweep pick properly, or other such things, so im really not that good anymore.

 

[KIRILL]

Hmm... i actually started out with the hard stuff right away....i played Malmsteen (not any good) just after two years...that was actually not so good because i didn´t even now theory it was just all about speed for me... after a while i started playing some classical guitar and practiced scales every day... i discoverd the music of Jason Becker and my main goal became to sweeppick as good as he....he he thats kind of sad... I never came close...but i am really happy a learnd all this..."shred stuff".......
Now i don´t even practice i just write songs from time to time.......