Importance of Picking Efficiency
Playing fast requires synchronization of the left and right hands. The left hand has four fingers to share the work of playing notes. (Many fingers make light work!) When using a plectrum, the right hand moves down and up to play each pair of notes. Check out the following example:
There are four notes per string times six strings equals 24 notes. Each left hand finger needs to move once per string: down to play its note, and then up. The right hand pick needs to move down and up once for each two notes, twice per string. The fingers holding the pick move twice as many times as each left hand finger. It is the right hand that represents the bottleneck in achieving speed. For this reason, it is important to spend time developing the efficiency of the right hand.
Picking Positions
There are many different ways of holding the pick. Usually it is held between the tip of the thumb and another finger. The angle varies. A slight angle to the strings will often produce a cleaner, sharper attack.
Due to physiological and psychological differences, not everyone will choose to hold their plectrum the same way. The fastest position for one will not be the fastest position for all. Experiment with different picking positions to find what is most comfortable for you. The best position will allow for fast picking, and be comfortable enough for extended sessions.
I hold the pick between my thumb and middle finger tips, with a slight angle between the pick and the strings. I often like to keep a point of contact between my pinky and the guitar body for stability. You may also notice that I am missing half of my index finger. This places some limits on my available positions.
Once you find the position you like, work up your speed until you find your speed limit. Try other positions to see if they can be brought up to a higher speed limit. Finally, keep in mind that different positions might suit a different purpose. For instance, a passage may require a position that keeps one of your fingers free for a tapping passage, or hybrid finger picking.
Efficient Practice
In the beginning, mechanical metronomes had tempo markings that skipped by approximate percentages. I’ve never used one of the old ones, but I assume they were analog and the weight could be put anywhere on the pendulum. Nevertheless, the markings are suggestive of an efficient approach to practicing. Note that for performance, being able to set any tempo in an analog fashion is desirable. For exercise practice, it is undesirable to try to play an infinitely long tempo progression from slow to fast. This old concept is not at all obvious with newer digital metronomes with 1 b.p.m. increments.
Calibrating Your Picking Hand
In the exercise below, play notes with the right hand only. Focus on minimizing movement while playing clear notes. It is easiest to see when you play slowly. The pick attack can be broken down into parts.
- The pick first touches the string.
- The pick pushes the string.
- The pick slides off of the string allowing the string to snap back.
- When the string snaps back, it overshoots past its zero point, and oscillates back and forth until it loses all of the energy it was given by the pick.
If the pick touches the string again, it will stop the oscillations and mute the string. In order for the string to ring until its energy dissipates, the pick must not touch the string again. Intentionally muting notes after they play is another topic. For this exercise, ensure that the pick does not touch the string again until needed for the next note. Playing slowly will allow you to observe that the note rings until the instant that the next note is played. As we build speed, we want to keep the strokes just as clean as when we play slow.
Notice that the exercise only uses the sixth (thickest) string. This requires the greatest amount of pick travel in order to clear the string so that it vibrates, without running into the pick and muting. You can practice the exercise on each string. The thinner the string is, the less travel the pick requires. It won’t take as many passes to see this on all the strings. It will always be possible to play slightly faster on the first string than on the sixth string. We deliberately worked the thickest string because it is the most challenging. Master the sixth string, and the other strings will come easily.
Dissecting the Metronome Settings
My choice here was to increase in 5% increments, rounded to the nearest whole number. When I approached certain multiples of ten, I would hit the ten multiple. Thus, starting at 40, it goes:
- 40, 42, 44, 46, 48, 50
- 53, 56, 59, 62, 65, 68, 70 (one of the ten multiples!)
- 74, 78, 82, 86, 90
- 95, 100, 105, 110
- 116, 122, 128, 130 (one of the ten multiples!)
- 137, 144, 150 (one of the ten multiples!)
- 158, 166, 170 (one of the ten multiples!)
- 179, 188, 190 (one of the ten multiples!)
- and finally 200.
In the second part video, the metronome is slowed back to 100, playing two notes per beat, and the sequence repeated. Once we hit 200 again, we’ll slow down to 100 again, playing four notes per beat, and once again speed up to 200.
Why did I include the certain multiples of ten? No real reason, it just made it a little easier to keep track of. Omitting these would have saved seven passes between 40 and 800 notes per minute, thus more efficient. Time is always of the essence, so to follow the 5% increments without any wasted passes, you can start at
- 40, 42, 44, 46, 48, 50
- 53, 56, 59, 62, 65, 68, 71
- 75, 79, 83, 87, 91
- 96, 101, 106, 111
- 117, 123, 129
- 136, 143, 150
- 158, 166, 174
- 183, 192, 202.
Why 5% increments? Smaller increments will result in more practice, more time spent, and more solid results. Larger increments will give more sloppy results and probably hit a speed bump sooner. 5% seems to work well for me. But do whatever works for you. It’s all about finding the balance between your limited practice time, and the results you want.
The exercises above took me 70 total passes to advance from 40 to 800 notes per minute (63 without the certain multiples of ten). Using increments of 1 b.p.m. from 40 to 200, and then from 100 to 200 twice more playing two notes per click and then four notes per click, would have taken 361 total passes.
Demonstration Piece
The following composition demonstrates minimizing motion while picking. A variation of tremolo picking is used first in the lowest guitar part, then in the middle guitar part, and at the end of the piece is briefly taken by the upper part.