A jazz guitar teacher I once had always told me it’s harder to play slower than faster. He would make me do scale practice with the metronome set at forty.
@@GoFigure621 DUDE! Funny you should comment about this now. Because that's EXACTLY what I'm trying to do at 35 right now! And that's just picking one note. Subdividing it faster then slower. It's very humbling.
..Jens!..greetings from NY..a great video about how to practice, and looking at it in various ways man..i almost fell off my chair when you circled the bottle on the shelf, that was hilarious lol..i’m beginning to see that the best educators on YT are covering much more than just licks, you are one the best man, thank you..btw I’ve been listening to Eef Albers lately a bit..nice that you studied with him..stay safe and stay strong..New York..November 10, 2022..
Hey Jens, where are the old videos to check out about free form improvising with open triads? at 1:53. I looked and cannot find this beautifully sounding video you clipped.
I don't have videos on free form improvising with open triads, that is just playing open triads and putting them together. Maybe this is helpful: th-cam.com/video/6kZJm6k1b0g/w-d-xo.html And otherwise search for spread or open triads on the channel
Here's my crazy take on speed technique that was influenced strongly by Shawn Lanes words, this works for me at my level: Go fast now, clean up later. Break the sections you're working on into clear chunks, play it methodically slow with no exaggerated motion to embed the muscle memory (you'll realize if you need to go back to this step pretty easily), then start bursting the chunks you've selected. Never graduate the metronome (70>75>80>85) you're just wasting time because going for a slightly faster walk doesn't help you win the 100m sprint. The very last thing you do (in my ruleset anyway) is lower the metronome value or graduate it, unless it's completely eating you alive and it's obvious you won't make it, always lower the length of your grouping first, that's first priority lets say, ahead of lowering the speed- So say the note grouping you had initially chunked was a sextuplet, cut the last note out of that sextuplet, repeat all the way down to 2 if you have to, only then do you cave in and lower the metronome. Pretty extremist from the outside I know, but I've got some absolute speed demons of kids (students xD) to show for it.
In my early 20s I went through a Shawn Lane period and I took his advice on speed to heart (…and it was kind of what I was doing already lol). It works, kids. Try it.
I agree 100%. You don't pick a passage the same way at 60 BPM that you do at 160 BPM. I used to practice slow and work my way up and couldn't understand why I'd hit a wall. Once I realized that you pick and play differently at really fast speeds, I changed the way I practiced. I had a teacher that suggested playing the first two notes of a phrase at speed, then add a third, fourth, etc. There isn't one single way to do this. Another trick I picked up along the way is to alternate playing the passage at full speed and half speed.
@@clarkkent6482 Totally right. If you learn at a slow tempo, your right hand will cheat and bring the pick above the level of the strings in a movement that won't translate to high tempos. Then you're just embedding inefficient string hopping instead of correct escape movements, and tension because you can feel that something isn't right. Professionals can get away with learning passages at graduated tempos because they already know the correct technique; they just want to learn the notes. But if you're plateauing, it really is like learning to sprint by walking faster and faster. It won't work because the movements are fundamentally different (unless you're pushing your pick through the strings really slowly). Even Petrucci recommends playing at silly tempos to break through speed barriers.
Man, I remember years ago wanting to get into jazz and finding your channel and being mostly like “meh, maybe another time” but your videos in the last months have been absolutely nothing short of incredible. Your technique is great, your lines are amazing, and all of your advice is super actionable and easy to understand. Keep up the great work Jens, greetings from Germany
Your lesson videos are now the best on the web. The editing, pop ups, and fun references, make the lesson approachable and easy to digest. Thank you Jens.
Hello from Brazil. Bass and Guitar Player here. When I was Young I had Problems with Not only playing fast but thinking fast too. I could read Very Well but never improvise fast. IMO my thoughts were too accelerated. 1) when I started to speak english (21y/o) my thoughts started to organize in different patterns. 2) When I started to learn German my improvise got more calm. 3) after learning Italiano it got short and Square enabling me to think ahead of the measures. It feels like I am Not faster in fact, but i organize the thoughts much better. 4) Physically talking (besides the technical study) for me was to Go to Gym and Work my muscular Tonus. I learn languages as a hobby...........
transcribing helped me take a step forward in playing faster, though I never really focused on fast playing that much. But I think a key to playing fast is synchronizing what you hear internally with what you want to output. If you can't follow the changes internally and anticipate the changes no amount of fast technique will help you. I think this is where we get stuck, focussing on technique and not knowing the music well enough. Re: foot tapping, alternate feet ;)
Who is your favorite when it comes to up-tempo playing? Maybe an example of a great track? This is another aspect of playing uptempo that really helps: th-cam.com/video/msmdbxsjmvI/w-d-xo.html
Great lesson and great advice as always Jens. I think McLaughlin, Dimeola and Paco established the whole ramped up tempo playing . Friday night at San Francisco is an album where you can hear some riffs. But I don't think that's straight up jazz.. maybe more Mediterranean fusion... some non functional harmony. You are an incredibly skilled guitarist Mr. Larsen and extremely humble too.
Of current jazz guitarists that can shred, Joscho Stephan is my favorite. His ideas always go somewhere & I love the way he quotes & he just has a lovely sound. If you haven’t heard him play Isn’t She Lovely, you should.
Late artist known as Prince had a song "Joy in Repetition", probably he was meaning more carnal pleasures, but gaining assurance and dexterity thru repetition is not a lesser joy IMHO. It is only about where you put your priorities
In Jazz playing fast means to THINK fast, in Rock and Classical Music it is enough to train your fingers and have a good memory. In Jazz you need to think while improvising a lot about chords, scales etc. AND have well trained fingers, so Jazz is the Kings and Queens discipline.
In all my years of teaching, it always comes back to knowing the fundamentals really, really, well, and I appreciate how you emphasize that in all of your videos. Your approach to developing speed along with the comment from @DSMusic below, give folks some true and tested options to find what works best for them. Cheers!
I really appreciate this lesson. Every tip helps. The first time I heard Joe Pass and NHOP doing “Donna Lee” at an insanely fast tempo (over 300bpm I think) was almost enough to make me give up. Fortunately I found some video lessons from rock shredders that gave me some exercises to work on. They really helped, and my speed increased to a certain degree. Unfortunately now, with a sick wife who needs almost constant attention, I’ve had little time to work much on that aspect of technique. Still, I do enjoy what time I do have.
I'm curious about the details of the Steve Morse inspired exercises that you mentioned, but I haven't been able to find those older video(s). What could I search for?
I've found particularly useful making one string right hand combinations (1234, 1243, 1324, ... All 24 of them). I make each one on sixteenth notes on 4/4 bars, and slide a half step all the way up and down. I do it with no metronome, at the fastest tempo possible. Repeating each group 4 times gives me time to check my shoulders, back, hand relaxation and position, I consider those more important than getting a fast but stressed tempo, so I can speed up or slow down freely (tho I try to avoid that). To complement, I pick one of the combinations and do it with metronome at the fastest tempo possible, shifting strings as a 3 min endurance exercise. Some times I try to get out of my nails the ugliest sound possible, hitting the string wears off the exceed of nail and it helps keeping the the shape smooth. I also change right hand fingering. (I play nylon)
isn't it the same as the Great bebop "guitarist| Bruce Lee said: "I am more afraid of someone who just practiced one kick instead of sombody who practices 10 kick s a day...??"" less is more...???/LoL Rofl!!!
I’m a huge fan of your channel. On the topic of speed, question yourself on the following matter: did you learn to walk slow, and then gradually speed up? I guess not. Muscle memory doesn’t work like that. Personally, my world opened up when I did the opposite of what your suggesting. Don’t get me wrong here. The concept of starting slow and speeding up has been around for many decades and has been distributed by many teachers. Nowadays, there has been more medical research on practising for musicians. What has come out is that practising chunks very quickly while focusing on muscle tension has been far more successful for many people, then the start slow speed up concept.
@@JensLarsen from what I understood it looked like you were promoting the start slow and then speed up practice method, as you literally stated in your video. Of course there are many ways to interpretate that. Just wanted to highlight what my teachers (which some of them where yours as well 😉 ), that although the 'gradually speed up' method you're talking about, does work for a very small amount of people. For most guitar players (especially those who are able to play fast and explain how they got there) it doesn't work
@@ChrisDv849 Well, the method I am talking about here has you play at the top speed of your ability every day, and I get the impression that you don't think that is the case? And I actually mention using smaller patterns as well, though that is not what I did that much,
Thank you. Ha just when I was thinking it seems you don’t mention (I haven’t seen most of your vids) Wes Montgomery you mention Wes Montgomery. BB King said he couldn’t play fast(what??) because his brain isn’t fast(I believe he said that). I think that is my problem at playing fast(er). My brain can’t do it. Also it seems my playing is like my speech, I stutter, doing scales, arpeggios I seem to stutter playing. The only exercise I seem to increase speed is a chromatic diagonal scale I learned years ago in a guitar mag article by Steve Vai. It seems to give me some confidence (until I watch your videos scratching my head haha). I need a brain speeder-upper exercise haha. I love listening to fast jazz guitar with the likes of Wes Montgomery and you Sir. On a good day I can maybe play a blues scale @ 120bpm ha. Thank you
I think it's harder to play fast with legato, like Scofield does does so well, than picking every note. Last year I was working on country guitar playing and my flat picking (alternate picking) got to be pretty fast and clean compared to how it use to be. My approach was similar to yours: start slow and work up to your target tempo: My goal was to get to 200 bpm, being able to play eighth notes in 4 to 8 bar phrases, pick every note and also use some hybrid picking. Well I got there, eventually. But it wasn't easy. However, going back to jazz and trying to be more legato and NOT pick every note at faster tempos has proven to be a challenge. I tend to come up with ideas in the moment (on a gig) and THEN go back and clean them up later. Kind of a backwards way I suppose but I try to improvise in the purest sense of the word when I am playing live so a lot of what I play is what I am thinking of in the moment. Keep up the videos; I have found them very useful. Cheers!
I tried to build up my speed by working with a metronome and increasing the tempo, but I didn't like the results. As the tempo got faster my playing got tighter and sounded tense. When I slowed down to more natural tempos for me, my playing sounded more relaxed and more musical. But I still wish I could play faster!
Jens I'm struggling a lot with playing fast, and sounding clean and articulate. I'm really trying to improve my technique especially when there is a lot of string skipping involved. I feel almost burned out by this topic lately actually hahahaha. Thank you for your always solid content and advices
I found the Steve Morse stuff super useful for this, so maybe look that up. I talk about those types of exercises in this video and the next one: th-cam.com/video/6kZJm6k1b0g/w-d-xo.html
Another problem besides speed is getting lost in the song. If there is no chordal instrument I get lost easier. Some of my favorite payers seem comfortable working with only bass and drums. How do they do this? Is my ear just underdeveloped?
Heyy Jens great premier! :-) I come from folk acoustic guitar/music and am starting recently to get into a more jazz approach on electric guitar. Unfortunately my right hand technique isn't really good enough to control the "open" strings.. Would love to see your advise on this! Cheers from London UK, Portugal and Argentina now hehe
@@JensLarsen Ohh i see! I am a right hand sided player and on just playing chords i am pretty comfortable with muting with my left hand but when it come to play soloing plugged in on an guitar amp my left hand struggles to keep the unwanted noise muted ^^ Thanks for your reply!
If you can't express yourself in few slow notes, you have nothing to say, Petrucci is one of the most boring and shallow players in the history of history.
One thing I noticed with playing fast is that sometimes your physical patterns are working well for slow and medium tempos but become a bottleneck when trying to improve speed. Do what works and feels comfortable, not what dogma or theory tells you to. In the end it is about the music, not if you used the theoretically correct technique.
Next week Jonathan Kreisberg plays here in Leipzig. He plays fast af and his articulation and time are still totally flawless. He is unique here. Personally I stick with Jim Hall as I always chased the more lyrical Chet Bakeri’sh approach of playing depressing or cool slow swing which fits my character better 😅 and my technique…
Excellent video! I had to rewind the video back from the zen garden of F as I was laughing too hard after the depiction of tapping your foot at 250 bpm. I've had to repeatedly tell myself to stop doing that when I'm playing an uptempo tune, notice my leg is hurting, then look down to see my foot moving at roughly the speed of a pneumatic drill breaking asphalt.
@4:19 I laughed so hard I spit out my coffee. So true tho relax. People try to run before they can even walk . Practice practice. No song was recorded in one take relax and work on it before you know you’ll have it !
I mean.... Some people hit rock bottom, well here I keep seeing new altitudes. Thanks for these videos, really. They don't help me as much as I'd like them to as there are so many of them, but it's always nice to look at them. PRENCISE?!? That one was so nicely put in that I'm still laughing :) If you ever come to Slovenia, be sure to let me know. It'd be an honour to meet you :)
I recall David Occhipinti once telling me about the time he asked Ed Bickert if Ed did yoga or meditation. There had to be a higher state of mind that Ed was in in order to do all the things he did so magically well. Ed just laughed, apparently. The point is I think for him a lot is happening on a subconscious level? I don’t want to speak for Ed or David. But I loved the garden scene in your video, and I think it hits the nail on the Ed. I mean head.
Is there a preferred way to hold the pick while playing uptempo? On an angle vs straight up and down? Or for that matter relaxed grip vs tight grip on the pick?
@@JensLarsen I will have to check more of your music out. I pretty much follow your lessons and haven't looked at what you're doing. Thanks for the reminder, look forward to listening.
I tried to make videos like that for a whole year, but the audience was really not interested, so I gave up. Here are some of them in a playlist: th-cam.com/video/eTOTO4CGrzs/w-d-xo.html
My old bass instructor used a precise formula for hard passages. Start with the metronome slow enough that you can play it 5 times in a row perfectly, then add 5 bpm. Repeat. One mistake and you're back to zero. No cheating. Doesn't take long to master things this way!
Nice lesson sir Jens. That JPetrucci Rock Discipline lesson gave me great technique when im started playing elec guitar. Now its your videos. That yamaha sg in the background is still handsome though. Cheers
John Petrucci Is the worst example to play fast for a jazz station...he Do It "in position"and condances scales in chromatic parts not in a jazz way(obviously)and like a fingering exercises for beginners.So a good example of Speed picking could be Pat Martino and John McLaughlin with Shakti,Al di Meola too!Pat and John use pedal point for control (with right hand very free without support of the body Guitar by Palm or last two fingers) but...when Pat and John play the scales they think about roots Notes and resolve,generally other jazz Guitar player use arpeggios and more Enclosure!The most important think Is "don't thing about position approach!"(Mick Goodrick school)and thing about notes not scales,Thing ti play on through the chords and not into the chords...play horizontal and not vertical in a box.We Need to listen more sitar !ahaha.Anyway to play like Petrucci in a fast way Is like to walk wearing 200 kilos!There's only One man with Petrucci approch before Petrucci..is Al di Meola(but Is Al really jazz player?):the First 5 albums are the University of right hand picking accurate fast.Friday night in San Francisco Is the Bible of Speed picking Technic,to found the parts of Mediterranean Sundance and Guardian Angel Is a solid school! Steve Morse Is another world,Is the master(the best "Rock"Guitar player)not good for jazz and very very personal,particoular but sounds like Guitar and not like trumpet,horn..like McLaughlin and Martino Sorry for my english
@@ShpookyMetal Petrucci consider "Intense Rock" REH by Gilbert his primary school. ...but few famous Guitar rock players play "into"the tempo and not "up"on tempo without rythm sense!
Funny. I was thinking about replacing all my political subscriptions with Looney Tunes... Much healthier!
A jazz guitar teacher I once had always told me it’s harder to play slower than faster. He would make me do scale practice with the metronome set at forty.
@@GoFigure621 DUDE! Funny you should comment about this now. Because that's EXACTLY what I'm trying to do at 35 right now! And that's just picking one note. Subdividing it faster then slower. It's very humbling.
..Jens!..greetings from NY..a great video about how to practice, and looking at it in various ways man..i almost fell off my chair when you circled the bottle on the shelf, that was hilarious lol..i’m beginning to see that the best educators on YT are covering much more than just licks, you are one the best man, thank you..btw I’ve been listening to Eef Albers lately a bit..nice that you studied with him..stay safe and stay strong..New York..November 10, 2022..
Hey Jens, where are the old videos to check out about free form improvising with open triads? at 1:53. I looked and cannot find this beautifully sounding video you clipped.
I don't have videos on free form improvising with open triads, that is just playing open triads and putting them together.
Maybe this is helpful: th-cam.com/video/6kZJm6k1b0g/w-d-xo.html
And otherwise search for spread or open triads on the channel
This video has a section on it as well: th-cam.com/video/yR_v0zTYw_g/w-d-xo.html
4:18 I thought it was an advertising
Ohh never thought I should see John Petrucci here on your channel lol,,sure there’s jazzy elements in Dream Theatres music 😅
Here's my crazy take on speed technique that was influenced strongly by Shawn Lanes words, this works for me at my level: Go fast now, clean up later. Break the sections you're working on into clear chunks, play it methodically slow with no exaggerated motion to embed the muscle memory (you'll realize if you need to go back to this step pretty easily), then start bursting the chunks you've selected. Never graduate the metronome (70>75>80>85) you're just wasting time because going for a slightly faster walk doesn't help you win the 100m sprint. The very last thing you do (in my ruleset anyway) is lower the metronome value or graduate it, unless it's completely eating you alive and it's obvious you won't make it, always lower the length of your grouping first, that's first priority lets say, ahead of lowering the speed- So say the note grouping you had initially chunked was a sextuplet, cut the last note out of that sextuplet, repeat all the way down to 2 if you have to, only then do you cave in and lower the metronome.
Pretty extremist from the outside I know, but I've got some absolute speed demons of kids (students xD) to show for it.
In my early 20s I went through a Shawn Lane period and I took his advice on speed to heart (…and it was kind of what I was doing already lol). It works, kids. Try it.
I've heard the same kind of argumentation from Frank Gambale, Martin Miller, Guthrie Govan, Michael Angelo Batio. It's not crazy at all.
I agree 100%. You don't pick a passage the same way at 60 BPM that you do at 160 BPM. I used to practice slow and work my way up and couldn't understand why I'd hit a wall. Once I realized that you pick and play differently at really fast speeds, I changed the way I practiced. I had a teacher that suggested playing the first two notes of a phrase at speed, then add a third, fourth, etc. There isn't one single way to do this. Another trick I picked up along the way is to alternate playing the passage at full speed and half speed.
@@clarkkent6482 Totally right. If you learn at a slow tempo, your right hand will cheat and bring the pick above the level of the strings in a movement that won't translate to high tempos. Then you're just embedding inefficient string hopping instead of correct escape movements, and tension because you can feel that something isn't right. Professionals can get away with learning passages at graduated tempos because they already know the correct technique; they just want to learn the notes. But if you're plateauing, it really is like learning to sprint by walking faster and faster. It won't work because the movements are fundamentally different (unless you're pushing your pick through the strings really slowly). Even Petrucci recommends playing at silly tempos to break through speed barriers.
@@obligatoryprofile Never heard the walking to running analogy, but you explained it perfectly.
Man, I remember years ago wanting to get into jazz and finding your channel and being mostly like “meh, maybe another time” but your videos in the last months have been absolutely nothing short of incredible. Your technique is great, your lines are amazing, and all of your advice is super actionable and easy to understand.
Keep up the great work Jens, greetings from Germany
Thank you very much! That is really motivating to hear :)
I made leaps and bounds with my guitar playing when I sobered up.
"This doesn't help" was a great reminder :)
That's great to hear! I have already lost too many colleagues to drinking and drugs.
Your videos, scripting and editing are on a whole other level now. Really good work man.
Your lesson videos are now the best on the web. The editing, pop ups, and fun references, make the lesson approachable and easy to digest. Thank you Jens.
Personally not a fan of the pop up fun, but I agree, Jens owns this niche. He covers a gargantuan amount of subjects, nothing is irrelevant.
Hello from Brazil. Bass and Guitar Player here. When I was Young I had Problems with Not only playing fast but thinking fast too. I could read Very Well but never improvise fast. IMO my thoughts were too accelerated. 1) when I started to speak english (21y/o) my thoughts started to organize in different patterns. 2) When I started to learn German my improvise got more calm. 3) after learning Italiano it got short and Square enabling me to think ahead of the measures. It feels like I am Not faster in fact, but i organize the thoughts much better. 4) Physically talking (besides the technical study) for me was to Go to Gym and Work my muscular Tonus. I learn languages as a hobby...........
Great lesson. I honestly laughed out loud during the "relax" section.
Glad you enjoyed it!
transcribing helped me take a step forward in playing faster, though I never really focused on fast playing that much. But I think a key to playing fast is synchronizing what you hear internally with what you want to output. If you can't follow the changes internally and anticipate the changes no amount of fast technique will help you. I think this is where we get stuck, focussing on technique and not knowing the music well enough.
Re: foot tapping, alternate feet ;)
390 bpm is too much bruh your toan won't be recognizeable
No! Not the toan!!!!!
My balls can handle it.
I have never liked fast tempo guitar solos in any genre, there’s no feel and doesn’t do any thing for the music.
Who is your favorite when it comes to up-tempo playing? Maybe an example of a great track?
This is another aspect of playing uptempo that really helps:
th-cam.com/video/msmdbxsjmvI/w-d-xo.html
Great lesson and great advice as always Jens. I think McLaughlin, Dimeola and Paco established the whole ramped up tempo playing . Friday night at San Francisco is an album where you can hear some riffs. But I don't think that's straight up jazz.. maybe more Mediterranean fusion... some non functional harmony. You are an incredibly skilled guitarist Mr. Larsen and extremely humble too.
Of current jazz guitarists that can shred, Joscho Stephan is my favorite. His ideas always go somewhere & I love the way he quotes & he just has a lovely sound. If you haven’t heard him play Isn’t She Lovely, you should.
Brad Mehldau on the way you look tonight from the art of the trio album is pretty cool. I think he plays it at like 400 but his approach is so relaxed
I like Pat Methenys "All the things you are".. some ripping Jazz guitar.
Late artist known as Prince had a song "Joy in Repetition", probably he was meaning more carnal pleasures, but gaining assurance and dexterity thru repetition is not a lesser joy IMHO. It is only about where you put your priorities
In Jazz playing fast means to THINK fast, in Rock and Classical Music it is enough to train your fingers and have a good memory. In Jazz you need to think while improvising a lot about chords, scales etc. AND have well trained fingers, so Jazz is the Kings and Queens discipline.
I don't actually think when I am playing jazz 🙂
In all my years of teaching, it always comes back to knowing the fundamentals really, really, well, and I appreciate how you emphasize that in all of your videos. Your approach to developing speed along with the comment from @DSMusic below, give folks some true and tested options to find what works best for them. Cheers!
My teacher called it "picking from the wrist". He didn't want to see any elbow movement while flat picking.
Which makes sense since that is often a recipe for problems with your arm 🙂
3:15 - No, that doesn’t help in the slightest. The only good thing it did for my musicianship is giving me the “free time” to learn jazz. 😎
Indeed 😁
I really appreciate this lesson. Every tip helps. The first time I heard Joe Pass and NHOP doing “Donna Lee” at an insanely fast tempo (over 300bpm I think) was almost enough to make me give up. Fortunately I found some video lessons from rock shredders that gave me some exercises to work on. They really helped, and my speed increased to a certain degree. Unfortunately now, with a sick wife who needs almost constant attention, I’ve had little time to work much on that aspect of technique. Still, I do enjoy what time I do have.
Bahahahahahahahaha!! You're getting funnier every day
Nothing learning how to practice with a metronome can't solve. Which as a bassist, found out that a lot of guitar players can't do lol.
Be precise when you are plying slow to be precise when you play fast. INCREDIBLE ! Simple, but awesome advice. Thanks Jens!
Haha! Ludicrous Speed!😆
Relax, you're in a garden..that made me lol so hard, so unexpected and well delivered ha!
Thank you 😁
Your thumbnail game improves…. Can’t wait for the lesson Jens! :)
It's a challenge on Piano too! Thank you for the vid!
You're very welcome!
So happy to see this channel to grow and your videos improving. Thanks for this Man!
Glad you enjoy it!
I'm curious about the details of the Steve Morse inspired exercises that you mentioned, but I haven't been able to find those older video(s). What could I search for?
They are in here: th-cam.com/play/PLWYuNvZPqqcGhA7WjDTjYJ5EfTJ_rdwHY.html 🙂
Found it - thanks, Jens. You're a treasure.
"Relax, the sun is shining, and it's a medium blues in F."
😁
It took me 30 years to learn to not try to play faster than I could manage. I was just practicing mistakes.
I've found particularly useful making one string right hand combinations (1234, 1243, 1324, ... All 24 of them). I make each one on sixteenth notes on 4/4 bars, and slide a half step all the way up and down. I do it with no metronome, at the fastest tempo possible. Repeating each group 4 times gives me time to check my shoulders, back, hand relaxation and position, I consider those more important than getting a fast but stressed tempo, so I can speed up or slow down freely (tho I try to avoid that).
To complement, I pick one of the combinations and do it with metronome at the fastest tempo possible, shifting strings as a 3 min endurance exercise.
Some times I try to get out of my nails the ugliest sound possible, hitting the string wears off the exceed of nail and it helps keeping the the shape smooth. I also change right hand fingering.
(I play nylon)
Thanks for the advice. Great video. Unfortunately I am struck with incredible envy when watching you.
isn't it the same as the Great bebop "guitarist| Bruce Lee said: "I am more afraid of someone who just practiced one kick instead of sombody who practices 10 kick s a day...??""
less is more...???/LoL Rofl!!!
I’m a huge fan of your channel. On the topic of speed, question yourself on the following matter: did you learn to walk slow, and then gradually speed up? I guess not. Muscle memory doesn’t work like that. Personally, my world opened up when I did the opposite of what your suggesting. Don’t get me wrong here. The concept of starting slow and speeding up has been around for many decades and has been distributed by many teachers. Nowadays, there has been more medical research on practising for musicians. What has come out is that practising chunks very quickly while focusing on muscle tension has been far more successful for many people, then the start slow speed up concept.
I think you are misunderstanding the method that I describe in the video? Because it is not what you describe
@@JensLarsen from what I understood it looked like you were promoting the start slow and then speed up practice method, as you literally stated in your video. Of course there are many ways to interpretate that. Just wanted to highlight what my teachers (which some of them where yours as well 😉 ), that although the 'gradually speed up' method you're talking about, does work for a very small amount of people. For most guitar players (especially those who are able to play fast and explain how they got there) it doesn't work
@@ChrisDv849 Well, the method I am talking about here has you play at the top speed of your ability every day, and I get the impression that you don't think that is the case? And I actually mention using smaller patterns as well, though that is not what I did that much,
Thank you. Ha just when I was thinking it seems you don’t mention (I haven’t seen most of your vids) Wes Montgomery you mention Wes Montgomery. BB King said he couldn’t play fast(what??) because his brain isn’t fast(I believe he said that). I think that is my problem at playing fast(er). My brain can’t do it. Also it seems my playing is like my speech, I stutter, doing scales, arpeggios I seem to stutter playing. The only exercise I seem to increase speed is a chromatic diagonal scale I learned years ago in a guitar mag article by Steve Vai. It seems to give me some confidence (until I watch your videos scratching my head haha). I need a brain speeder-upper exercise haha. I love listening to fast jazz guitar with the likes of Wes Montgomery and you Sir. On a good day I can maybe play a blues scale @ 120bpm ha. Thank you
I think it's harder to play fast with legato, like Scofield does does so well, than picking every note. Last year I was working on country guitar playing and my flat picking (alternate picking) got to be pretty fast and clean compared to how it use to be. My approach was similar to yours: start slow and work up to your target tempo: My goal was to get to 200 bpm, being able to play eighth notes in 4 to 8 bar phrases, pick every note and also use some hybrid picking. Well I got there, eventually. But it wasn't easy. However, going back to jazz and trying to be more legato and NOT pick every note at faster tempos has proven to be a challenge. I tend to come up with ideas in the moment (on a gig) and THEN go back and clean them up later. Kind of a backwards way I suppose but I try to improvise in the purest sense of the word when I am playing live so a lot of what I play is what I am thinking of in the moment. Keep up the videos; I have found them very useful. Cheers!
I tried to build up my speed by working with a metronome and increasing the tempo, but I didn't like the results. As the tempo got faster my playing got tighter and sounded tense. When I slowed down to more natural tempos for me, my playing sounded more relaxed and more musical. But I still wish I could play faster!
Jens, gewoon uit interesse, spreek je nog meer Nederlands dan pindakaas?
Jens, just wondering, do you speak Dutch beyond the word pindakaas?
Een beetje.... 🙂
@@JensLarsen There you go! At least knowing the word pindakaas will get you something to eat in case of alimentary emergencies.
@@BassGuyNL Exactly!
Jens I'm struggling a lot with playing fast, and sounding clean and articulate. I'm really trying to improve my technique especially when there is a lot of string skipping involved. I feel almost burned out by this topic lately actually hahahaha. Thank you for your always solid content and advices
I found the Steve Morse stuff super useful for this, so maybe look that up. I talk about those types of exercises in this video and the next one: th-cam.com/video/6kZJm6k1b0g/w-d-xo.html
@@JensLarsen Dank je wel :)
Another problem besides speed is getting lost in the song. If there is no chordal instrument I get lost easier. Some of my favorite payers seem comfortable working with only bass and drums. How do they do this? Is my ear just underdeveloped?
Mr. Larson, You presented speedy Jazz style runs that are too slow to keep up with Buckethead.
I totally forgive you.
Heyy Jens great premier! :-) I come from folk acoustic guitar/music and am starting recently to get into a more jazz approach on electric guitar. Unfortunately my right hand technique isn't really good enough to control the "open" strings.. Would love to see your advise on this! Cheers from London UK, Portugal and Argentina now hehe
Thanks! Are you talking about muting? I think you will find that most of that is in the left hand actually :)
@@JensLarsen Ohh i see! I am a right hand sided player and on just playing chords i am pretty comfortable with muting with my left hand but when it come to play soloing plugged in on an guitar amp my left hand struggles to keep the unwanted noise muted ^^ Thanks for your reply!
@@brunoteixeira5912 Yes, and the hand doing most of the muting is the left hand 🙂
Wow I see, thanks a lot man! 🙏 💪🥳
Solid !
If you can't express yourself in few slow notes, you have nothing to say, Petrucci is one of the most boring and shallow players in the history of history.
Being able to adapt and play different tempos in different situations can open infinite doors. Cheers Jens!
Exactly :)
One thing I noticed with playing fast is that sometimes your physical patterns are working well for slow and medium tempos but become a bottleneck when trying to improve speed. Do what works and feels comfortable, not what dogma or theory tells you to. In the end it is about the music, not if you used the theoretically correct technique.
This is one of my favorite videos you've made. I sure wish you would not leave the subject but expand on it. Its very useful.
Next week Jonathan Kreisberg plays here in Leipzig. He plays fast af and his articulation and time are still totally flawless. He is unique here.
Personally I stick with Jim Hall as I always chased the more lyrical Chet Bakeri’sh approach of playing depressing or cool slow swing which fits my character better 😅 and my technique…
Somehow your videos stand out and helped me a lot in the last 2 years, Thanks Mr. Larsen!
Great to hear!
You need to play slow to go fast, that's definitely true
Certainly!
Excellent video! I had to rewind the video back from the zen garden of F as I was laughing too hard after the depiction of tapping your foot at 250 bpm. I've had to repeatedly tell myself to stop doing that when I'm playing an uptempo tune, notice my leg is hurting, then look down to see my foot moving at roughly the speed of a pneumatic drill breaking asphalt.
😁
I can't play giant steps but I'm great mini-nano-steps
@4:19 I laughed so hard I spit out my coffee. So true tho relax. People try to run before they can even walk . Practice practice. No song was recorded in one take relax and work on it before you know you’ll have it !
Thank you Ron!
You had me at Wile W. Coyote. Thanks!
i give up jazz music :0
Haha! Come on, it is not THAT difficult :)
Hi Jens great advice. What do you make of some famous jazz guitarists who say you can’t think and play?
Thanks! I think I demonstrate how that is pretty true in this video, I am soloing over Giant Steps, but I can't say the chords in time.
I mean.... Some people hit rock bottom, well here I keep seeing new altitudes. Thanks for these videos, really. They don't help me as much as I'd like them to as there are so many of them, but it's always nice to look at them. PRENCISE?!? That one was so nicely put in that I'm still laughing :)
If you ever come to Slovenia, be sure to let me know. It'd be an honour to meet you :)
Glad you like them!
4:21 ! 😝
"... and it's a medium blues in F" hahahaha
Great video, thank you for your work!
My pleasure! 😁
Great video Jens
Player that i like and playing fast are
Adam Rogers
Jonathan Kriesberg
Pat Martino
Bireli Lagrene
Thanks! :)
love it! thank you
Glad you like it!
I recall David Occhipinti once telling me about the time he asked Ed Bickert if Ed did yoga or meditation. There had to be a higher state of mind that Ed was in in order to do all the things he did so magically well. Ed just laughed, apparently. The point is I think for him a lot is happening on a subconscious level? I don’t want to speak for Ed or David. But I loved the garden scene in your video, and I think it hits the nail on the Ed. I mean head.
Haha! Thanks :) That is an interesting story!
Is there a preferred way to hold the pick while playing uptempo? On an angle vs straight up and down? Or for that matter relaxed grip vs tight grip on the pick?
No, I don't think so. If you compare guitarists like Metheny, Adam Rogers, Kreisberg etc they all have different approaches to how they hold the pick.
First time I hear you play at that speed. You should do more of it for the public (us), you do it well!!!
Thank you! Actually a fair amount of the older clips are from my channel :)
@@JensLarsen I will have to check more of your music out. I pretty much follow your lessons and haven't looked at what you're doing. Thanks for the reminder, look forward to listening.
Love the advise... especially the humour! Thank you.
Glad you enjoyed it!
well ...I just want to say how nice to hear you play on these short clips....beautifull.
Thank you 🙂
Love ❤️ 🙏🎼🎵🎶🎸✌️👌🍀🇮🇱🍂
I love the Spaceballs reference in there! Thank you for the excellent content!
Glad you like it :)
Ahh the garden of blues in F in a medium tempo❤️ thank you for the tips maestro!
My pleasure!
Years ago I had Steve Morse cassette tape of excerizes. Worked it every day.
Great! :)
Would you make a series on your favourite old cats and their styles?
I tried to make videos like that for a whole year, but the audience was really not interested, so I gave up. Here are some of them in a playlist: th-cam.com/video/eTOTO4CGrzs/w-d-xo.html
Jens uses these speed techniques in his talking too, sounds like 🤪
😁👍
I think this is the best videos of yours that I have watched.
Thank you 🙂
This video is very dense, really packs a punch.
Thank you T.W.
My old bass instructor used a precise formula for hard passages. Start with the metronome slow enough that you can play it 5 times in a row perfectly, then add 5 bpm. Repeat. One mistake and you're back to zero. No cheating. Doesn't take long to master things this way!
Nice lesson sir Jens. That JPetrucci Rock Discipline lesson gave me great technique when im started playing elec guitar. Now its your videos. That yamaha sg in the background is still handsome though. Cheers
Jens, you are my unofficial study buddy as I labor my way through music college. You are appreciated!
Use the click 🤘🏽
Cant wait. 👏
Wonderful session, thanks.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Love your videos Jens, many thanks!
Glad you like them!
Very usable advice, as usual. Thanks.
Glad it was helpful!
Fantastic post Jens ( as per usual)
Thank you 🙂
JP was my inspiration and "online" mentor, and all the stuff you break down resonates with me, so thank you for your content!
This is great Jens, really inspiring.
Glad you think so!
Great video Jens, thx
Glad you enjoyed it!
Good lesson, love the humour too.
Glad to hear it!
great video! would love to see a vid on comping at higher tempos as well, something i have been struggling with recently
John Petrucci Is the worst example to play fast for a jazz station...he Do It "in position"and condances scales in chromatic parts not in a jazz way(obviously)and like a fingering exercises for beginners.So a good example of Speed picking could be Pat Martino and John McLaughlin with Shakti,Al di Meola too!Pat and John use pedal point for control (with right hand very free without support of the body Guitar by Palm or last two fingers) but...when Pat and John play the scales they think about roots Notes and resolve,generally other jazz Guitar player use arpeggios and more Enclosure!The most important think Is "don't thing about position approach!"(Mick Goodrick school)and thing about notes not scales,Thing ti play on through the chords and not into the chords...play horizontal and not vertical in a box.We Need to listen more sitar !ahaha.Anyway to play like Petrucci in a fast way Is like to walk wearing 200 kilos!There's only One man with Petrucci approch before Petrucci..is Al di Meola(but Is Al really jazz player?):the First 5 albums are the University of right hand picking accurate fast.Friday night in San Francisco Is the Bible of Speed picking Technic,to found the parts of Mediterranean Sundance and Guardian Angel Is a solid school!
Steve Morse Is another world,Is the master(the best "Rock"Guitar player)not good for jazz and very very personal,particoular but sounds like Guitar and not like trumpet,horn..like McLaughlin and Martino
Sorry for my english
I think you are missing how I implement it, but I do cover that in the video.
paul gilbert still beats petrucci anytime crazy fast
@@ShpookyMetal Petrucci consider "Intense Rock" REH by Gilbert his primary school.
...but few famous Guitar rock players play "into"the tempo and not "up"on tempo without rythm sense!
Jens, you’re the man
Glad you like it!
Gold right here.
Glad you like it!
Really good lesson Jens.
Thanks Ben! :)
Nice post
Thanks
Shred lesson, it took 5 years maar dan hedde ok wa
It is super hard to play fast solo.
I followed you on the twitters too
Another great video, Jens!
Glad you like it 🙂