Speed building, any tips? I work with a metronome and increase the bpm when the notes are clear and smooth. I mostly use the spider walk at the 7th fret. And use this with the metronome for 6 mins. Any other tips of tricks I could try that would help? Thanks Jon
Speed building any tips
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Speed, fluidity, and consistency are often more directly related to the right (picking) hand than the left hand. Pick direction, grip, and tension are the biggest factors that make or break your speed. If you post a video here clearly showing both hands’ technique, we might be able to give you some additional pointers/things to work on 
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In one of Steve Kaufman’s books he said that when you practice to play twice as fast you can until your fingers and pick hand catch up with each other. This will train your fingers that they have to move fast, because if they never move fast, they will never know how to move fast.
Also on top of that practice at half speed to train your fingers to accurately and clearly hit each note. This will help sustain, attack, volume, tone, and accuracy.
Playing with a metronome and picking up the tempo every few times definitely will help and is also a good practice tool.
Playing accurately will definitely help building speed as well. One exercise I also learned from Steve Kaufman was to set a timer for three minutes and play the same song over again until the timer ends. Take a short break. When you feel you’ve had a long enough break, do the same exercise again.
Another exercise that will help accuracy, which is along the same lines, is to play the song all the way through with ABSOLUTELY NO MISTAKES. You can go as slow as necessary, as long as you don’t make a mistake. If you do make a mistake, start over. Try not to get frustrated, though it is very hard not to. Make sure you take a lot of breaks.
Basically, just practice, practice, practice, and speed will come eventually.
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I agree with all that has been said. One comment I will make, and this is from my own perspective. When you are practicing and you do make a mistake, I try to continue on and get back on track as fast as I can. I think of it as like playing on stage, if you make a mistake, the whole band isn’t going to stop with you, you have to jump back in. When I first started playing with others I would make a mistake and stop. Not only was it frustrating to me, but to the others as well. If you are having difficulty with a certain part, isolate that part and practice it a bit. I try to find a measure or 2 that I can make up or use to kind of loop the part I am practicing so it is continuous.
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When using the metronome I don’t move the tempo up until I can go the entire 6 mins without missing a note or until it’s fluid and clear. The reason I use the spider craw for this exercise is the trian the left and right hand together.
But I also do a 6 min drill for just the right hand, also with the metronome, for purposes of pick direction, grip, and tension; and also making sure not to plant my hand keeping it hovering. I do this because my Grandfather and Father leaned me how to play,
but also learned me some bad habits too!
Thanks for the advice.
I’ll try to post a video.
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TablEdit / TefView & TEF Files gradual speed increments - play along with the TEF files
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