How can they play that fast?

Subject: RE: How can they play that fast?
From: GUEST,Frank
Date: 29 Sep 01 - 04:07 PM

Finger dexterity has been measured by tests. There are those who have it (fast pickers, surgeons, etc.) as well as tweezer dexterity (watch makers, flat pickers etc.) There is a genetic potential for this. Strong hands and strong fingers figure into it regardless of hours of practice.

Musicality is something else again. Also, this is subjective because what is musical to someone might not be to another.

Musicianship is something else again. When these three abilities correlate, you have the fine emergence of virtuosos. Musicianship might be gained by musical training but not necessarilly. It's an ability to absorb the musical language and it's complexities. Some can do this without extensive musical training. (Charlie Parker, Django, etc.)

Practice helps up to a point. Then the genes determine what happens.

Frank

Subject: RE: How can they play that fast?
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 29 Sep 01 - 03:45 PM

If anybody is making a list of Mudcat threads to archive, this one is definitely heading in that direction. I agree that it's a combination of practice and talent, and in varying degrees for different people. We all have different "wiring patterns" in our brains and muscles, and different abilities to make brain and muscle work together in different ways. There's no question that motor skills improve with practice, as you create a stronger motor memory. It's like running water carving a channel--the more often it flows, the deeper the channel and the easier it is to stay in the channel. But some people cut that channel in firm earth, while others are stuck with crumbling sand!

What I find fascinating is trying to understand those wiring patterns, and how they interact in different tasks. (This is a professional interest for me, as I often deal with children who are having learning difficulties.) I, for one, seem to be a klutz on guitar, or drawing, or anything that requires consistency in fine movements of my hands and fingers. I can get better with practice, but only up to a point. However, I'm a fairly fast typist, and I'm really good at fast singing and tongue-twisters, both of which also require fine muscle movements. Maybe when my strong language skills are engaged, they help my muscles do better! It's a fascinating subject.

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: How can they play that fast?
From: John Hardly
Date: 29 Sep 01 - 03:20 PM

It's one of those interesting confluences of faith and practice.

One reason besides god-given (genetic?) talent, that some learn faster is that they stumble into (are directed to) the proper things to practice.

You can spend one hell of a lot of time praticing the right thing the wrong way.

In order to even come to the point of "muscle memory" your muscles must have at some point in the practice achieved the proper result that you wish to duplicate...if not all the practice is at best, retarded.

You can play some pretty terrific music "retarded" though.
Where faith comes in is that, at some point you have to trust in some way of doing it....and practice that...and hope it's a "right enough" way to achieve the result you want.

Subject: RE: How can they play that fast?
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 29 Sep 01 - 02:53 PM

How: Practice and that little thing that I'd call just natural talent. We could all practice every hour availible but I suspect there would still be very few people who can play cleanly and in time at the blistering paces so to some degree it is just a matter of accepting who/what you are.

Jon

(who doesn't play cleanly even when going slowly)

Subject: RE: How can they play that fast?
From: DougR
Date: 29 Sep 01 - 02:47 PM

Great thread!

Subject: RE: How can they play that fast?
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 29 Sep 01 - 02:33 PM

Wow...good stuff...perhaps the OLD Mudcat??!!

I'm goin' to have to disagree a bit...but just a bit, with some of my friends here. I think that CERTAIN really fast and clean players (clean is the key) simply have a Gawd given talent. I'm basing this on how old they were when they started, and how long it took them to get to world class skills. There ARE prodigies, and there ARE prodigies who had great instruction, supportive families, and great motivation.

I'd certainly put Doc Watson in this category. Also:

Joe Maphis, Mark O'Connor, Lenny Breau, and the most amazingly loose, cool, casual lightening-like picker I've ever seen: Merle Travis. I KNOW these guys practiced, but there was just "something" in their results that suggests it was more than just plain hard work. Django has to be there.

However....folks who knew him say that one of the fastest PLAYERS (not a picker) who ever lived, Charlie Parker, literally practiced day and night. Could anyone play faster than Art Tatum (piano)? Once again, his contemporaries say he played constanly.

So I'd say that perhaps what separates a Chet Atkins (who claimed not to have HUGE talent, but practiced endlessly, from a Merle Travis, who's interest in Motorcycles, women, and lotsa illegal substances, was certainly equal to his interest in music.....was perhaps that thing called "genius".

As a sidebar. Of all the current (and past) "folk oriented" pickers, nobody comes close to J.P.Cormier. He is absolutely world class on Guitar, Banjo, Mandolin, and fiddle. I know ALL the notes he picks on these instruments (knowing, and playing them are two very different things) and he does it better than anyone alive (that I've ever heard or seen). Is he famous? Nope. Does he make a living? Barely.

Marty, please don't take this the wrong way...but..you probably WON'T be a lightening fast player, but here's something you CAN do...and it allows you to monitor your progress. Set the metrinome (or buy a small keyboord with drum machine) to the speed you currently play Beaumont Rag at, without a mistake. Up the speed ONE NOTCH a day. In a week you should see results (or get pissed).

Personally I can play very fast bass runs, but my high string speed is nuthin' to write home about. This used to bug me, especially after seeing Tony Rice, but now I'm more fatalistic. I try to make my bass runs more and more interesting while keeping the speed up....and leave the high string stuff to folks like Tony Quarrington (best unknown picker I've ever seen) who can really "bring it".

Rick

Subject: RE: How can they play that fast?
From: InOBU
Date: 29 Sep 01 - 01:48 PM

Justa picker said basicly what I was about to say. Mussle memory. You should practice to the point that you can play the tune while reading a book or getting into a heated coversation with your mates while playing. I sometimes find myself listening to coversations in pubs while playing and makeing all the changes etc. When you are running on gravity, you can go as fast as you want... however, if you listen to some Great bands like the Bothey band, who play fast for the sake of attracting folks who listen to rock in stead of Irish music, well, in a lot of ways they just played to damn fast. If you slow down Paddy Keanans playing in that band, you hear wonderful wonderful things that you miss as it flys past, which is why I like his solo albums so much better than his bothey band recordings, which are great if you are really skuthered, but well, any way that's my tupenny piece on the whole speed thing... Larry

Subject: RE: How can they play that fast?
From: Justa Picker
Date: 29 Sep 01 - 12:45 PM

There's also God-given talent.
J.P. Cormier is another example.

Subject: RE: How can they play that fast?
From: Midchuck
Date: 29 Sep 01 - 12:42 PM

One thing - I don't dispute the need for practice - but if that's all it is, how do you account for people like Nickel Creek and them, who haven't been alive long enough to have practiced as much as you'd think it would take to make them that good?

Most of the serious and not-so-serious pickers I know will admit to having been blown away by a fifteen-year-old at some point.

Peter.

Subject: RE: How can they play that fast?
From: Justa Picker
Date: 29 Sep 01 - 11:52 AM

Another point too, is that when you can get to that level of speed and clarity, it almost becomes a "Zen" thing, where in essence you're no longer thinking about what you're doing, and instead kind of sitting back on autopilot and witnessing yourself and your fingers doing it. The key is that once you've reached this level, don't think about what you're doing. Just relax and let it flow. Your fingers already know where they're supposed to be. Thinking, just messes up the process. I would say this would apply to either fast fingerpicking and, flatpicking.

Subject: RE: How can they play that fast?
From: Justa Picker
Date: 29 Sep 01 - 11:49 AM

What Andrew S said.
Also, an old "Chet" trick, only fret the strings you need to make passing contact with. Fretting all the notes in say a C chord when you only need to be making contact with the high B and E, will slow your fretting hand down. Keep the finger height as you switch from position to position (with your fretting hand) at the absolutely minimum height to just clear the strings. THIS, also takes practise, and there is a tendancy to want to flail your fingers over the strings, but the more height of the fingers rising and pressing down on the strings, the more it will slow you down. (Forget anything you've ever seen electric players do. The majority are dealing with feather light action and string gage, where only the slightest pressure will fret the notes.)

Ironically I too have been working on Beaumont Rag. I based my arrangement on the version that Doc and Chet did together on the "Doc and Chet" album (1979). Thing is, my convulated mind likes to "make trouble" for myself. I took what was a straight flat picking arrangement and turned it into a fingerpicking arrangement, with the index and middle playing all the flat picked leads while the thumb keeps an alternating bass going, as well as using Doc's flatpicking fills as two fingered flat picking breaks. It was great fun, a great exercise in dexterity as well as logic to make it work. I cannot however play this arrangement at any kind of lightning tempo, because there are a lot of notes to be covered and a lot of hand movement with the left hand. Best I can do is a medium tempo at around 110 bps. Still perfecting it, but plan to record it soon and work it into a medley with Liz Cotten's "Babe Ain't No Lie"...and use Beaumont as sort of a "C" part or alternate bridge section to the Cotten tune.

Subject: RE: How can they play that fast?
From: John Hardly
Date: 29 Sep 01 - 11:34 AM

I'm not trying to disagree but...

...I will say that there is some point at which you also have to just play faster. When you've got the elements of the tune cold, you just have to make yorself try it at faster and faster speeds.

I was lucky enough to have taken some lessons from Joel Mabus and when I asked him about speed he said (wisely, I think) that, just as there is a dynamic difference between running and walking----running is not simply walking faster----there is a difference between plying slow and fast that is more than simple speeding up.

He also said that a good way to learn to play cleanly at 200bpm is to practice at 225bpm. Kind of like taking batting practice with the machine turned up to 80+....you can't hit the first 20 balls but suddenly things start to click and the balls seem to become more visable and hittable.

Subject: RE: How can they play that fast?
From: Steve in Idaho
Date: 29 Sep 01 - 11:14 AM

Practice, period - play clean - practice - Oh did I mention practice?? I've one song I've been trying to do up to speed for nearly 30 years - occasionally I can do it - but I need practice - Steve

Subject: RE: How can they play that fast?
From: RocketMan
Date: 29 Sep 01 - 09:24 AM

Beaumont Rag is also one of my favorites to pick. I have been working on it for years and can now play it at a reasonable speed with a group. I concur with the other advice here about timing and clean sound. Concentrate on these and speed will follow. Also, someone once told me what you don't play is as important as what you do play.

RMan

Subject: RE: How can they play that fast?
From: kendall
Date: 29 Sep 01 - 09:10 AM

I can admire the ability of the really fast picker, but, give me clean and crisp everytime. Those speed demons look like they are playing to impress other pickers, and it gets to sound like a popsicle stick in a bicycle wheel after a while.

Subject: RE: How can they play that fast?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Sep 01 - 09:09 AM

Playing incredibly fast and not making mistakes is difficult of course. But playing fast and making mistakes isn't.

And listening to someone playing fast and telling whether they are making mistakes is extremely difficult.

If it's too fast for dancing, it's too fast. It's like talking too fast to be understood - maybe as a party trick for an auctioneer it's fun on occasion. But talking is primarily about communication, and so is music. Communication takes its time.

Subject: RE: How can they play that fast?
From: alanabit
Date: 29 Sep 01 - 03:07 AM

I can only say ditto to Ted and Andrew. I have been practising some pieces for years, working up speed with a metronome. Actually, it's not really the speed which I'm working on. That comes by itself when you get it right. It was probably the best thing I learned from my guitar teacher. I've heard plenty of folks play fast...and not particularly well...

Subject: RE: How can they play that fast?
From: Cappuccino
Date: 29 Sep 01 - 03:04 AM

Good tip about keeping the beat, Andrew. I used to think my timing was pretty damn good until I bought the multitrack and started backing myself... and realised that I was impossible to follow!

- Ian

* yes, in that third line I * was * going to say 'started playing with myself', but thought better of it.

Subject: RE: How can they play that fast?
From: Andrew S
Date: 29 Sep 01 - 02:59 AM

The best tip you will ever get on the subject is start of slow and gradually get faster. Yes, it will take a lot of practice but it will eventually come. If you don't have a metronome, get one and use it all the time. I will help you keep a good steady beat and keep track of exactly how fast you can play. Also, it is never good to tense up when playing. Your muscles have to be relaxed.

Subject: RE: How can they play that fast?
From: M.Ted
Date: 29 Sep 01 - 02:34 AM

When Doc plays, don't be amazed by the speed, be amazed at how clean and precise he is--and how warm it sounds--speed alone is not a big trick--most people, with practice and a few strategic tips, can learn to play "too fast"--but nobody plays like Doc--

Subject: RE: How can they play that fast?
From: rangeroger
Date: 29 Sep 01 - 02:18 AM

One of the most amazing feats of playing I have ever seen or heard was at a Spring Strawberry Music Festival.Tony Rice was one of the featured performers,and it being spring in the Sierras the weather could be anything.

In this case it was cold.32 degrees F on stage. And yet Tony was able to play at blinding speed, perfectly.He was bundled up like an Eskimo and his breath appeared to be freezing in front of him,and he played on.

I don't know how he did it, but it was ajoy to behold and hear.

rr

Subject: RE: How can they play that fast?
From: SeanM
Date: 29 Sep 01 - 01:34 AM

I don't know about Doc, but a mandolin player who plays at speeds unknown to me said he (when playing hi-speed single notes, not chords) just mutes all strings with his fingers, and selectively releases pressure on the strings he wants to hit.

Don't know about someone doing a lot of fretwork though. I'd imagine that's just a LOT of practice.

M

Subject: How can they play that fast?
From: marty D
Date: 29 Sep 01 - 12:53 AM

I've been working on the song Beaumont Rag since I heard a Doc Watson recording and I really thought I was getting somewhere. This week I heard another recording (live) of Doc playing the same song, and I couldn't believe how fast he did it. So here's my question.

Can you learn to play fast or is it just talent alone?

Are there any tricks to playing fast that I'm just not aware of yet?

I've always gotten such great tech help from Mudcat, so I hope somebody has a few answers.

marty (REALLY Slowhand)