Re: Playing with accuracy
Originally Posted by
Tobin
T
But when it comes to learning to play fast and solving the coordination issues between picking and fretting as you are describing, there's only one way to do it. Play fast. Until you break down. And then keep playing just below that speed long enough that it's comfortable and smooth. Keep experimenting with speed and repeating this process. It will take years. Playing slow will only get you so far. The dynamics change greatly when you get up to speed.
There is a very fine set of coordination that has to happen to get smooth notes. When you hear a player who plays fast but sounds choppy, they're either doing that because they want to sound like Bill Monroe or because they don't have the coordination down for that speed. If you hear them missing notes or getting thud sounds because they picked the string before getting the string fretted fully, they just don't have that coordination built yet for that speed.
+1.
You will not get it smooth and accurate immediately... you really have to work at it, over time. With a new tune, I get it it up to speed first then 'polish it up' , taking all the rough edges off (accuracy) and getting it silky smooth over the next week or two...
For whatever reason, the play it S L O W and gradually built up speed never really did it for me. I would start off slow, yes, while my fingers 'learned' where to go, but after a certain point I just "go for it". It might be a bit rough initially, but the following "polish" process soon takes care of that. That is the method that works for me, anyway. If I am teaching, I cover both approaches: The 'build it up slow' method and the 'go for it' method. I do find some people seem to do better with one or the other. In fact, I'm teaching all next week at a camp here in Spain with Alice Gerrard and attaining speed with accuracy is always a major topic.
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