# Technique, Theory, Playing Tips and Tricks > Theory, Technique, Tips and Tricks >  Son of "How to increase picking speed?"

## Miss Lonelyhearts

[WARNING: Marathon first post. And you thought Avatar was long and drawn out....  :Disbelief: ]

I know, I know, this question's been done to death. But after lurking here for a year or so, I'm still not satisfied with the _answers_ I've seen.

The standard response is elaborations on three themes: "Speed isn't everything," "Slow is smooth, smooth is fast," and "It takes many hours of woodshedding."

Yep, yep, and yep. I agree. I teach music for a living (fiddle, banjo, guitar, and some mandolin). And I know that logging off here and sitting down with my mando right now would be a better use of my time. Still, I'm hoping some of you kind folks can suggest some specific tools and methods for increasing picking speed (and with that, improving tremolo).

Just so's we don't reinvent the wheel:

(1) I'm putting in a couple of hours a day playing mandolin, 6-7 days a week.
(2) I've been flatpicking guitar for over 30 years, with a break in the middle after damaging my right ulnar nerve. Tests show full recovery--I have better than average nerve conduction, and normal use of my hand and fingers. I've played mandolin for about 4 years now (and for another 4 years about 25 years ago).
(3) I can pick up to about 112 bpm (four eighth notes per metronome click) and be relaxed and comfortable, but I'm used to playing fiddle in groups that commonly run reels at anywhere from 108 to 136 bpm. I want to go that fast--comfortably--on mando, too.
(4) Left hand isn't a problem--it can keep up with anything on fiddle, and so far, whatever my right hand is capable of.
(5) I play down on the beats, up on the "ands," and can pick with good fluency, rock solid timing, rhythm, and feel--at speeds 112 bpm and below.
(6) Yes, I use a metronome to check my pace and measure progress. I was stuck in the upper 90s for a while, then in the 104 to 108 bpm range. So I can see progress--it's just agonizingly slow. I'm 51. I'd like to ease up to, say, 126 bpm before I reach the Geritol/Depends stage.  
(7) I use a Bluechip pick, play on GHS strings (11, 16, 26, 40), on a Weber Yellowstone professionally set up--low, clean action.

I really like the Dan Crary quote someone here has as part of their signature about learning to play well isn't a technique but a decision to make a commitment and do the work. And I've been doing that. Here's my approach so far.

I developed some picking warm ups to help loosen and relax my wrist. I do some standard cross picking on open strings, then onto some speed-smoothness-and-accuracy specific things, like:

Start on the G string and pick across the range of motion
GGGGGGGG|GDDDGDDD|GAAAGAAA|GEEEGEEE| and back down again

Flip that and pick
EEEEEEEE|EAAAEAAA|EDDDEDDD|EGGGEGGG| and back up again

Work on basic DUDU picking on single strings, and on basic adjacent-string crossings (e.g., DADADADA, where you're picking on the "outside" of each course of strings, and ADADADAD, where you're picking "inside" each course of strings).

Strum double, triple, and quad stops.

Focus my mind's eye and ear on Mike Compton's image of "rubbing" the strings, rather than just slapping at them.

Set aside time every day to just work on tremolo, right hand only, and also in some tunes (Midnight on the Water, Ookpik Waltz, Faded Love, etc.).

Play lots of tunes, just relaxing into them and playing as smoothly and cleanly as possible. (They sound fine, just too slow.  :Smile:  ) Spend some time with the metronome and bump the speed up 2 or 4 bpm to push my comfort zone.

I've also quit anchoring my pinkie (a carry over from decades of playing 5-string banjo), and I've recently moved the pick a millimeter or two closer to under the knuckle of my right thumb, rather than out under the pad of the thumb. This seems to help. My right-hand fingers are relaxed, sometimes open and loose, sometimes curled and loose. I was pleasantly surprised to see Mike Marshall's right hand typically flux between these same two hand shapes.

If you're still reading, yes, "Picking above 140 bpm isn't a technique, it's a lifestyle" is true and pithy and brilliant. I love that quip. So what specifically makes up that lifestyle?

Thanks!

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## fredfrank

I've tried about every pick out there in order to find the one that was easiest to play fast. The thing I discovered, for me anyway, is that thinner picks don't necessarily allow me to go faster. I find that trying to get good tone from a thin pick makes me tense up. Using the Blue Chip TAD60 allows me to get good tone and move along at a pretty good clip. The ProPlec 1.5 mm is a similar pick. I like a three point pick, but with rounded edges - a bit of a knife edge bevel. No speed bevel. I have found that a speed bevel actually doesn't help with speed. I'm not sure why anyone wants that feature. Whenever one of my plastic picks would wear like that, I'd toss it out.

I'm not an expert on speed, but after playing with a band where I needed to pick up the pace, I have found that to get faster, I have to focus on pushing myself up that metronome beyond the comfort level every time I practice. I'm still working on it, but I can get it going around 130 bpm now. Good luck.

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## Rob Gerety

Wish I had your dedication.

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## fredfrank

One more thing. I don't know what the motion of your picking hand is, but I recently discovered that mine could be more efficient. Previously, I was moving my hand parallel with the strings, and dipping down with my thumb and forefinger to pick the strings. While this was working okay, it was not easy to play fast. Now, I have a slight angle of my picking plane to the plane of the strings. Imagine: > Instead of = This allows me to move my right hand up and down and leave my dipping action out of it. Try keeping your picking motion straight up and down and tilt your mandolin back like you just developed a pot belly (now you know how I discovered this) - your pick will move into and out of the strings with the greatest efficiency. 

This epiphany has drastically helped my speed, and ease of playing.

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## OldSausage

You don't say how long you've been playing mandolin or how long you've specifically been working on improving your speed. It does take a lot longer than I think people estimate to learn to pick well at speeds 120 bpm +. You have to both work on getting a fabulously economical, relaxed, light touch at slow speeds, and you also need to gain experience at high speeds. If you can work on both in a focused way for an hour or two each day, it will still take you a couple of years to be playing comfortably at the speeds you want to achieve, and probably longer before you are comfortable with them in performance too (from where say you are now). That's been my own experience, at least. I'm sure it depends somewhat on your starting age and general dexterity, as well as what your musical goals are.

I think when people say it's a lifestyle, they are pointing out that if you want to pick well and cleanly and consistently at 140+ bpm you literally have to be playing the mandolin all day every day for years. It sounds like you're doing the right things, you just have to do them for longer.

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## swinginmandolins

I would suggest playing scales (I know yuk!), but run them in quarter, sixteenth , etc with a metronome starting slow and increasing speed. Another good exercise is to play the scales with triplets on each note or throughout the scale. Jazzmando.com has a bunch of helpful articles and exercises for developing tone etc, which in the long term can also help with speed. My reasoning for suggesting scales is, it has helped me, and I believe that part of playing faster is confidence and knowing your fingerboard helps in that regard. 
Pay attention to your right hand and learn to pull tone without digging in to the string. You can pull volume without digging in as well. I think that a heavier pick (I use a 1.5mm) helped for me, but others use lighter. Try different points as well. I used to like a pointy pick but use a rounder one now, as I find with tremelo the round pick "floats" across the strings better, more like a bow. It just takes time and work. Not that I'm there, but these are some things I found to help.

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## AlanN

Always get hung up on this. Can you give a known example of a mandolin break at 120+ bpm? Say, Monroe Rawhide, 1951 version, or Skaggs' Little Maggie (Andy L. on mandolin), or Duffey on Tennessee Blue, Seldom Scene Act IV.  I would imagine these examples are > 120 bpm.

Thanks.

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## Ken_P

Fred made an excellent point that I'd like to expand on a little bit. I think the single most important technical aspect to developing speed is efficiency in both hands. Mainly in the right hand, you need to figure out the way to get the most tone with the least movement. I can't give very specific pointers, other than to say that it will vary slightly depending on the sound you want. I wouldn't ignore the left hand either. Yes, you can move your fingers quickly, but once you get to a certain speed, they tend to start flying all over the place. Work on keeping the fretting motion clean and precise. 

Take a tune you know well, play it at a reasonable tempo, and really concentrate on moving your fingers as little as possible, with as little pressure as possible while still hitting all the notes cleanly.  Then play it again, and pay attention to the right hand, making sure you're getting a full sound out of every note, all while keeping your wrist as steady and relaxed as possible. Keep working on both hands until it feels more natural - I'd be willing to bet that by the time you've got both hands working well, you can get the speed you want without even thinking about it.

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## OldSausage

> Always get hung up on this. Can you give a known example of a mandolin break at 120+ bpm? Say, Monroe Rawhide, 1951 version, or Skaggs' Little Maggie (Andy L. on mandolin), or Duffey on Tennessee Blue, Seldom Scene Act IV.  I would imagine these examples are > 120 bpm.
> 
> Thanks.



If you have a metronome with a tap function, tap it on each bass beat to get the rhythm. I don't have the 1951 version of Rawhide, but when Monroe played it on the "Live at Mechanics Hall" recording, he did it at about 180bpm. Skaggs "Little Maggie" on 'Bluegrass Rules' is about 165bpm. On 'Act Four' Duffey plays Tennessee Blues at about 170bpm.

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9lbShellhamer

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## Miss Lonelyhearts

Thanks for the tips and thoughtful replies!

David, your eyes must have glazed over my OP--I mentioned that I've flatpicked guitar for more than 30 years and 4 on mandolin. (Also, before mando, I played Irish tunes on tenor banjo for about 4 years.)

So--I've put in thousands of hours of dedicated effort on this--that's what's frustrating. Especially since I can play fiddle at good speed (in the "lifestyle range of 160 bpm). I'l put in thousands more hours, I'm sure, but I'd like some reasons for optimism.  :Smile: 

I do also play scales, usually folded scales (e.g., |GABG ABCA|BCDB CDEC| etc.) a lot for warm up and cool downs.

And my left hand is never the problem. As I said, it keeps up fine on fiddle at high speeds. On mando, it always feels like my left-hand fingers are comfortable and relaxed, while my right struggles to maintain anything above 112 bpm.

I'll keep experimenting with picks, but so far I like the BC 60s best. I also occasionally use a few different Wegens. I gave up on thin picks a long time ago--too slappy and thin in tone.

The advice on the angle of your pick over the plane of the strings is interesting. I've always avoided tilting the mando (or guitar, banjo, etc.) as though on a potbelly because (1) it makes the fingering angle less efficient, and (2) Mike Marshall advises against it.  :Smile:   Seriously, after studying the picking motions of Marshall and Thile on some great close-up YouTube clips, it's clear that they keep the plane of the strings basically vertical, and their right hands parallel that plane. Am I missing something?

Keep it coming, puhleeze. Good food for thought so far.

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## Miss Lonelyhearts

Rob G., thanks for calling it determination. I'm beginning to think it's more of an insane, obsessive stubbornness.  :Smile: 

I like that quote from Dan Crary so much, I'm pasting it here:

"I'm convinced that playing well is not so much a technique as it is a decision. It's a commitment to do the work, strive for concentration, get strategic about advancing by steps, and push patiently forward toward the goal."
								- Dan Crary

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## Rob Gerety

Your welcome.   I have a touch of that same insane stubbornness myself.  I have no where near the experience you do.  Truthfully, the fact that you bumped up against a wall at 112 makes me feel a lot better about the fact that I have a heck of a time getting reels up to 100.  

I've been feeling a pull toward Americana and Folk and Blues type stuff lately and I must say the speed wall might be a part of it. Being honest, I don't even ejoy that BG stuff that gets up in the 150 range and over when I'm listening. Gives me a headache.

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## JeffD

Couple or three thoughts:

I have been playing a long time, no, a very long time. Several years ago my jam asked me to slow down. I was stunned. I hadn't noticed. Like the proverbial boiled frog, I had gotten faster without knowing it.

I don't think one hand problems is the way to look at it, but coordination between both hands. I have often felt my left hand could not keep up with how fast my right hand could pick, and also often felt that I could not pick the strings as fast as the pyrotechniques my left hand was getting down. Its like saying you can type fast, if only you were asked to type LDLDLDLDLDLDLDLD. 

Playing fast more often puts the spotlight on me, which adds tension and nerves of course, but more importantly, takes the light off the tune. I am more into playing the tune the way I think it can best be played. How many hot fiddlers play "Drowsie Maggie" so fast that a name change is in order, perhaps "Benzedrine Phil".

All that being said, I am to the point where I can play as fast as is usually required, with folks who are playing and not showing off.  The fastest playing I do is for contra dances, and I can usually keep up.

I can't remember once that I ever made speed progress by trying to.

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## Rob Gerety

One thing did occur to me that may not have been mentioned.  Liberal use of pull offs and hammer ons.  I think that can help - and often makes the piece sound better rhythmically.  

Yea, the fastest thing I run into is contra dances - and it is a struggle for me at times.

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## JeffD

Here is something funny, I can play a hornpipe a lot faster than a reel. If I "hornpipe" the reel I can play it much faster too. Something about the rhythm is just less effort.

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## Miss Lonelyhearts

Well, I didn't mean to imply that my hands aren't well coordinated when playing. I can play tunes that are tricky for the left hand and it still feels like it's my pick hand that's holding me back.

I play a lot of Irish, and for step dancers and ceilis, the dancers typically want reels anywhere from 106 bpm up to 126 bpm. No problem on fiddle. But I'd like to play there on mando too. I don't see that tempo range as "too fast to be musical" or to play the music well with feel and expressiveness. (In other words, I'm not looking to blaze along at 160 bpm.)

I also played banjo in a bluegrass band for 6 years, and we routinely (and comfortably) played tunes at >130 bpm. You wouldn't get invited back to the big festivals if you couldn't play at tempo. So a certain facility with speed *is* part of this music we play.

"I can't remember once that I ever made speed progress by trying to."
That's interesting. To be honest, nearly all of my playing and practice time is aimed at playing smoothly, cleanly, and expressively, with good tone and solid rhythm and timing. I'm happy with how I sound...except when the jam or group goes faster than I can keep up. So the speed issue has become a focus.

Sounds like I just need another 8,000 hours of playing....

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## OldSausage

Sorry Miss Lonelyhearts, I missed the bit where you said how long you had been playing. I think you're right about the angle of the pick. I also have found the same as you that it takes the right hand longer than the left hand to get up to speed, and of course you already have the left hand skills from other instruments. The way I look at it, those of us who start (or restart) the mandolin later in life are essentially in the same position as people recovering from a stroke. It takes a lot of patient effort to regrow and reroute those neural pathways, and as long as you are doing the right kind of therapy for your condition, eventually your brain will do what is required of it. How long it will take is I think probably more dictated by physiology than methodology, unless there's something drastically wrong with your technique.

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## Miss Lonelyhearts

No worries, David. My first post was a long confessional--I'm surprised anyone bothered to wade through all of it.

LOL at the stroke analogy. "I've suffered a pick stroke!"  :Smile: 

Just had a good picker sit down with me to watch and critique my technique. Main thing he saw was some tension in the wrist that transfers up the forearm. So I'm slowing down to meditate on that for a while.

He also suggested driving the pick more with the thumb, rather than the thumb not moving much on its own. Show of hands for those who agree with this, vs. those whose thumbs tend to be fairly quiet or passive (and the motion comes mostly from the wrist)?

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## JeffD

> I play a lot of Irish, and for step dancers and ceilis, the dancers typically want reels anywhere from 106 bpm up to 126 bpm. No problem on fiddle. But I'd like to play there on mando too. ...


Here is another generalization.

All things being equal, the mandoln cannot be played as fast as the fiddle. It just takes more pressure to bend those two strongs over the fret as opposed to just stopping one string against the finger boad. Of course there are exceptions, but in general. Coordination with the bow is a bit harder than with a pick, so perhaps its equal in that sense, but just playing note after note, as in a reel, the fiddle plays faster easier.

I play both, well I play mandolin and sort of play fiddle, but I can feel the difference.

The secret here is that the mandolin is not just plucked fiddle. It can't emlulate  fiddle as well as a fiddle can, nor should it. So I do mandolinny things on the mandolin, things you can't do on the fiddle easily, I do lots of tremolo, lots of double stops, I glide in and of chords to melody and back to chords, play a harmony up the neck above the fiddle in first position. I let the fiddle carry the tune, and I carry the filigree. 

It can sound amazing, and even fast fiddle players with testosterone poisening will compliment you on how beautiful your mandolin sounded.


So there's three more ideas for the mix   - the fiddle can be played faster, the fiddle will alwys be better at being a fiddle than mandolin can be, and when the mandolin is doing what it does best it cannot be beat.

Two last points: there will always be someone faster than you, but, thank heavens, there will always be someone not as fast as you. So enjoy.   :Mandosmiley:

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## Miss Lonelyhearts

Actually, I can do all those things--double stops, tremolo, up the neck, etc.--on fiddle, too. They don't have much pace in pure drop Irish trad music, but they come in handy on old time and bluegrass tunes.

I'm not trying to emulate fiddle on mandolin. Just want to play up to speed. I don't think 126 bpm on mando is asking too much for the instrument.

I'll just keep easing on down that road. See where I get in another 4 years time.  :Smile:

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## Pete Hicks

I have a suggestion.  Learn some somgs that just HAVE to be played fast, at 130, 140 or so.  E.G. "Goin' Back to Old Kentucky."  Begin by getting your chop really solid, then play the melody at tempo, as simply as possible.  Get that four notes per click.  When you play faster and faster, simpler things start sounding really good.  The faster you play the more fiddly notes you can leave out.  Listen to Bill Monroe, the master of minimalistic solos. 
Another thing, mentioned in threads before, is using rest strokes.  The pick psses through the strings and follows through to the next string and sort of bounces back (the Trampoline Effect).  Be patient with yourself; building speed takes a while.

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## Miss Lonelyhearts

Thanks Pete, yeah I need to work on my chops at speed, too, and that seems to help a lot with loosening up the wrist and just sheer speed. Monroe's a monster on those simple lines at warp speed. Still not sure what that trampoline effect feels like--must go find out. Good ideas!

Patience? Aarrgghhhh!  :Smile:

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## swampy

> I have a suggestion.  Learn some somgs that just HAVE to be played fast, at 130, 140 or so.  E.G. "Goin' Back to Old Kentucky."  Begin by getting your chop really solid, then play the melody at tempo, as simply as possible.  Get that four notes per click.  *When you play faster and faster, simpler things start sounding really good.  The faster you play the more fiddly notes you can leave out.  Listen to Bill Monroe, the master of minimalistic solos.*


I second Pete wholeheartedly! I would also like to add that if you watch Bill or Ronnie McCoury on the youtube, you'll notice an exceptionally loose and fluid wrist on the right hand. "Like flingin' water off a dish rag"

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## fredfrank

When I suggested tilting your instrument back, I was actually trying to describe the angle of attack I use. I actually hold the instrument straight up and down, but my pick comes into the string I am trying to pick from slightly above the string above it -- then stops short of the one below, and returns on the upstroke on the same plane. If you move your right hand up and down on the same plane as your strings, you will only be able to play between the strings, and it will be harder to skip strings or crosspick.  

Now I would never advise going against advice that someone like Mike Marshall gives, but this one shift in right hand plane has made a huge difference for me with regard to ease of playing up to speed.

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## Rob Gerety

Fred, I'm not 100% sure I understand what you are doing.  Can you do a video?  Or elaborate a little more?

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## Phil Goodson

Perhaps it was mentioned above & I missed it, but one thing that helped me was some advice given to me by Alan Bibey.

The advice was to greatly decrease the length of my pick stroke.  This is almost the direct opposite of the rest stroke (which I also use sometimes). A short push through the string course and immediately reversing the pick direction; this is a very small movement and can be cleanly executed very quickly with a little thoughtful practice.   It's just one more tool to experiment with and incorporate into your playing as needed.  This helped me to clean up a lot of the sloppiness which crept into my attempts at fast playing.
 :Smile:

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## fredfrank

> Fred, I'm not 100% sure I understand what you are doing.  Can you do a video?  Or elaborate a little more?



I don't have any video capability. Basically, my hand, wrist and pick travels in a straight line up and down, but at a slight angle to the strings. That way I don't have to manipulate my thumb and index finger to dip down to pick the note. That was a technique I had picked up while watching Jesse McReynolds do his crosspicking. It looked like his thumb and forefinger were squirming all over the place.

After watching a video of an amazing player, I decided to try and simplify my picking motion. So I began a quest to find the simplest, most efficient method I could use to pluck the string. Economy of motion, by taking my fingers out of it using only the wrist action, and moving slightly off parallel from the strings seemed to do it.

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## Miss Lonelyhearts

I think I get what Fred is on about--you can see good pickers sometimes come into the strings with the pick from an angle outside the plane of the strings, and a loose wrist helps with this.

Swampy, what's weird is that I have that shakin'-water-off loose wrist for fiddle, but it doesn't translate to mando--different angle. So I'm working on it, but damn it's slow going.

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## OldSausage

One other thing I have found that may help: I have noticed it's a lot easier to play tunes convincingly at high speed if I come at it with a positive mental attitude. I have found it's all too easy to be tentative especially when I've done a lot of working up of a tune or I expect to fail for some reason. It really helps to believe that I already have what it takes to own a high speed tune, and visualize myself doing it confidently and successfully. I know that sounds a bit flakey, but you have to find the confidence somehow.

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Dan Krhla

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## JeffD

> I know that sounds a bit flakey, but you have to find the confidence somehow.


Coffee. Coffee helps!  :Grin:

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## Miss Lonelyhearts

Hmmm....I'm not a coffee drinker. But am fond of a little liquid courage now and then, in the form of a good Irish whiskey. In a *big* mug.  :Coffee: 

As a music teacher, I'm a big proponent of the adage: "Whether you think you can, or think you can't, you're probably right." But my attempts at uptempo playing keep disproving my own optimism.  :Wink: 

When I watch some lightning fast mando pickers, I notice that most tend to vary between the larger "rest pick" approach, and the smaller pick motion Phil describes, depending on what they need to do to get specific notes. And that gibes with what I do on guitar. So I'll keep aiming for that.

I'm also doing some extra woodshedding on up picks, as advised by Mike Marshall. Discovered yesterday that I tend to slow down a gnat's hair when changing strings on certain up-picked string crossings.

And I suspect that decades of playing fiddle have hard wired my wrist to be loose on the diagonal, rather than the more "horizontal" motion needed for mando. So I'm back to patience, patience, patience, and isolating my wrist from my forearm.....

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## Pete Hicks

This is a great thread!.  All these good ideas should help turn us into blazing pickers.

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## JeffD

> Hmmm....I'm not a coffee drinker. But am fond of a little liquid courage now and then, in the form of a good Irish whiskey. In a *big* mug. .....


 :Laughing:   I am a bourbon type of guy.

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## 250sc

Is the premiss that everyone should be able to play the same speed if they adjust their technique? 

Or is it with better technique you can play faster than you do now but maybe not as fast as you'd like?

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## farmerjones

i'll never be a Scagg's or a Marty Stewart. There is no get faster. I have physical limits. As long as that doesn't effect others i'm cool. I'm not that slow but the band would have to slow down, and that ain't cool. When im on a fiddle i slow down for them, so that's how it works. 
  Around a jam i'll pick up a mandolin and noodle something. Somebody'll say hey, and grab a guitar, then a banjer, then before you know it, I'm swamped. I hand the mandolin back to the owner and pick my fiddle back up. Time and time again. You'd think i'd learn.

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## OldSausage

My assumption would be that if we put in as much work as blazing fast pickers, unless we have some disability preventing us, (i.e. we're in the majority of the bell curve of natural ability) we should probably be able to play at least 80% of their speed, assuming they perhaps have some kind of natural advantage in their physiology which we don't possess. So if Bill Monroe could play Rawhide at 190bpm, which he could, I should be able to play it at 152bpm, which in fact I can, albeit not quite as well as Bill.

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## Miss Lonelyhearts

Heh, I like that 80% target. I'll be happy *when* (not _if_) I get to 126 bpm without straining. But ideally I'd like to reach 140 bpm, which is 80% of Thile and Marshall playing Big Mon amidst a bunch of other stuff on a YouTube clip I like.

As for this thread, I'd still like to see some more concrete suggestions for improving speed, smoothness, and accuracy, such as the string crossing drills I cited in my opening post. Anyone have something similar, focusing on the pick hand? (I already have a ton of folded scale and arpeggio stuff I do.)

Thanks!

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## 250sc

So, with the same training and equipment we should all be able to play golf 80% as well as Tiger Woods or using the same premis with the same criteria of like training we should all be able to run 80% as fast as some of the most gifted athletes. Music is no different than those sports and comparing yourself to the best mandolin players, golfers or athletes is going to leave many people disappointed.

Don't just be defeatest about it and keep working towards your goals and you'll get closer to them but you might have to change your goals to fit realities.

LOL. Can you tell I'm pushing 60 years old and have had several surgerys to fix repetitive movement issues with my left hand and arm after playing since I was 16. I've had to come to terms with not being able to hang with many bluegrass players. On the other hand I've found playing jazz, even at high speeds you can play something interesting that fits the song and isn't blistering fast, just tasty.

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## farmerjones

Concrete suggestion: Practice is good, but you can't throw yourself a curveball. The ultimate would be to play enough that you don't have to practice.

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## rmartinez

> Heh, I like that 80% target. I'll be happy *when* (not _if_) I get to 126 bpm without straining. But ideally I'd like to reach 140 bpm, which is 80% of Thile and Marshall playing Big Mon amidst a bunch of other stuff on a YouTube clip I like.
> 
> As for this thread, I'd still like to see some more concrete suggestions for improving speed, smoothness, and accuracy, such as the string crossing drills I cited in my opening post. Anyone have something similar, focusing on the pick hand? (I already have a ton of folded scale and arpeggio stuff I do.)
> 
> Thanks!


Please keep in mind that I'm not a great (or even good) fiddle tune or bluegrass player.  I know faster paced music is present in many forms of music but the thread seems to be leaning in the bluegrassy direction - so consider the source. 

Now that I've firmly established my credibility...as far as focusing on the right hand is concerned I have benefited from duo style playing.  This got me from being a fairly slow player to being a not so slow player  :Laughing: .  I'm not sure where this would land in bpm.  I suppose a pattern might look like (deeeee aeeeee aeeeee aeeeee) 'd,a, and e strings' using down up strokes throughout.  It's 6/4 and I like to create a melody by changing the first note of each six note set (especially the a string).  Just a thought.

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## JeffD

I practice enought to keep the playing fun, and I play enough to keep the practice relevant.

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## MnRoss

Don't know if this has been touched on but for me to be able to play a break super fast, it has to be mindless in a sense. I have to know that song so well that my left hand is there on the note when my right hand is picking it and my mind can be thinking about the next passage visually. For super fast breaks I go over and over what I'm playing until it just falls under my fingers and I don't really think about it. Than using a metronome or the recording of the song I work it up to speed. Sort of makes for stupid breaks as they will always be the same for awhile but soon enough I can break out of that and really explore the song once I make it mindless, because I can always fall back on that when I'm lost for notes.

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## fredfrank

> Don't know if this has been touched on but for me to be able to play a break super fast, it has to be mindless in a sense. I have to know that song so well that my left hand is there on the note when my right hand is picking it and my mind can be thinking about the next passage visually. For super fast breaks I go over and over what I'm playing until it just falls under my fingers and I don't really think about it. Than using a metronome or the recording of the song I work it up to speed. Sort of makes for stupid breaks as they will always be the same for awhile but soon enough I can break out of that and really explore the song once I make it mindless, because I can always fall back on that when I'm lost for notes.



I would agree with this statement 100%. Any time I try to improvise at a quick tempo, it's like plummeting down the mountain on a mountain bike. One wrong move . . .


You have know the material period.

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## Miss Lonelyhearts

Yep, I tend to go over and over (and over) the tunes and breaks I play till I can't pay it wrong. I wish that was the obstacle to playing faster for me.

It feels like I have a governor on my right hand. So I'm just gonna woodshed away till I can reset the governor to 126 bpm or higher.  :Smile: 

I did stumble on a "picking burst" drill that seems to be helping. I was picking to a metronome set at 60 and went back and forth between picking *only once per click* to picking *DUDU on each click*, then immediately back to picking once per click. As this became easier, I'd lengthen the DUDU into DUDUDUDU, and then longer. At one point, I was comfortably picking (it felt like a tremolo) at 120 bpm--faster than I've gone to date.

I'm surprised that there aren't more of these sort of right-hand-only picking warm ups or exercises to help people improve on smoothness, accuracy, and speed. Maybe I haven't seen the right books/dvds.... Maybe there's a market for such a primer?

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## OldSausage

You seem to have tried everything so I imagine you have the Mike Marshall mandolin techniques DVD. That has some great, simple right hand drills, I would imagine anyone who did those each day for a few months would improve their picking speed. The main thing that usually slows me down is string crossing, since on a single string it's really no different to tremelo, and Mike addresses string crossing at length on his DVD.

Is string crossing the issue, or can you not tremelo on a single string at 120 bpm (4 notes per beat)?

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## Miss Lonelyhearts

:Crying:  My problem really is just basic picking speed, even on a single string.

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## OldSausage

Well, maybe that's actually a good thing, because it's probably the easiest to fix. Is there any way you can post a video of you attempting to pick at speed so we can figure out what's going wrong? Can you wiggle your wrist at 120 bpm at all, like I mean when not holding a pick or being anywhere near a mando? Can you beat an egg?

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## Miss Lonelyhearts

See, I can "wiggle my wrist" well when playing fiddle--accustomed to playing in 4/4 at 140 bpm and faster. I can even play crisp, clean bowed triplets (I've played Irish fiddle for 30 years) any tempo. That's as small and fast a motion as you're gonna see in a wrist.

But for fiddle, the wrist works more on the diagonal, and mando it's along the lateral axis of the forearm, so maybe I just need to train different muscles and nerve synapses.

I honestly don't think it's my technique--I don't grip the pick, I don't anchor my hand, I'm relaxed and smooth. All I was hoping to dredge up with this thread were other people's ideas of specific right-hand exercises to help with picking speed. Seems I'm good enough at making those up on my own....

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## OldSausage

I agree, it certainly seems like you have all the right ideas. If it were me I think I would really focus on exercises where it was just the right hand, an open string and the metronome. Go for short bursts of fast notes like you have been doing, and longer sustained picking at whatever speed you can maintain. In order to execute tremelo that pick hand must wiggle at even faster rates, and it will. But also work on the string-crossing exercises, that way when you do build up speed you will be ready for the harder part. I would absolutely recommend just studying the heck out of the right hand exercises on Mike Marshall's DVD. It's a great resource if you mine it diligently.

It may also be helpful to watch video of people who do it well (or see them playing live when you can of course, as I'm sure you do). I love to watch the Homespun Tapes DVD of Bill Monroe, for example, for me it's "monkey see, monkey do" and I pick up a lot of subtle cues of posture and fine control that I can't get from reading words on a page.

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## Miss Lonelyhearts

Thanks, David. I do a lot of "mining" from all the YouTube clips of great pickers, and that does help a lot.

String crossings and cross picking have come easy for me--3 decades of playing bluegrass banjo, I guess. My brain is wired to accept "rolls" in any form, so my cross picking is instantly as fast as anything I can do on a single string.

I suspect I really just need to do another year or two of serious woodshedding. I'll go milk the Mike Marshall dvd for every gram of insight I can squeeze from it.  Thanks!

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## foldedpath

> It may also be helpful to watch video of people who do it well (or see them playing live when you can of course, as I'm sure you do). I love to watch the Homespun Tapes DVD of Bill Monroe, for example, for me it's "monkey see, monkey do" and I pick up a lot of subtle cues of posture and fine control that I can't get from reading words on a page.


Just an observation here. As someone who mostly plays Irish traditional and Contra Dance fiddle tunes when I'm picking fast, I don't get much out of watching Bluegrass pickers. Bluegrass breaks tend to be mostly unbroken strings of eighth notes, which lends itself to a steady up-down hand motion. At least, that's what I see when I watch a fast break by Monroe, Skaggs, Bush, etc. Even when the tune might include a brief interruption in the melody line, they tend to "ghost pick" the missing notes and keep that hand moving in a steady pattern to keep the speed up. I know there are other ways to pick Bluegrass (Thile), but that seems to be a fairly standard method for going fast.

Playing Irish 'trad or Contra Dance tunes at a fast tempo doesn't work that way. You have to play the actual melody, including all the fits and starts, all the little quarter note pauses, triplets, and runs that make up the melody. It's not an unbroken string of eighth notes. The rhythms are also different from a steady mechanical 4/4 pulse too, even in a reel... at least, if the group is good enough not to steamroller reels so they all sound the same. So it can be tricky to play quickly. 

With this style of music, I seem to make the most progress by just practicing the specific tunes over and over, getting them deep into brain/muscle memory so I can glide over any rough spots. Maybe I'm doing it wrong... maybe I'd make more progress by running scale and arp exercises to a metronome, but I think deep familiarity with the tune is at least a starting point for building speed with this style of music. Besides, practicing by playing tunes is a more fun than running scales.  :Smile:  So that's my theory and I'm sticking to it.  :Chicken:

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## Rob Gerety

Folded - so when you are playing a reel in a contra dance setting for example, you don't keep you hand moving consistently up and down with the rhythm and "ghost" pick over spot where no note is played?  Could you elaborate a little? I've been basically doing exactly that. I do play the melody, straight ahead with out much improv if any - but I try to keep my hand moving steady up down. Even with a jig (6/8) I try to do a steady DUD DUD ghost picking where there is no note. I might emphasize different beats and sometimes I have do double time to throw in a triplet embellishment or something - but mostly I think I'm doing exactly what you describe as being different in the Bluegrass setting.  Not sure I understand what is different - other than the fact that there is probably a lot more improv going on in the Bluegrass stuff.

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## JeffD

> You have to play the actual melody, 
> 
> 
>  deep familiarity with the tune is at least a starting point for building speed with this style of music.


yes yes yes

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## Miss Lonelyhearts

Yep, for Irish music, it's all about the tunes themselves--they are the practice etudes, no need for scales and arpeggio practice.

But on mandolin, I tend to fill in those dotted quarter notes with picked triplets, melodic variations, etc., so my pick is always moving. I play Irish on mando much as I used to on tenor banjo. It's a steady stream of notes.

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## bratsche

> But for fiddle, the wrist works more on the diagonal, and mando it's along the lateral axis of the forearm, so maybe I just need to train different muscles and nerve synapses.


Just wanted to unlurk to say I think that's it in a nutshell.  My issues are very similar, though I didn't pick up a pick until I was past forty. I can play fast-ish, for a while, but never can seem to play as fast as my left hand could if only the right could keep up.  But if I have to sustain a fast tempo for very long, my right forearm definitely tightens, causing me to slow down. 

I even thought of starting a thread elsewhere, possibly oriented toward other people who _began_ playing on bowed instruments, and looking to uncover how they managed to get their right hands to catch up with the left ones on their mando playing.   I keep seeing the opposite sentiment expressed on these boards, though... that bowing is so much harder to learn than picking, which may be true, with all things being equal.   Having had a bow in my hand since childhood, it is quite possible that I've taken it for granted.   But I do think the two types of techniques involve entirely different muscle training.  

bratsche

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## farmerjones

Speaking as a fiddler first, i do concur. 

Kudos for unlurking bratsche!

With your added comments i'm seeing this in a new light. 
When i can't do something i'm content to associate it within as apposed to without. 

While we've not hit on a full-on solution, many heads are better than one.
That's the power of the forum. Cheers

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## foldedpath

> Folded - so when you are playing a reel in a contra dance setting for example, you don't keep you hand moving consistently up and down with the rhythm and "ghost" pick over spot where no note is played?  Could you elaborate a little? I've been basically doing exactly that. I do play the melody, straight ahead with out much improv if any - but I try to keep my hand moving steady up down.


No, my right hand tends to pause where the melody line pauses. I know that probably isn't very efficient, but it's just what feels right for me. In our trio, I play a lot of unison melody with the fiddler. I try to get into the groove of what he's playing, and it's not exactly like the steady pulse of a Bluegrass band. It swings and flows, even when moving pretty fast. Trying to keep a steady, repetitive hand motion going all the time gets in the way of following the bow. At least, it does for me... YMMV, etc.




> But on mandolin, I tend to fill in those dotted quarter notes with picked triplets, melodic variations, etc., so my pick is always moving. I play Irish on mando much as I used to on tenor banjo. It's a steady stream of notes.


I'm still working on ornaments.  :Frown:  I'm getting to the point where I can start throwing in some triplets and hammers/pulls on jigs, slides, and hornpipes, but having the facility to flick 'em in on a fast reel is still beyond me. I envy what fiddlers can do with ornaments at those speeds.

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## Miss Lonelyhearts

" I envy what fiddlers can do with ornaments at those speeds." (FoldedPath)

Yeah, the constant note supplied by the bow creates wonderful opportunities for the left hand to do twiddly bits that don't just die off the way they would on mandolin. I love the cuts, rolls, cranns, and  other twiddlies I can do on fiddle--all very nuanced yet effective ways to articulate and vary the timing and create lift and pulse in the music.

Because I've done that on fiddle for 30 years, I'm drawn to as much of the same sound as I can get on mandolin, which mostly happens with hammer ons, pull offs, and picked triplets, at least for Irish music. In that regard, old timey and bluegrass are somewhat easier to play (no picked triplets needed), and I find the slides and doublestops very satisfying.

Have to say--playing on a high quality mando with good response, volume, and sustain makes a big difference in what you can do to articulate notes, play with the timing and rhythm, etc.

If my biggest obstacle is simply developing the muscle and nerve response laterally for picking that I already have diagonally for bowing, then I'm on it! The basic development should take about 4 to 6 months. I can *do* that.

So I'm shooting for 122-126 bpm feeling smooth and "easy" by August (I'm at 108-112 bpm now). I'll post another thread then to report on whether I made that goal or not, and what specific drills, concepts, techniques helped or hindered in getting me there.

Thanks for all the input and thoughtful suggestions!

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## JonZ

I am picturing a mechanical, rigid glove that is adjusted to the proper speed, angle and range of motion that one could wear throughout the day, training one's nervous system in the proper response. One could wear it while watching TV, at a business meeting, or while out on a date, and improve one's picking technique at the same time.

"Far fetched!" you may be thinking, but this is akin to the therapies used to teach people with neurological damage to use their limbs again.

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## Miss Lonelyhearts

Not so much "far fetched" as rife for shocked glares and "*What* is that man *doing* in public?!?!?!"

Definitely not a device to wear at the movies, say, or in mixed company.....
 :Smile:

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## Rob Gerety

I have never played a bowed instrument.  I have played guitar, fingerstyle and flat pick. I am new to mandolin and for the first time trying to focus a bit on speed. My sense is that when I start bumping up against my current speed limit it is my left hand that I am struggling with, not my right.  When I have made progress it is because I have focused closely on my fretting movements and lightened my touch some.   I know this has been focused on right hand issues - but do any of you fiddlers - or others - have tips for increasing speed and coordination of the fretting hand?  Coming from guitar it took me a little while to get used to the fiddle style angle of attack which is quite different. I think I have that down reasonably well - certainly improvement is still possible.  I think I have lightened up my touch quite a bit and I do pretty well getting good position next to the fret with my finger tip.  I might play with my fingers a little on the flat side - not arched as much as some folks - not extreme mind you.  My perception is that I just don't get my fingers off notes quickly enough sometimes.   My plan is just to continue with the standard scale work using a metronome to inch my way up.  But any other suggestions sure would be appreciated.  I am not at the speed you folks are.  Jigs, yes. But not reels.  I'm out of my true relaxed zone when I hit 100.  So I would say 90 or 95 is pretty much max for me right now - although it does vary, sometimes quite a bit, with the tune.

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## Mandoblab

Bratsche,

Having come to mandolin from many years of classical violin training, it is so VERY frustrating to have the left hand skills, but not the right hand skills to keep up.

Farmerjones is right:  bowing is second nature and I'm sure we fiddlers simply take it for granted.  But picking is the bane of our existence.  What really drove me nuts is that day when the guitar player in my rock band asked to try out my mandolin and could easily play 50% faster than me.  Arrrrrgh!

I think I would have been better off starting the mandolin journey with two stupid hands that could learn together, rather than one that was easily able to outdistance the other in a mandolin footrace.  A separate thread for us "fiddle-impaired" mando players might be helpful.  Or perhaps, a support group..........?

Mandoblab

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## f#54

A separate thread for us "fiddle-impaired" mando players might be helpful. Or perhaps, a support group..........?

http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/group.php?groupid=109

maybe?

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## Rob Gerety

Might also need one for "reformed guitar players".  Different problems I guess.  The thought of learning how to bow well has pretty much put me completely off any notion that I might learn to play fiddle.  Of course, the lack of frets would also be a major issue.

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## Miss Lonelyhearts

Rob, I don't know how helpful this will be, and I'm sure you already know most of this, but here are some left-hand insights based on a lifetime of playing fiddle and decades of teaching.

You're on the right track with the finger position--basically, you want your fingernails facing down the strings, toward the bridge. Doesn't have to be extreme, just angled that way more than across the strings.

Angled as above, the most efficient contact for your fingers on the strings is sometimes with the tip straight down onto the string (coming from a pretty good arch), and sometimes just slightly more onto the pad of the finger tip (less arch). The former is common enough; you can see a good example of the latter here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQhT726aM8E (the picker to the right on your screen). 

Keep the pad of your thumb on the neck--sometimes on top (the upper side) of the neck, where the neck and fingerboard meet, sometimes more on the spine of the neck. In either case, the important thing is to not let the neck lapse into the crook where your thumb meets your hand.

You want your fingers to "hover" over the strings, never far above the fingerboard, except to wind up for a hammer-on. The lower your fingers are, the faster you can go.

Whenever possible, leave fingers down on lower frets when playing fingers on higher frets, particularly if the tune takes you back to those lower frets.

Play lots of folded scales in all the common keys (e.g., |GABG ABcA|BcdB cdec| etc.), picking them, and also fingering them without picking. Some people find they can gain finger speed by concentrating on just the left hand while giving the pick hand a rest.

Isolate and woodshed on the tricky bits of tunes. A good example for the ring and pinky is: Key of G |:dgbg agbg|dgbg ageg|dgbg agbg|dedc BGBc:| Lather, rinse, repeat.

Drill on the little patterns that crop up in so many fiddle tunes. For example:
|:dBGB =cAFA:|
|:dfge fedf:|
|dfed BcdB:|
|:FGAF GFEG:|
|:dfeg fage:|
etc.

Of course, play these patterns on each pair of strings, not just the ones shown here.

Do some triplet runs with hammer-ons and pull-offs starting with the ring finger and using the pinky on the 7th fret. A good finger warm up is:
| :Frown: 3GAG (3FGF (3EFE (3DED:|
Again, do it on every string.

Despite all the drills above, I mostly play the tunes themselves for "practice," but some tunes are better than others for refining left-hand skills. Some of my personal favorites:
Swinging on a Gate
Cuckoo's Nest (with no quarter notes)
Arkansas Traveler
Whiskey Before Breakfast
Paddy Fahy's version of Never was Piping so Gay
Fisher's Hornpipe (with no quarter notes)
Eileen Curran (an Irish reel in Gdor)
Woodchopper's Reel
Cherokee Shuffle
Jerusalem Ridge
Sweeney's Buttermilk

It also helps to tackle some really tough piece, well outside your comfort zone. It will make everything else you play feel easier by comparison, and that's a significant victory. :-) I like to use Tommy's Tarbukas for this, and Loftus Jones in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd position.

If you're not familiar with them, you can find abcs and sheet music for all the Irish tunes I listed at www.thesession.org.

Hope this helps.

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## Miss Lonelyhearts

P.S. Also, it's essential to let your fingers fully relax when they're not holding the note currently being played. This applies whether the finger is on a string or hovering. Even at your fastest pace, there are moments between each note where you can rest and relax. When you do this, tension goes away and the fingers can dance.

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## Rob Gerety

Thank you!

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## Andy Fielding

Want to know the truth? You already know how to play fast. You just have to let yourself do it. 

You can't possibly do something as subtle as playing fast notes by consciously controlling it. You don't even know _how many_ muscles are in your hands—how could you possibly "control" a whole whack of them at the same time, in such subtle ways? You can't. It's vanity.

Your progress will come not from "trying" to play faster, but from getting out of your own way, by feeling and listening, and by letting your body do what it already knows how to do without your "help".

Instead, practice letting go of your attachment to developing technique for the sake of technique, impressing people, and so on. Just focus on the beauty of the music. Listen to each note that comes out of your instrument, instead of focusing on how quickly you can get it over with so you can rush to the next one. It's a miracle to play even _one_ note, much less a whole bunch of them. Then the music that comes out of you and your instrument will be the music you really want to play, not the music you think you _need_ to play.

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## Miss Lonelyhearts

Wow, Andy that's just so off the mark I don't know where to begin. 

I'm not in this to do technique for technique's sake, or to impress anyone, not even myself. As I said above in this thread, I enjoy the music I play very much as is, I just want to be able to play comfortably at common dance tempos for the types of music I play.

You might want to count to ten and reconsider before ascribing motivations and attitudes to people you've never met.

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## Miss Lonelyhearts

I found this little nugget particularly offensive:

"...instead of focusing on how quickly you can get it over with so you can rush to the next one."

Really? Pray tell where you got that notion from?
No, don't bother. Please.

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## Pete Hicks

I have noticed that shifting positions hasn't been addressed.  I had a tendency to slow down or rush during shifts from one position to the other, such as first to third position. To remedy this, I have been making it a point to really practice these position shifts.  A side benefit was the realization that some melodies are easier to play in different positions. Part one of Leather Britches, for example, is much easier in 3rd position than in 1st.
When playing really fast, I use open strings to shift.  It gives a very smooth sound, and the shift itself is inaudible.

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## JeffD

One thing I have noticed about this topic. There are two different points of view, the view of those not happy with their speed, and the view of those who have achieved a speed they are comfortable with. 

The difference is that those who have achieved a speed they like, often, look back and don't remember how it happened, or that they did anything beyond sack loads of hours playing and practicing. It is almost Star Wars like, you know, trusting the force and all.

Those who have not as yet achieved the speed they want, often, look for that magic bullet, that coffee additive that will make it happen. The benzedrine in the Ovaltine. I guess there are things that make step increments in speed, early on switching from down-down-down-down to down-up- down-up was a revelation to me, and later, leaving as many fingers on the fret board as possible really helped, and there are others, and perhaps after experiencing these one is tempted to think that some other technique or hand hold, finger position, slick pick, or stance, that will "do the trick" and get us the rest of the way.

Each point of view has some basis in experience. What particularly amuses me is the "speedy" players who forget their own search for the magic bullet so many playing hours ago. We give up looking for it, just put in the hours, and then one bright day someone asks us to slow down and we say "what huh?" 

There are also those who play quite well, in any objective measure, but are still looking for that speed thing. (I have heard that Jethro Burns said he always wanted to play faster, because it increased the number of people he could play with.)

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## farmerjones

i think it would be nice to have a little mp3 link on everyone's profile, so you could hear how everybody sounds. Good, bad or ugly. Everybody's in some stage of growth. I think it would really add something.

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## JonZ

> i think it would be nice to have a little mp3 link on everyone's profile, so you could hear how everybody sounds. Good, bad or ugly. Everybody's in some stage of growth. I think it would really add something.


Yeah, and I probably wouldn't talk as much smack if people knew how bad I actually play.

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## Miss Lonelyhearts

Jeff, that's how I feel on fiddle--after 30 years, it's rare to run into anything that feels tricky or hard. And I have to stop to really think when someone asks me to explain how I bow a certain phrase, etc.

That's part of what's so frustrating for me on mandolin--I can analyze and explain what I do on fiddle and offer all sorts of fingering and bowing ideas that incrementally improve anyone's abilities, but I haven't found anyone that can do the same with flatpicking, particularly on mandolin. So I'm developing my own set of woodshedding exercises (almost all based on tunes). Not just for me, but for my students, too. 

I *am* making progress on the speed issue, just slower than I hoped. Shouldda kept with it when I was younger....  :Smile:

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## JeffD

> i think it would be nice to have a little mp3 link on everyone's profile, so you could hear how everybody sounds. Good, bad or ugly. Everybody's in some stage of growth. I think it would really add something.


By way of demonstrating bonafides? 

I don't care for it.

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## farmerjones

> By way of demonstrating bonafides? 
> 
> I don't care for it.


JD - we agree on so many things, can you give me a little more?

We're all somewhere, at some place, in this journey. 
This is a mandolin websited. This is a music website.

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## JeffD

> JD - we agree on so many things, can you give me a little more?
> .


You are right. We do seem to see things similarly many times.


My thought is that many folks would be hesitant to post if they "had to" provide a sample. Some because they might not want folks to hear how they struggle, others perhaps because they are good enough they don't want to alienate those who are wrestling. And if most people did provide a clip, folks would not want to be the "poster without a clip" and thus have folks wonder about them.

As it is, everyone gets to provide insight and ideas, and everyone gets to sift through the ideas for things they can use.

Those who want to post their own playing there are plenty of opportunities in several threads and even the tune-a-week-group, and that is great. (I think the tune-a-week group is one of the greatest things to happen on this site.) 

But the mandatory, or even social pressure, to have an audio signature that follows you into every post, thats a different animal. Its like having to post your bonafides, and hope you play well enough that folks will read your post, or cover up your playing so folks won't think your being snooty.


Besides, I don't even play mandolin, its banjo and saxophone for me.  :Grin:

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## farmerjones

We do agree absolutely. 
Manditory anything is uncool. 
All you points are valid. I don't think i walk around with rose-colored glasses, but i'll admit i don't consider the side i don't consider.  :Smile:  
Just one more plus for this powerful brain trust, that is the Caf'e.

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## pkev

OP Wrote:

To be honest, nearly all of my playing and practice time is aimed at playing smoothly, cleanly, and expressively, with good tone and solid rhythm and timing. I'm happy with how I sound...except when the jam or group goes faster than I can keep up. So the speed issue has become a focus.

Sounds like I just need another 8,000 hours of playing....

Get rid of the Jam...or Group....problem solved to an extent.. :Disbelief: 

If you are playing in a Jam or session and you take the lead in starting a tune and the speed goes pear-shaped with other players playing faster well thems the hazards of playing in a session...I guess.. :Frown: 

If someone else starts off faster than you can cope with..not much Joy for you there either I suppose.... :Mad: 

You would obviously join in with tune sets that are played at a tempo that suits you.. :Mandosmiley: 

point is that this is obviously causing you frustration..

You either keep going and continue to build your speed up through practice
so you can eventually join in with more tune sets the Jam Group plays..and no doubt the frustration will become less.....8,000 hrs... :Crying: 

or 

find other players who also wish to play smoothly, cleanly, and expressively, with good tone and solid rhythm and timing..

I know what I would do....

Members have posted good tips and ideas..it might also be worth finding a teacher for some 121 tuition on your speed issue

pkev

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## Miss Lonelyhearts

pkev, thanks for your post, but you seem to have missed some salient points. I *am* a music teacher, though trying to rehab my mandolin playing. I've sat down with some good mando pickers locally, but no one has any specific advice that I'm not already doing.

I'm not talking about hyper speeds, just normal dance tempos, which I'm quite comfortable with on fiddle and guitar ("smoothly, cleanly, expressively..."etc.), so it's not a matter of people playing too fast to be musical.

I was just hoping to hear from others about specific techniques or exercises that target picking speed and fluency, just as there are for bowing on fiddle. Funny how one instrument can have a 300-year (or more) history of detailed right-hand pedagogy devoted to skill-building, and another lacks it all together.

Yep, frustrating, but only because I may not live long enough to amass those 8,000 hours.  :Smile:

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## Miss Lonelyhearts

For example, here's a web site on violin technique, with dozens of detailed videos, including excellent, specific tips and instruction on bowing (click on "video violin lessons"): http://www.toddehle.com/

How cool would it be to have a similar resource for mandolin?!

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## Pete Hicks

Now I get the point.  There is an excellent method series on the mandolin By Zahr Myron Bickford called the Bickford Mandolin Method.  It is in two volumes and is comprehensive.  I think Vol. 1 is posted online somewhere and Vol. 2 may be still in print. It includes exercises and advice on back and forth picking, gliding the pick and triplet studies. It also has wonderful inspirational quotes on each page.

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## pkev

Hi

OP wrote..How cool would it be to have a similar resource for mandolin?! 

I hope you manage to find a useful resource to relieve the frustration!

Chances are you might come across one such resource thats written by an excellent teacher....then you'll have your 121 tuition... :Whistling: 

btw I got your point that you were a music teacher..just thot I'd wind you up!

Sorry  :Wink: 

pkev

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## Miss Lonelyhearts

So I looked at the Bickford tutorial (http://www.archive.org/details/bickfordmandolin01bick), from 1920, and while detailed and specific, some of it's advice seems outdated, or at least aimed solely at classical mandolin (which I know nothing about). For example, in the description of the picking motion, it says to not flex the wrist at all, but to pick from "the middle of the forearm" while the wrist remains relaxed but straight. I've seen some folks do tremolo this way and it looks strained and exhausting. And most of today's great players pick from the wrist, not from the forearm or elbow.

Besides, Bickford may have been a mandolin virtuoso (or not, I don't know), but he wasn't much of a writer, even allowing for the style of the times.

I'll dig through it a bit more, but if the Bickford ms is the best resource that the mando world has, then we're way overdue for a new, improved method.

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## mando_toss_flycoon

Miss Lonelyhearts,
In an earlier post in this thread, you wrote:

"Drill on the little patterns that crop up in so many fiddle tunes. For example:
|:dBGB =cAFA:|
|:dfge fedf:|
|dfed BcdB:|
|:FGAF GFEG:|
|:dfeg fage:|
etc."

Please help me interpret the lower case / upper case that you used.  Is there any other special syntax in there (equals signs, colons?)
Great thread -- thanks for starting it.

PS You were discussing mandolin methods. I've learned a lot from Marilynn Mair's recent method book, "The Complete Mandolinist."

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## Mandophyte

mando_toss_flycoon

It's ABC, see my signature or copy the text and paste it in  here

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## Miss Lonelyhearts

Sorry, coming from Irish trad, where many people use ABCs to swap tunes online, I forget that not everyone is so familiar with it.

But deciphering it is simple. The letters are the notes, obviously. Upper and lower cases signify which octave you're in. Lowercase letters start at the "c" on 3rd fret A string and run up from there (and you add an apostrophe once you get to the "c'" at 8th fret first string).  Uppercase letters run from the "B" (2nd fret A string) down to the open G string. Below the C (5th fret, 4th string) you add a comma to them (e.g. B,) to distinguish them from the octave above.

Bar lines are bar lines, just like sheet music, and the colon ( : ) is a repeat symbol.

^ means sharp 
= means natural
_ means flat

That's about all you need to know to read my examples.

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## Miss Lonelyhearts

Mando_toss, I just had a look online at Mair's book, and it does seem complete. But also leaning toward the classical side of playing. Can you give a quick sketch of her ideas about picking and tremolo? For example, does she teach picking from the wrist or from the forearm?

Thanks in advance.

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## mando_toss_flycoon

Miss LH,
Thanks to you and Mandophyte for the ABC info.  In answer to your question about Marilynn Mair's ideas about picking and tremelo: I would say she's a proponent of picking from the wrist. In "The Complete Mandolinist" she writes, "To develop an efficient, fast right hand, you should avoid unnecessary arm tension and maintain an easy motion in your wrist." She then goes into quite a bit of detail, followed by exercises. 

Some of the material in the method book is also contained in articles on Marilynn's web page at http://marilynnmair.com/articles.shtml. On that web page, see the article called "Pick Technique for the Classical Mandolinist," and the one called "Revisiting Tremolo." Good stuff there, and I think it applies to lots of styles, not just classical.

Mando_Toss_Flycoon

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## Miss Lonelyhearts

Thanks for that. I'll go have a look at her web site and likely buy the book. Sounds like a good resource, and I like the range of music included (judging from the table of contents I found on Amazon.com). Thanks for pointing me that way!

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## Miss Lonelyhearts

Hmmmm. Based on this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxahWap-MEI), though, I'm not too impressed with her playing. I'd be curious to hear her tremolo....

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## Pete Hicks

Well Miss Lonelyhearts, it looks like it's time for a new method book on the mandolin. I guess if you want something done right....
I think a new mando method would be timely.

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## Miss Lonelyhearts

Well, I could write it (I'm a writer/published author by trade). But it would have to be based on someone else's mandolin skills.  :Smile: 

I didn't mean to sound so harsh on Ms Mair's mando playing--just not what I'm looking for.

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## Pete Hicks

You could collaborate with various pros to put it together.  Get input from Compton, McCroury et al.

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## Miss Lonelyhearts

Yep, put a couple thousand hours into interviews, research, writing, editing, proofing, and minding it through the production process so some publisher doesn't ruin it, and then make tens of dollars in royalties.  :Smile: 
I've got 9 books in print through national publishers (Falcon Press and Island Press). The combined royalties get me a change of strings 4 times a year....

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## Andy Fielding

> Wow, Andy that's just so off the mark I don't know where to begin... I'm not in this to do technique for technique's sake, or to impress anyone, not even myself. As I said above in this thread, I enjoy the music I play very much as is, I just want to be able to play comfortably at common dance tempos for the types of music I play... You might want to count to ten and reconsider before ascribing motivations and attitudes to people you've never met.


I'm sorry you felt I was being negative. My intentions were quite the opposite. I teach a lot, and I've found that in many cases people want to play faster at the cost of playing musically. So I always find the topic of technique vs. musicality very interesting, and always seek to make positive contributions, never negative ones. 

But apparently I didn't stop to consider the actual words I used, and how they might be misinterpreted. (In text-only formats like email and forum posts, it's easy to misinterpret what people really mean. So much of our true meanings are usually conveyed in things like body language, tone of voice, and facial expression, which are all missing here.)




> I found this little nugget particularly offensive:
> "...instead of focusing on how quickly you can get it over with so you can rush to the next one." Really? Pray tell where you got that notion from?


Believe it or not, I wasn't trying to criticize you personally, but meant to speak in only general terms. (Instead of "you", I guess I should've said "people", etc.) I was trying to point out the value of listening to the beauty of the music, rather than focusing on the quantity of it, which seems to be what so many people end up doing.

For what it's worth (maybe nothing!), I, and many of my friends who are professional musicians, have been delighted to discover that the quickest route to "good chops" is _not_ to focus on minute details of mechanics, but just the opposite (and again, though I say "you" here, I mean "players in general"):

1. Get a basic understanding of technique, but no more.

2. Practice slowly and smoothly, with the goal of letting yourself play easily _without_ thinking about control. (After all, we don't even know _how many_ muscles are in our arms, hands, and fingers... How can we possibly consciously "control" all that stuff, and in such subtle, coordinated ways?)

3. Keep _listening_ to the music you're producing. Focus on creating good sounds. Maintain the basic intention of playing well, but practice trust and relaxation, not "control".

4. Speed up---if you want to---but always by _letting go_ of the need to control, not by trying to impose more control.

"Control", and focusing on details of technique, just slows you down and distracts you from the real reasons you want to play. If you get into the habit of trying to "control" everything you do, it's like sending the Chairman of the Board down to the assembly line and expecting him or her to personally make each of your company's products. Our conscious minds aren't equipped to do that. People play that way, and there's no beauty... All you can think about is how much work they're doing trying to keep up with themselves.

Anyway, please excuse me if what I tried to say seemed inappropriate. I assure you it was just semantics, and probably the innate difficulty of talking about the true methods of playing music, which is ultimately a kind of "not doing" rather than "doing".

Okay, I know that sounds wacky. But if you ask the top players, they'll agree. The real goal is to learn to get out of our own way and just play, like the way we walk, or talk, or do any of the other many unfathomably complex things we don't think about but just do. That's where things like playing faster come from, not to mention the real wonder and enjoyment of playing music at all.  :?)

And now you'll probably be glad to know that I'll stop monitoring this thread, because I don't have much else to add. (That said, the benefits of understanding and accepting what I've tried to describe here never cease to amaze me!)

Cheers, Andy

P.S.: If these ideas interest you at all, the great jazz pianist Kenny Werner has written a terrific book on them called "Effortless Mastery".

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## Miss Lonelyhearts

Thanks for touching base. We agree on most of this (Effortless Mastery is a book I recommend to most of my music students, too). It just isn't working for me on mandolin. And most of the top notch players I've talked to *do* emphasize technical study down to the last detail. Then you put it all behind you and play.

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## 300win

When I was 16-30 or so I was FAST!!!!!, also clean, precise. Now at 55 I'm not fast anymore, although pick as clean as ever. I know what to do, and how to do, its just that my hands and fingers are not young anymore. I truly admire anyone that begins to get some age on them and can still crank it out. I used to get relly frustrated at myself, but have realized that I just have to go with the flow and pick the best I can. While picking with youngsters sometimes I can see the smirks if we are getting on one fairly quick, and I abstain from taking a break, because I refuse to try and fail to make music and wind up making a mess. I guess years of carpentery, construction, banging on my hands and fingers, in freezing cold has quite a bit to do with it. But on the other hand I know some guys my age and older that went through similar life work, and it did not slow them down. What makes it difficult to me sometimes is now I know more about picking every aspect of it than ever before, but no longer being able to play as fast as I used to, its just a hard pill to swallow sometimes. So if you can still play fast as you like and have the gray/white hair taking over, be thankfull.

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## Miss Lonelyhearts

300win, that's good perspective. I'm 51, and my hands aren't getting any younger. But I went through "old age" already, thanks to a genetic disorder. Up until getting diagnosed and treated in my late 40s, my hands were always stiff and sore, and any musical progress I made was in spite of slow fingers. So I've had at least a window of time to enjoy "young" hands, but I wonder if that window is starting to close. Sigh.

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## Rob Gerety

Oh goodness I know many over 50, even over 60, folks who can pick with a flat pick at dance speed just fine.  We're talkin about 120 or so, max.  I doubt age is a big issue.

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## Miss Lonelyhearts

Well, I'm still shooting for 126 or thereabouts, before I hit 53 years. We'll see how it goes.

I was hoping that playing music was like fishing--time spent is not deducted from your days on the planet.  :Smile:

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## Rob Gerety

Seems to me in the end it comes down to time in the saddle. You'll get there.  

It is interesting to me though because so many people are limited by the right hand and for me it is almost totally the left hand coordination that fails me up toward those speeds.

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## Pete Hicks

I never got really fast until I had been in a bluegrass band for a few years.  Rob is right about the time spent.
At the highest tempos I simplify my fingering and shift positions more to avoid difficult string crosses.  Playing with banjo players all the time will also give your velocity a push.

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## 300win

Yea, but beware of banjo players, in my opinion the easiest of the Bluegrass instruments to pick fast. I can still pick banjo as fast as I ever did, but not mandolin. And really if you have major "DRIVE" going on in whatever you are picking, it will sound sometimes faster than it is actually going. But the "DRIVE" is not found in everyone. I've found that most pickers who start of too fast, will sometimes drag the timing down during the course of the tune, why ?, becuse they get tired.

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## Pete Hicks

True.

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## AlanN

You bring up a good point: drive vs. pure speed. They are not the same thing. You can have 1, both, or neither. The band Lost&Found (the Gene Parker era - to take nothing away from their current banjo man) had drive in spades. They used to do a fine tune called Papa Wants To Go Back. On the studio version, Gene Elders started it on fiddle and boy, did he set the drive. Yet, the tune was on the slow side, tempo-wise.

And to the idea of 'too fast at the beginning, then slows down' - I watched a youtube of a regional band pick a banjo standard. The banjo man started it off, brisk. Then fiddle, then guitar. By the time the mandolin got it, it was 1/2 speed. They all knew it, but didn't quite know how to 'fix it'. It was a tough moment. Then, the banjo took it out, and it was painful to watch/hear.

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## Miss Lonelyhearts

In Irish music, the mantra is, you want to be able to play lively, with nyah, at any tempo, slow, medium, or fast. In bluegrass, I aim for either drive or a more laidback lope. Either way, it has to pulse.

I just want to play with that nyah, lope, drive, and pulse about 16 bpm faster than I can so far. What's been frustrating is my ability to do it on other instruments, just not on mandolin yet. It'll come.

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## mzurer

Totally OT, at this point, but OD (on digression): I was listening to "Tone Poems" on the way into work this morning, and I was struck by the pace of "Watson's Blues" - I had listened to Bill and Doc play it just yesterday during the evening commute.  They're going about half time compared to the composer and namesake, but Dawg has so much touch within the phrases you don't miss the speed.  Of course the putative point of the album is to really listen to the nuance of the instruments, so a warp speed performance wouldn't really achieve that.  Tony Rice's playing isn't half bad either.

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## Miss Lonelyhearts

I love stuff like that. I just played fiddle to a sold out hall for a friend of mine's CD release concert. Most of the pieces I played on were around 80 bpm, and I didn't throw in a lot of frilly fast stuff. Just phat tone and rhythmically interesting fills and solos, playful with the phrasing (rather than imitating the vocal line), with an emphasis on big, round, warm, melt-in-your-mouth tone. It was a pleasure to play. But in two weeks when I play for step and set dancers on St. Pat's Day, I'll be expected to crank out reels and jigs at 120 to 136 bpm and do it easily, relaxed, with lift and nyah, no matter how driving the pulse is. It's easy on the fiddle. Hope to get there on the mandolin some day.

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## hammerabi

Don't know if it's been mentioned already, but one possible way to work on the right hand is to not use the left hand at all - determine what is the picking pattern and work that up to speed on open strings.  I just started doing that - been stuck quite a while on 105 - and it seems to help me relax my right arm.  I've also been using the Daniel Abrams practice techniques.

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## JonZ

One thing I have noticed in my own practice is that I break a song down into little pieces to learn it, but when I try to get it up to speed I try to attack the whole thing.

I gotta stop doing that.

I think to get a song up to speed you have to break it down into the small parts and work on getting each part up to speed, like you did when you were learning the song. Then gradually combine those little parts as you master them. If you kick the song up to a higher speed, start the process over again.

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## JeffD

> Tony Rice's playing isn't half bad either.



 :Smile:

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## JeffD

Had to do it. Sorry.

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## JonZ

I am wondering what the mandolin equivalent of this would be.

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## Miss Lonelyhearts

It's funny that this thread came alive again just now. And JonZ's link to "overspeed" training is more apt than he could realize. I've been helping a student increase her speed on mandolin and coming up with my own ideas about how to pick faster. The one that seems to have helped the most is very similar to the overspeed notion. Here goes:

1. Find your maximum bpm comfort zone on a tune you know really well, something you can play in your sleep.
2. Set a metronome to a pace 40 to 60 bpm higher than your comfort zone. So if you can play Whiskey Before Breakfast, say, at 100 bpm, set the metronome to 160 bpm.
3. With the metronome running, lilt through the entire tune, note for note, in your head to the "overspeed" bpm setting. Do this at least half a dozen times through the tune.
4. Reset the metronome to your comfort zone and play along on your mandolin.
5. Reset again to the overspeed bpm and lilt the tune again in your head.
6. Now set the metronome at 6 to 10 bpm over your maximum comfort zone bpm and play along on the mandolin.
7. Repeat steps 3 thru 6 as needed.

My student tried this for about a week and gained not only 10 to 15 bpm on many tunes, but also can now play much more fluently and fluidly, with dramatically smoother picking motion and sound.

I suspect what's working is that hearing the tune in your head at an overspeed pace doesn't feel as fast as trying to physically play the tune on the mandolin. So your brain adjusts to the tune in overspeed; with repeated lilting it begins to feel comfortable. When you go back to your comfort zone, even actually playing the tune, it no longer feels fast, and may even seem slow. Even increasing the metronome 6 to 10 bpm may still seem slow or at least playable, compared to the overspeed pace. Having a large contrast between your max comfort bpm and the overspeed pace seems to help.

Maybe this process will help others. Maybe it's more effective than the old notion of bumping the metronome up 2 beats at a time, over weeks of practice. I don't know. If anyone experiments with this, I'd like to hear your feedback.

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## JonZ

I have read some fast pickers recommending a practice pyramid, with the large amount at the base being slow picking, the middle being picking at speed, and the small bit at the top for pushing past your limits.

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## SincereCorgi

There is a (misleadingly-titled) book out from Alfred called 'The Couch Potato Guitar Workout' by Greg Horne that has an excellent section on increasing speed. It's basically a more nuanced take on JonZ's practice pyramid, i.e., you have to practice 'too fast' sometimes to accustom your nerves to how fast they have to fire at the new tempo. It has lots of good 'twitch' exercises for developing finger independence, too. Sort of a shame that such a worthwhile book got the silly title. (NFI.)

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## Alex Orr

This has been interesting to read.  I've never thought much about my speed, but I recently started taking lessons for the first time and my teacher said I was doing some odd things with my right hand.  He started me on some "remedial" stuff - scale exercises with strict adherence to the metronome playing eighth notes, triplets, and sixteenth notes.  I have no problem with the first two, but I found I have some problems playing sixteenth notes up and down a scale several times with clean sound at speeds around 100 bpm or more.  I've never tried to work on speed, but now, for the first time, I'm actually having to work with speed and clarity at a set metronome speed.  It's challenging.

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## hammerabi

I made a slow motion movie of Chris Thile playing Bach.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLIdk_GLSgc
Seems like he has a lot of motion perpindicular to the plane of the strings.  Almost looks like he's only hitting one of each pair of strings.  Your thoughts?

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## JeffD

> I made a slow motion movie of Chris Thile playing Bach.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLIdk_GLSgc
> Seems like he has a lot of motion perpindicular to the plane of the strings.  Almost looks like he's only hitting one of each pair of strings.  Your thoughts?


Its not clear to me that this is the case. 

I will say that what is impressive in that slowed video is how LITTLE he moves his left hand. How effeciently he moves it when he has to. This is the real take away IMO.

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## Jill McAuley

Aye, that's the one thing I always notice in my favourite trad players - the absolute economy of motion in both their right and left hands. 

I was showing a youtube clip of Eamonn Coyne to a friend of mine, commenting on his economy of motion and she said "I guess in Irish music you guys just don't like movement - it's like those dancers you have who only move their feet...."

Cheers,
Jill

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## Avi Ziv

Jill - absolutely! I sat a few feet away from John Carty at a couple of house sessions and it looked like he hardly moved his left fingers at all - fiddle or banjo. Amazing economy. I know that keeping this idea in mind helps me a lot on the banjo because of the larger distance I have to cover. I played a lot of sax many years ago and my teacher always told me to keep my fingers touching the keys even if I am not pressing them down. Same reason. 

Avi

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## JeffD

Watching Kevin Burke on the fiddle, his left hand fingers barely twitch, while the music soars around the solar system.

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## Paul Cowham

I know what you mean... 

Quite often I hear (usually by someone who doesn't play an instrument) people saying something like "don't they make it look easy.." in astonishment when looking at an accomplished musician playing. I would be surprised to hear someone playing an instrument really well and they didn't make it look easy, as it is much easier to make someting sound good with good technique.

I know that there are lots of different ways of playing the mandolin but I suppose being relaxed and playing with economy of motion are usually hallmarks of good technique and being qble to play fast..

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## 300win

One of you posted that 'you didn't think age had anything to do with it '. I agree for some people they never slow down, but others do. Take me for instance. I will be 56 in 12 weeks or so, and I've picked mandolin, guitar and banjo since I was 10. I can not play fast anymore like I used to. I think the reason is a combination of arthritus in both hands, plus taking massive amounts of heart meds because I have a weird heart disease thet basically is making my heart grow larger and get stiff, had surgery in '06 that helped and the damage is on the left side of my heart. Now I didn't know that which ever side the damage is in a heart it will effect the opposite side of the body, in my case my damage being on the left results in my right leg staying swolen, my right arm is weaker plus my right hand will not move past a certain speed no matter what I do so these things do effect my ability to increase tempo. My left hand is as fast as when I was 18 years old, no problems at all. Last year a old picking pal gave me a cd of a jam we recorded one night about30 years ago. I played it a couple days after he gave it to me, I could not even keep up with myself on the chops on a few of the tunes much less take a break ! It was funny, I had to laugh because I had forgotten that at one time I was fairly swift, one of the tunes we played was 'Daybreak In Dixie'. I don't know how many bpms we were going but as they say down here in the mountains 'we had 'er in the wind !'.. As I said before you have to have 'drive' or what some call 'punch' or dynamics in music, esp. Bluegrass. Over the yesrs I have seen many BG bands, and quite a bit of them play some stuff way too fast, so that it actually loses energy in the song/tune. To me the 'drive' and the ability to play each note clearly is more important than speed. Of course some of us can do both, my hats off to you, I used to be one of 'those'. The band I play in now consists of a guy I've picked with all my life, he plays banjo, and he is as fast as ever, the other two are youngters in their early '30's. They know I can't play fast, so they accomidate me in some ways, but for what we lack in speed on a lot of stuff we do, we make up with it because we have a TON of drive on every song/tune we do. I like to hear these young guys now who can play fast, but only if they can do it cleanly. Sam Bush is my hero, he's about my age and he HAS NOT slowed down !

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## mandotrout777

Hey 300win, you just keep on keepin on man.  It sounds like you've overcome some obstacles and keep playin' regardless of difficulties.  Good for you.

As for me, I'm just 47 and didn't start mandolin until I was 42 or 43.  I've already forgotten which.  I doubt I'll ever get into the hyper speeds some guys describe.  140, 150, 160 beats per minute in cut time?  Not gonna happen for me I'm afraid.  As to Will's technique for "overspeeding" and trying to trick your brain into going faster... heck, I can't even hum Whiskey Before Breakfast in time at 160 bpm.

I have been trying to build some speed though, and here's what's been working for me (to the extent that I'm going to be able to play fast anyway):  I've been doing the "pyramid" thing, playing slow and then speeding up, and then trying to play for really short periods at speeds that are WAY out of my reach right now except for maybe one, one beat, set of sixteenth notes.  But whats helped me more than anything is to WATCH really fast player's right hands.  They all seem to have that really short, wristy pick stroke.  I then actually sit in from of a mirror, or window or someplace where I can see my reflection - the computer screen even -, and watch my right hand while I try to emulate that short wristy pick stroke.  It seems to be working; keeping it loose of course seems to be the key.  But then I'm only talking about getting up to about 120 bpm and then I blow up.  I guess I'll never be a bluegrass star.

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## stringalong

Just a couple of thoughts here -- reality check alert -- I don't know if this will be helpful, but with regard to fast playing being a way of life, there are people who play 6-10 hours A DAY.  I have a relative who is a professional musician and that's what he did when he was learning, and well into adulthood.  When he was in high school and college, he played 2-3 gigs A DAY every Saturday.  Also, some people (like my relative) have a NATURAL technique.  For instance, my relative is a horn player.  He can hold and do technique on ANY type of wind instrument, although he only is professional on his one specialty.  When he was about 16, his mother was trying to play flute, and her hand/finger technique was very awkward and angular.  He picked up her flute in his hands, the first time he'd ever held a flute, and his hands were perfect.  For myself, I am not in that "class" and don't really expect myself to ever play like Bill Monroe, or really any of the very fast mandolin players.  I used to be a good piano player, but had to acknowledge when I was in my 30s that I had technical limitations.  I would never play much of the classical concert repertoire, even though my early teachers had that in mind for me.  I ended up playing my own piano arrangements of 1920s-30s-40s show tunes, and while this was fun, it was not what I really wanted.  I wanted to be an outstanding classical pianist, but I've never been one to play 6-8 hours a day.  I finally switched from piano to Mandolin and also guitar, and although I am far from a professional, I have a lot more fun.  One of my mandolin teachers, who is one of the world's greatest mandolin virtuosi, said it takes 10,000 hours of playing to be a professional on, well, really, any instrument.  That is not unrealistic, if you do the math.  The way I figure, that's 3 hours a day EVERY, SINGLE DAY, which makes about 1000 hours a year, and it would take 10 years.  Correct my math, if I'm wrong.

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## Bill McCall

So, what was the end result of the speed quest?  Did Miss Lonelyheart ever reach her goal?

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## gtani7

I used to live next door to Manhattan School of Music so I'd listen to a lot of people practicing 10 hours/day at once.

Don't worry about logging 10K hours, think about what you're doing the next 5 minutes.

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## Miss Lonelyhearts

Bill, thanks for the PM that this thread revived.

FWIW, I'm a "he." My username here is ironic: Miss Lonelyhearts is a 1930s novel by Nathanial West about a man who becomes an advice columnist, which makes a shambles of his own life.

Did I ever reach my goal (hopes of picking 120-126 bpm)?

Short answer: Nope.

Long answer: Turns out my right hand "slowness" had a physiological basis. In 2011 I was diagnosed with a badly dislocated C3 vertebra, pressing into my spinal cord. The doc determined that it was an old injury, most likely from a bike wreck when I was 10. Over the years, the disk between C3 and C4 withered away, so the dislocation got worse, plus calcification of the back of the vertebra was really putting pressure on the spinal cord. I was fast losing using of my hands, and because the problem was so high in my neck (3rd vertebra down from the skull), if left untreated, it would lead to paralysis from the neck down. So I had surgery to pull C3 back into line, grind off the calcification, replace the disk, and fuse C3 and C4. The doc who did it was a consultant on Christopher Reeve's injury (also a C3 dislocation).

The surgery helped, and after a few months of recovery I got my hands back. But the surgery also did significant and apparently permanent damage to my vagus nerve. I now have partial paralysis of my vocal cords, impaired swallowing and gag reflex, and heart arrhythmias.

I'm 59 now. Conventional wisdom says that aging is a process of letting go, of gradually losing capabilities, friends, etc. There's some truth to that, but I'm finding that it's also a process of accumulation, too. So if the neck and vagus nerve issues weren't enough, I've also added focal dystonia in my left hand, tendinosis in my left elbow, a jerky right hand (clinically diagnosed as "hyperspasticity," a term that made me laugh out loud), and a 24/7 continuous, screaming-loud, high-pitched tinnitus in both ears. (Imagine having a leaf blower that never stops, in your head.)

Needless to say, increasing my pick speed by 12 bpm has dropped far down my list of priorities.

The good news is that I still play music. Not nearly as much as I used to, and not nearly as well. Sometimes all you can do is try to slow the inevitable decline....

I still lurk on mandocafe because it's such a rare experience--people sharing their passion for something in fun, friendly, helpful conversation. In that spirit, I hope this thread at least generated some useful tips and ideas.

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## stringalong

Dear Miss/Mr Lonelihearts, thanks for the update.  Thanks for starting this thread, and for hanging out at mandolinecafe.  If it's any consolation about your physical condition, I have a friend who is a very good Old Time Banjo player.  He said it took him 20 years to get good.  He also told me that he'd originally wanted to be a bluegrass banjo player, but that his hands/fingers just "won't go that fast," so he "settled" on Old Time.  He does not regret that decision, and loves old time music!  I'm wondering if I'm like him that way -- my picking just "won't go that fast." I play a few things (Soldier's Joy, for one, and Redwing instrumental) pretty fast, but mostly I play at a comfortable medium tempo.  That's just me, though, and the most I ever practice is 2 hours in one day.  More often, I play 45 minuted to an hour a day, and that includes both mandolin playing and guitar/singing.  It's just not my "nature" to play for many hours a day.  Glad to hear you're still playing music at 59.  I'm 76 and will never stop.

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## Miss Lonelyhearts

Stringalong, I hope I'm still playing tunes at 76. A friend of mine is still gigging on fiddle at 80, sounding as good as he ever has. I'll be happy if I can continue to enjoy a few tunes at home.

When I was a teen, I picked up Scruggs style banjo and then guitar (flat picking and finger picking) fairly quickly--I was teaching both at a music store outside Philadelphia by the time I was 15, back during the bluegrass revival. But I really wanted to play fiddle. Unfortunately, my arc of learning fiddle coincided with the onset of a genetic condition that made playing increasingly painful and wooden. The condition went undiagnosed for 20 years, and it took all that time to eventually sound halfway decent on fiddle. Then I got diagnosed and treated and started feeling what "normal" hands could do. What a revelation! Suddenly I could play! I made a lifetime of progress in a few years and got to the point where I was invited to teach at a few music camps and play with some top-notch musicians. That was a lot of fun! Six months later, my hands were going numb, and then came the neck surgery.

It's important to keep life in perspective. When I first met the doc who eventually did the surgery, he walked into the exam room and asked, "Where's your wheelchair?" I said, "What?!" He said, "I've seen your neck x-rays and MRI--I know you didn't walk in here on your own." He made me get up and walk around the room to prove I wasn't paralyzed. He said it was remarkable that I hadn't been paralyzed by the initial injury when I was 10. So what seemed like bad news at 50 was actually good news spread back over 40 years.

Also, it helps to bear in mind that there are many ways to participate in making music. I still teach a bit, and I also pen original tunes, a few of which have been recorded by award-winning musicians. I'll keep doing that as long as fresh melodies keep spooling up in my mind's ear. Funny enough, when I write a tune, it almost always happens with a mandolin in my hands.

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