right hand speed

I think on this matter it's just practicing with a metronome...1 Month ago I was at 80bpm/16th notes, I practiced and now I am at 100bpm/16th notes...To me it's just plain practice...

 

• use a lighter touch
• minimize/optimize finger movement
• practice

 

If you are like me, you get frustrated with advice like 'practice with a metronome'. OK. Its turned on and clicking, now what?

Here is a specific exercise that has worked wonders for me. I do it with scales and arpeggios, but you could do it with pretty much anything. First, do an experiment. Warm up, and set your metronome to the fastest speed that you can play your scale or whatever. Now, instead of playing one 1/16 to a scale degree, play two. Now your left hand is working half as hard as your right hand. If you are like me, you will discover that you can't play the repeated pattern anywhere near as well.

Armed with this knowledge, about two weeks ago, I started superimposing all kinds of repeated note patterns on my scales, and now I can play a lot faster and more evenly, and perhaps even more important, my hands feel more relaxed.

 

dude simple trick, learned it from jaco... pluck very close to the bridge, you can go eighty times faster because there is less rebound from the strings u should be getting sixteenth notes at 120 bpm there, u just get a more trebly sound

 

Yup that above tip is a right-on one. There's more tension in the strings the closer to the bridge you play, so less vibration, less effort for your fingers.

"use a lighter touch "

That's also a key one. If you dig into the strings too much you'll just get bogged down. I was struggling to play the triplets in Donna Lee (at the 210bpm or whatever crazy speed it is) until I played more softly.

 

Yea, you wanna try to keep hand/finger movement to the least possible to maximize speed. Simple movments.

 

Hi,

What's your current speed today ?

 

Zombie thread!

 

i like zombies

 

Someone told be a truth one time:

Loose is fast

So stay loose in your right and left hand and don't tense up. Tensing up leads to slowness.

 

An alternative approach: 1) a given fast note should sound as good and expressive as any given slow note. 2) if you can't play slow you can't play fast
Solution: play as slowly as possible (1 16th note is 1 metronome beat at 40 bpm) until each and every note is even and equally musically meaningful (=sounds good. If you're bored while you play, you don't sound good, obviously ). Speed will build.