Brucegregori
Experienced
It is like this...say you go to type something on your computer and every time you make some keyboard mistake, your file gets saved, even though you edit it to make it correct. Stop, fix, start, mistake, fix, etc, etc. So in the time you type out a paragraph your hard drive saves 20 copies of the file (all the mistakes as well as the completed one). When you go to call the file up from the hard drive memory, your computer chugs way too much because it is not only trying to open the "completed" file but all the others as well and time, time, time, spin, spin, spin, etc until finally the computer either stops responding (quits) or can't complete the task. This is what happens to you when you practice a part incorrectly.
Guitar practice is not a gym activity - no pain no gain, but a memory and recall activity. You have to practice the part in chunks perfectly each time to minimize the issue of the hard drive example of above. But it is not something guitarists like to do, because they want to throw on a bunch of gain and delay and "swag" it through.
Playing fast with flaws means you are practicing your flaws as much as the part you are trying to learn and that is why I hear the stories of "it took me 10 years!" Unless you are playing some concerto written by Villa Lobos or something, an electric shreddy kind of thing shouldn't take that long.
So with alternate picking, if your lines are not clean without the delay then they will be worse with the delay and you will never get them to be "in time" so they sound "tight."
Guys like JP went to Berkley where the emphasis is on "perfect" technique means "perfect" practice. This the same with Di Meola, Mike Stern or even John Mayer - although not a "shredder" but still has really spotless technique for what he plays.
The last thing is many techniques will get to play fast lines - alternate, hybrid, legato, tapping, sweeping, etc. But lots of players figured out they have preference because it makes more sense with the way they interpret "time" and the subdivisions of time. That is why maybe AD or JP use alternate picking and Joe Satriani likes legato more. They all kind play "fast" - clock speed is really irrelevant - you know I can play 16ths at 150 bmp....it is ALL context.
If you set a metronome to 150 bmp and sat your favorite players in a room, who you think can play those lines at 150 bmp, they might not be able to. But if they did so in the context of a song at the same tempo, they could flawlessly. Why? Context.
If you practice the major scale and get it to 150 bmp up and down 16ths and then go play a song at the same tempo you most likely will sound off or maybe sloppy, unless the song has part that sounds like a major scale...lol and that is just an exercise inside a song!
Speed exercises BAD for playing fast in songs!!
Practicing lines/subdivision you hear within the context of a song GOOD for playing fast in songs AND will get you to play faster!
As far as teaching - I do this via zoom and you can shoot me a message if you are interested.
