Learnin' to Shred

[Nomad]

I can't shred on a guitar. Hell, I can't shred toilet paper. But I've made it a new goal to learn. I want to be able to write all the music that's bouncing around in my head.

So I was wondering if anyone has any tips on working on my shreddin' skills. I've found this site (http://www.garone.net/anthony/music/guitar/), which some guy made some lessons and recorded some videos for losers like me that want to learn. I'm still working on the first lesson, but I've really just started yesterday. I've already increased my dexterity on the fretboard, though, probably twice what it was before.

Does anyone have any exercizes that helped them? I'm speaking mostly to She-Wolf and danimetal, because I know they're both awesome, but anyone else who has suggestions are welcome :)

I mostly want to learn sweeps and arpeggios and stuff--I can play rythm guitar decently already. I want to learn the more technical stuff.

[Danimetal]

Errr... Well, for what I can tell the only thing that helped me to become a complete useless guitar player was practice. Practice is something dangerous too, let´s see, I could build you some exercises in "Power tabs" format so you could try them but the dangerous part is that one tends to play the same stuff over and over again, ending up a little bored.

For what I can tell, the exercises on those pages could help you become proficient at guitar heroism archetypes so you could go with them. Still, you should try to learn the basics of theory so you actually can analyze what you´re playing... That should be easy enough if you learn the basic positions of the modes, you´ll surely be able to find them over the net with no problem. In case negative drop me a PM :).

When it comes to learning... Personally I am pretty self-taught (the reason why I suck) and my method was playing by ear and improvising along records. Almost every theory aspect I learned was learned first on practice until I asked "Why does this work that way?". I found that learning to play Vinnie Moore music (by ear, please, use no tabs!!!, learn to use your ear :D) was really inspiring in terms of technique, accuracy and chops. He may also help you to find a cool sense for clean sounds (I hate eternal delays and compression with loads and loads of distortion: they tend to hide mistakes. I like to commit mistakes when playing).

And, well, the hardest part: develop something when you play. You may come to a moment where you´re not impressed by the quantity of tapping notes someone plays in an arpegio run but for what he/she is transmitting when playing.

Anyway, I´ll try to sum up what for me are basic points in guitar playing:

-1- Practice: both robot-like technique and improvising.
-2- Develop a taste for sound: Accuracy, cleaness, stuff like that.
-3- Train your earing. Train your brain after each session too.
-4- Develop ideas!!!. People may record videos to teach or show off but in the end, they´re not you. Develop yourself as a musician. Don´t listen to anybody else´s (including me) as everyone has their ideas on music.

I hope She-Wolf can tell you something more useful than the crap I´ve told you here. Anyway, if you think I can help you with something try dropping me a PM about it. I´ll feel more compfortable in private :P.

Good luck!.

PS: About sweeps and arpeggios and stuff (I assume stuff is scales :P), you can really become proficient at them in little time given practice and positions. Again, that could make a nice player out of you but, will you be a better musician that way?.

Edit:
PS2: I think I made not enough stress on sound. In my opinion, sound one of the factors that ultimately determine the stuff that you will play and will make it a lot easier... Sounds with, say,bass and distortion enough (and the neck pickup) help the shredding style and tend to add lots of sustain but they are relatively uneffective when it comes to dry riffing or classic rock licks with a sharp feel, who benefit the most with little distortion and another kind of equalization (then try to shred with that sound :P). So, well, try different sounds to see the ones that fit your style the most.

Now a little list of people you could pay a little listen to in the world of shred-rock guitar. They pack a lot of personality, character and style:

- Steve Vai (God).
- Vinnie Moore (Jesus).
- Kee Marcello (from the band Europe, great sound, unexpected ability, great conception of what a solo could be).
- Soilwork guitarrists (nice tuning and great results with "easy" chops, cool songs too).
- Michael Romeo or similars (can really make you vomit if listened for long enough. Short bursts the best :P).

I was about to make an "avoid" list, but I better keep that to myself. Oh, just add "Me" and "Slayer" to the list above ;).

[Nomad]

Jason Becker is sick too ;P I've never heard anyone bring out such personality from a guitar.

The main thing I'm looking for right now is working on fingering and technique, I plan on working on scales later. I already know my style and technique will develop as I learn.

Thanks for the tips :)

[Danimetal]

Hmm. I see, well, then I think that the best exercise I can recommend you is any excercise that develops muscle-memory (for fingering) and then anything on cromatics (to begin with) for the technique.

The exercises on that site will serve you for fingering practice. And for technique... Let´s see, I can think of some exercises stuff opposed to muscle memory (generally intended as "I play scales up and down the neck" :P) so you also can make your brain control your movements. This is a small exercise I just wrote for you :P:

--------------------------------------------------------5-7-9-10-7---------------------------------
------------------------------7-6-5-4----------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------2----------7-6-5-4-5-6-7-------------11-7-9-7---7-9-6---------------
--------------------3-4-5----------------------------------------------------9--------7---8-6------
-----------4-5-6-7-----------------------------------------------------------------------9------7---
-5-6-8-7-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------8-

And from that last note you can start again 1 fret higher. Try to think in a nice digitation for the figure, play it slow (all notes have the same duration), alternate-picking. Try also to play accurate, in time and stuff. Finally, the whole point of it is to try to think in what you´re playing, not just memorizing it. Oh, also, I know it sounds like crap but, what did you expect :P?.

[Nomad]

I don't expect fingering exercises to sound good ;D

Thanks, Dani!

[Danimetal]

Not at all. It´s been a while since I´m not into this kind of music but if I can help you, don´t hesitate to ask.

[She-wolf]

Troy Stetina. I use his book called Speed Mechanics for Lead Guitar. It's very good. A metronome for exercises is also very useful for keeping yourself in time. I have one that has different settings so for example I can set it up at say practising at 100bpm but also have it beep if I am working on an exercise that's all in 16ths so it will beep four times in each beat, it's more reliable than counting it out yourself and more of your brain to focus on playing better.

The book I mentioned has some stuff about writing music, writing solos and the qualities of intervals and such. Not a lot of theory but it's useful. It's been a while since I've touched a guitar, 8 months now so I myself am very, very rusty now. Scales are great as they get those stuck in your memory and help as an exercise for your fingers. But doing exercises that mix things up so you aren't just going 1,2,3,4, but maybe 1,2,4,3 and so on with all possible variations are good at getting your fingers more independant from the others and identifying which pairs give you problems. Myself, I have problems getting 3 and 4 to work independantly so work on that and also strengthening those to help with hammer ons and pull offs since those are weaker.

As I learn scales I improvise with them too, see what I can make with them and to get a better idea of how they sound than just playing them orderly as you do in practising them.

Ok, hope that's some help. :)

[Danimetal]

Hey, I bought a little book written by Troy Stetina back when I started playing guitar!!. It dealt with "Lead" and I didn´t learn a lot from it... Honestly, I never understood anything in the book at all :).