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To be honest I don't really get this point of view as long as being able to play the exercises isn't the aim. I could have started the thread by saying that I'm learning an song and had seemingly taken a backwards step in getting a tricky part up to speed. Would that be more musically valid? Does it matter that in working on it that I'd probably have broken the tricky parts down to what would be, essentially, repeatable exercises so I could slowly build them up to speed?
Try changing your technique radically for a week. I mean trying Benson picking, finger-picking, or anything different.
Return to your prefered technique afresh, fresh and "reset".
So for eg ...take a scale and use picking motion as you would picking but dont make contact with the string rely more on the left hand to sound the note .....then slowly introduce the pick so your just making contact ...do this for a couple of weeks for 5 mins a day and you will see a difference ....it seems to sync the left and right hand to work together...also refines the right hand so you font over compensate..
Try it for a week 5 mins a day so only 35 mins in total and see iff it works..iff it dosnt work for you just that time lost but i think it will
this is what I would suggest.
For me, after years of trying on and off to get quicker at picking, it just wasn't happening. I was spending more time on exercises instead of learning music, so I started adding in more legato to help me play fast lines. Of note, Paul Gilbert and Bruce Bouillet play a lot more legato than they use to, especially Bruce.
After analyzing some of Troy Grady's packages Yngwie and Eric Johnson use quite a lot of pull offs to help them change strings when playing a descending line and they tend to, but not always, arrange their lines so they can use economy picking when ascending. If they come to a situation where they are changing string and the last pick stroke would be an upstroke, they would hammer on to the last note to give them time to get over the string. Andy James also arranges his lines in a similar fashion, but he angles his pick upwards and starts most of his alternate picked lines on a upstroke.
What I'm saying is that when you really look at it, a lot of fast players use a lot more legato than people might think so they do.
Check this example:
If you adjusted your grip, it might be more comfortable and you might be able to play faster.
I'm interested in the exact exercises in use here, too. How long are the rests between your repetitions, Mr Rabbit? One beat? One bar? And how many notes in the patterns before they repeat? How many repeats before you rest?
@bingefeller OK, but how long were those phrases? A whole chorus of semiquavers at 135 is rippin', a two-beat phrase (eight notes) isn't, really. I can play a short burst of a few notes many times faster than a long continuous stream. I think if the OP works on such short bursts he'll be able to improve his overall top speeds.
*insert something here about developing fast twitch muscle fibres*
*give it a snazzy name like "burst picking"*
*start an online cult following using embarrassing marketing techniques*
*take a load of money off teenagers*
*get hatemail from Levi Clay*
*get the teenagers to go to war with Levi Clay*
*all publicity is good publicity*
Oh shit, I'm still on tFB, I thought this was iNapkin, the start-up business plan app!
*Ed Balls*
Double shit, this isn't Google either!
@digitalkettle Holy crap, not if he wants to keep his health he doesn't!
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4427/35531135104_e3a127e56a_k.jpg
There's plenty of good advice already, so my suggestion is slow it right down and see if you can play these phrases with the least amount of movement. One of my bad habits is that my fretting hand is nowhere near where it should be if the speed is too fast.
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@bingefeller I think that's most respectable. In one of the Creative Guitar books, Guthrie talks about increasing how long you can do an exercise continuously, rather than only going for pure speed on shorter phrases.
OP: do you know how fast you can tremolo pick? Jonathan Strange's tuition materials and forum posts are also great resources for picking, and he starts with trem picking as a basis. This is no good if your trem picking technique is radically different to how you play normally (see EVH, not that he has a problem).
I disagree that it's a plateau. The speed is too low for the problem to be muscle-development related. An inefficient technique is much more likely.
Oh, and here's a massive caveat from Terry Syrek: https://www.premierguitar.com/articles/Diary_of_a_So_Called_Shredder_The_Dreaded_GIFO_Disease
I'll catch up on the other replies later.