Wes Inman wrote: The problem is most players can pick much faster than their fretting fingers can move.
Wes, I personally never found that to be true in my own playing. The pick has always been my limiting factor for speed.
Anyway, on to Kirk's question, and my two cents worth of advice.
The routine looks ok, but it doesn't go into the reason
why slow practice builds speed. And that's really the crux if it... because slow practice
won't build speed - but it's impossible to build speed without slow practice.
Lemme 'splain
Speed comes about through economy of motion, and minimizing resistance. In order to develop the habits needed to play fast, you have to be able to concentrate on those two things... which means you're going to do it slowly, over and over, until it's habit. But if you're not paying attention to the things required for speed, all the slow practice in the world won't give you speed.
On to those two things in detail...
Economy of motion: how high are you lifting your fretting fingers? How far beyond the string are you moving your pick? Are you lifting your pick out of the plane of the strings? Are there any extra movements of your hands, elbows, or even your shoulders, or movements that you could make smaller?
Those are things you need to fix. You do that by practicing slowly, even VERRRY slowly, focusing and concentrating on keeping those fingers close to the fretboard, making the pick move as little as possible, etc.
Minimizing resistance: resistance comes from a couple of sources, external and internal. The external is where the rubber meets the road... or in this case, where the pick meets the string. If you're digging in too deep, your pick has to fight to push the string out of the way - you should be picking with the last 1/8" or less of the pick's tip. At extreme speeds, you're not so worried about dynamics, so you can also angle the pick, so the rounded edge "bumps" over the string, rather than forcing through it.
The internal source is muscle tension. You have to be relaxed to play fast, or you won't be able to play fast for very long. I know that's easier said than done, but if you find yourself tensing up - take a break. Any more speed practice will be counter-productive.
As far as working with a metronome, there are two basic strategies I teach. The first is similar to the article you referenced: play slow until you can play it perfectly, then move up. I call that "laddering" your speed. The second I call "leaping"...
Take something you can play at 80bpm, but not 84bpm (or whatever - adjust your speed for each exercise you play, as your development will be different for different string combinations, keys, etc). Play it at 80. Now play it (or try to) just
once* at 160. You'll fall apart. That's OK. Put the metronome at 84 and play it.
Chances are you played it better than you had before at 84 - it seems like a slow speed in comparison to 160. If you did it perfectly at 84, go to 160 again (once), then try 88.
This will build speed quickly... quicker than laddering. There's a serious downside, though - since you haven't taken the time to fix any technique issues, your 'top end' will be slower than if you go with slow practice and laddering.
*Be sure to only play once at the high speed - you don't want to be spending time practicing mistakes. And should you fail at 84, drop down to 80 (or lower) and be sure you've played it perfectly. Practice makes permanent, so you want to play perfectly as often as humanly possible.
I did try to search the forums and browsed a bit but didn't find anything that really got to the heart of the matter. So...
