I'm working on the following scale/picking exercise from my book: Using 'box 1' of the pentatonic minor scale, you pick 212, 323, 434...all the way to the top of the box pattern and back down again. Three notes per beat, and using alternate picking.
It doesn't say how fast to go up to. Using the metro, and gradually working up my speed for the last few days, the fastest I can do it right now is around 80 to 88 bpm. How fast do I need to work up to?...what would be 'adequate' or 'par' ? (I want to play mainly blues rock, rock, heavy metal, and country). Thanks.
Patrick,
It's entirely up to you. If playing fast is something that's important to you, you should keep raising the speed on the metronome. If you think you'll NEVER want to play fast....Then leave it where you are. Someday you probably will want to be able to play some fast stuff, so maybe you should just keep going. It can't hurt, it can only help.
Listen to the songs you'd like to learn, and figure out what tempo they're in. For some blues rock and country, you'll probably find they're at 80-100 bpm... but for a lot of rock and metal, you're probably looking at 100-160 bpm.
Adequate will be whatever speed you need to keep up with the beat of the music.
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