Idea for a group effort:
 

Let get some volunteers together to study our picking progress for say
3 months giving weekly reports on each of the following exercises.

I'll give powertab of each to make sure we are all playing the same thing.
Lets all be honest about our progress on BPM.
So the rules are as follows:
Each person who joins in must start at the beginning of the time period so
it is fair. I guess an alternate way is to get everyone to log these exercises weekly
for 3 months and publish their results. But it would be more interesting to get
everyone in at the start.
I think if anyone is showing exceptional results they should be required to demonstrate proof via
mp3 to their claim. That way those who are behind won't get too discouraged, and we won't have any
ridiculous claims that can't be substantiated.
The guitars should be tuned within 1 whole tone of E to make the determination of fraudlent MP3 entries
easier.
So join in by the start time and log your attempts at these exercises.
I think we should give a week or so for everyone to learn the exercises and then begin
the study.
I'll have everyone e-mail or PM me with their desire to participate
The entire exercise must be played twice at the stated BPM and executed
in time with no mistakes or errors (missing picking strokes flams etc...)

I think this would be a good experiment to see where everyone is at with this
and to encourage those who are seeking to impvove their technique.
It can serve as motivation to keep up so you can be forced to improve.

Ascending pattern of nonuplets on EAD strings in C major.
Ascending pattern of nonuplets on ADG strings in C major.
Ascending pattern of nonuplets on DGB strings in C major.
Ascending pattern of nonuplets on GBE strings in C major.

Descending pattern of nonuplets on EAD strings in C major.
Descending pattern of nonuplets on ADG strings in C major.
Descending pattern of nonuplets on DGB strings in C major.
Descending pattern of nonuplets on GBE strings in C major.

Ascending pattern of nonuplets Descending on EAD strings in C major.
Ascending pattern of nonuplets Descending on ADG strings in C major.
Ascending pattern of nonuplets Descending on DGB strings in C major.
Ascending pattern of nonuplets Descending on GBE strings in C major.

Descending pattern of nonuplets Ascending on EAD strings in C major.
Descending pattern of nonuplets Ascending on ADG strings in C major.
Descending pattern of nonuplets Ascending on DGB strings in C major.
Descending pattern of nonuplets Ascending on GBE strings in C major.

Alternating/Ascending pattern of nonuplets on EAD strings in C major.
Alternating/Ascending pattern of nonuplets on ADG strings in C major.
Alternating/Ascending pattern of nonuplets on DGB strings in C major.
Alternating/Ascending pattern of nonuplets on GBE strings in C major.

Alternating/Descending pattern of nonuplets on EAD strings in C major.
Alternating/Descending pattern of nonuplets on ADG strings in C major.
Alternating/Descending pattern of nonuplets on DGB strings in C major.
Alternating/Descending pattern of nonuplets on GBE strings in C major.

Ascending Chromatic across all strings.
Descending Chromatic across all strings.

Ascending Chromatic Descending across all strings.
Descending Chromatic Ascending across all strings.

Ascending Chromatic Alternating across all strings.
Descending Chromatic Alternating across all strings.

First File
 

First File
All of these exercises re supposed to be executed with strict AP.

Second File
 

Second File
All of these exercises re supposed to be executed with strict AP.

Third File
 

Third File.

Fourth File
 

Fourth File

There will be more files posted but I am off to work now!

I think the overall idea is pretty cool, but I have a few comments:

a) I've never seen the word 'nonuplet' before and can't find it anywhere
b) I think the requirement of 'no mistakes, etc' takes away from the exercise.
c) what does 'log your attempts' mean?

Comment b) is probably the more important one. To me, you've already restricted the participant to a particular BPM. For me to participate, you HAVE to allow mistakes. The judgement of progress then is simply a comparative one--between first submittal and next submittal, for example.,

My point is, if I have to comply with a BPM restriction and a 'no mistakes' restriction, then I simply can't participate. It probably won't happen. That's okay, I guess, but it restricts the exercise to only those who feel they make no mistakes--as opposed to those who want to demonstrate improvement. See what I'm sayin'?

I think it's useful to see that a participant is nearly-perfect at 100 BPM, but is making quite a few mistakes at 120 BPM, for example.

Plus, how will you know if we're doing strict AP? And what IS strict AP--that's a serious question& not a rhetorical one.

Too strange. Why did you choose 9/8 time? It's too out-there and I don't find it useful.

I would suggest 8th notes, 16th notes, and some 8th note triplets. People actually use those groupings often! I'd omit 16th note triplets since it's sort of overkill.

Cool idea but I think it needs some serious restructuring.


Bongo, honesty alone should be enough for alternate picking!:) Plus you can't go very quickly with all downstrokes! ;)

If someone is an economy picker they shouldn't be excluded in my opinion, as long as they follow the other rules.

I could have used 3/4 and used triplets! I just thought it was easier to keep track of in 9/8 since all of the figures are triple- triple. I can redo them in 3/4 if it really bothers anyone.

SSDD

As long as each person specifies the time sig and BPM it doesn't really matter whether it is 9/8 or 3/4 with triplets.
The idea is to get everyone on an even keel.

There was no intended restriction on BPM only mistakes.

Strict AP: Pick every note, odd notes are picked down and even are picked up (actually your choice of starting stroke is arbitrary).

James,
I think that´s a great idea, and it would be a good chance to use the possibilities we have through the internet and this side... it´s an interesting experiment, and I think it makes sense to work on something like this after all the articles about picking etc.

Hopefully, some people will participate and continue to do so for the peiod of time this is upposed to last.
We really didn´t have any "group effort" other than the "Ibreathe Of Life" Jam, which unfortunately never really came together :(
Looking forward to seeing what happens
Eric

NP: My Morse-Winamp-Playlist

Interesting concept. In response to Bongo maybe charting the most improvement over time should be considered.

I'm also only trying to improve

I wasn't intending for this to be a contest!
I just thought it could be a great motivator and show those who wish to improve real values with real tangible exercises and results from a broad spectrum of players with varying degrees of pre-existing technical proficiency. So the whole point was to chart the improvement over time and show that those who started out lowest on the scale are likely to be the one with the most improvement. If you got Thorsten to do this he would start out pretty close to the top from the very beginning and in BPM would not show as much improvement as someone less skilled.
Ideally we would have many participants who would all improve and learn from each other how it wokrs for other people. There might be one of us that starts out very slowly and rapidly increases. It is dependent on human factors. I am thinking of reducing the study case down to just the four I already submitted tabs for just to make it easy for everyone to participate.

Eric,
The "Ibreathe Of Life" Jam had only three official entries one was mine I think Captian Carma and LoveGuitar were the others. Basically I couldn't get enough participation with the official entries to do much with this. I still have the submissions, but It just didn't seem right with only three of us. Some of the guys who submitted trials could have made wonderful entries but never did. I needed them with no backing tracks so I could mix them down and that seemed to be a problem for many people.

I really like your idea James. I might participate, but I dunno if I can really commit to it, as my job situation is very hectic right now, and therefore I’m currently devoting less time to practicing than I ever have in my 2.5 years of playing. Anyhoo, thanks for taking the initiative here, seems like a really useful way of collaborating on our efforts to improve. I really want to see this work.

Just for the record, i was one of the three participants.

I like the idea, it's just too bad i'm using a Mac so i can't look at the powertabs... someone really should write a powertab viewer for us poor macintrashers. I'll see if i got the guts to fire up my pc tonight.

Sorry,
Cuno you're right CC did do a cool trial though.
I can print these to pdf if you need them to be

No worries! :) About the pdf -- thanks, but i think i'll better watch them on the pc tonight so i can listen to them.

Cheers

I think it's a great idea. I had also thought "Hey this is just like triplets in 3/4" and I was gonna comment on it but I saw that you guys already had gone over that... I'm in... although I'm not sure if I'll be able to really participate... I still have no internet at home (BUMMER!)... but I guess I could bring the sound files to work... let's see how it works.

...I'm in.

Just 2 questions

Where do I get powertab?

What's your e-mail szulc?

Looks like I'll join in too. I've really just started working on my alternate picking so I'm not too incredibly fast yet.

James, I absolutely understand what you intended this to be... motivation instead of competition. That´s clear.
We´ll see, if this works out, maybe we can do some others like it with different exercises, different techniques, different levels etc.
But let´s see how this goes
Eric

NP: Paul Gilbert - Acoustic Samurai

I am in...i might not get to work on them that much but hey ill still try:D

Powertab
 

http://www.power-tab.net/downloads.php

Click my username to e-mail me.

My Reasons
 

The reason I have chosen these particular exercises is that for AP playing in odd grouping on each string on odd groups of strings, is one of the more challenging things, since you are starting each set with a different picking stroke. My appraoch in the past to picking exercises was more complicated, this gives nice structure to play a certain picking pattern and be able to repeat it all over.
The patterns are pretty easy and will help those trying to learn 3nps patterns all over the neck.
It might be too easy for those who into 3nps stuff and the PG/SM school.
I think good improvement can be made with these because of the above reasons.
I am also curious how everyone will respond to this type of training. In other words will some people find this really easy, or really difficult?

I would like to encourage participation by everyone no matter how skilled, from the begginer to the shredders. If we want to have non- strictly AP entries we should identiy them as so and the person making the submission should provide powertab of his particular economy approach to the given exercise.
BPM logs should be maintained weekly and AP separately from EP, lets compare apples to apples.

Some of the exercises I wrote about at the beggining of this thread would benefit for a slide (non-picked note) between the iterations of the motive. If we get enough participation and people want to add these other exercises, I will tab them out with the appropriate picking.

Okay so I have the exercises printed and sitting on my music stand. Besides attempting to play them, what is it that I'm supposed to do?

Learn them so you don't need to read the tab or staff. Then get to where you can play them in time at some specific BPM (as triplets in 3/4 or 1/8ths in 9/8). Record you best performance BPM in a log book (my guess is you will use Excel). Practice the exercise daily, but only record your BPM once a week. Use strict AP. Try to increase you maximum BPM throughout each week. Only record the BPM for the exercise if you can execute it cleanly at the stated BPM (also note whether you are playing it as 3/4 or 9/8 time). Do this for 3 months (13 weeks).
The intent is to publish each persons BPM weekly. Later we can ask those who are making the most improvement what they are doing that is working for them. If their claims of improvement are ridiculous get them to submit an MP3 to demonstrate their current BPM claim, which will be scrutinized to determine fraud.
Give evey one praise for participating. Learn from those who are really progressing.
You will learn the C Major scale in three note per string forms all over the fingerboard (if you don't already know them). These particular types of exercises are difficult to execute with clean AP once the tempo get high, so it gives everyone a chance to be challenged.

These exercises are going to be boring for many people, but the idea is to improve the execution, and to gain some metrics from this.

I think it sounds like fun--I'm all over it!

One thing I learned from the last time I tried a group thing is be patient.

So everyone who want in on this let me know within one month, then we'll get started for three or more months.
IF the group decides to do more exercises we'll add some more.

James

I'm on board--as your token Rank Beginner representative :)

Hey James, great experiment there but I think the real challenge is to... not get INSANE while trying to learn the patterns...;)

Seriously, I think it´s a good technical exercise but in "real life" I wouldn´t use strict alternate picking for that one, like you said, the odd grouping of 9/8 and three string pattern alternates the first pick stroke of each position which makes it very hard to memorize.

I added a picking tab I would use to play it fast.

But again, this is a great exercise for those who aren´t familiar with 3 note per string patterns, the modal system or alternate picking.

Cheers
TK

Yes...it's a challenge. Even for me, having no AP discipline, it's tough making those string-to-string transitions and still do AP. Fun though. I'll be blasting thru the 40 bpm barrier any day now! :)

I finally memorised the first excersise.. now its time to spend some quality time with the metronome :). We'll see how it goes..


hol0

Assuming I jump on board with these exercises, how should I be using my brain while doing them? Is the best thing to be thinking of the scale degree if each note while playing them, or what?

I Agree, but for an experiment it is a good exercise.

I find it interesting that you would start this with an up stroke, I guess most people would use a down stroke (maybe cause you are a lefty?).
I am curious what your BPM for something like this is, initially and also for your EP version.
I can only assume you have worked dilligently on you AP technique for many years, since I was so impressed with has fast you learned that little piece I posted a few months ago.

I am guessing you r initial BPM for this is gonna make me wanna quit ( or maybe give mee something to struggle for).
Maybe you will have some pointers for those of us who have never achieved the speed you are so comfortable with.

If this doesn't tax your nervous system too much!
I think whilst trying for a speed record you should just think of making through, but whatever works. Thinking the scale degree is definately a good idea for a long term strategy.

Heh heh.... you don't know how slow I play.:o

As soon as I can get through it at an even tempo with no fret buzz and it sounds 'just okay', I'll load up an MP3. I think if you (and others) hear my best efforts, and witness my extraordinary courage in actually publishing them, many folks will be totally okay with participating.

I just realized moments ago that I'm not sure how to correlate beats-per-minute with 9/8 time--I'm not actually sure what it means. Since these are triplets, is it three beats to the bar? For each measure I'd count "1 and a 2 and a 3 and a"--actually I'd have chosen 3/3 for the time signature.

Simple questions like these certainly do reveal how much we don't know, don't they? :)

The idea of tabbing this out in 9/8 was to give every 1/8th note ne metronome click, if that is a problem play it in 3/4 time with each note being and 1/8th note triplet.

In 9/8 it is 123 456 789 in 3/4 it is 1aa 2aa 3aa or 1trip-let 2trip-let 3trip-let. More mportantly make a note of your BPM at the first sign of clean execution.