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4 simple ways to become super confident

Posted by The Wizard Of Shred on Monday, January 24, 2011, In : Zen Shredding 
4 simple ways to become super confident


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How someone with no skills can take away the prize

When I was in high school I participated in a guitar contest. I was, by far, the most skilled guitarist in that school so I was pretty confident that I would win. But my anxiousness caused me to perform at a very low level while another guy with half my skills went completely berserk on stage. He didn't care that he couldn't play very well, he just did everything he could to sou...

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The real reason for stage fright

Posted by The Wizard Of Shred on Friday, January 14, 2011, In : Zen Shredding 
The real reason for stage fright


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Alone means dead

So why do some people get nervous when they play in front of other people while others become excited? As I stated in my last article the fundamental reason for nervousness is the fear of being rejected. And the fear behind that is the fear of dying. Human beings are dependent upon each other and a thousand years ago, being left by yourself meant being dead. Without other people you couldn't survive. Just like a deer ...

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Diminished String Skipping Legato Lick

Posted by The Wizard on Sunday, October 25, 2009, In : Amazing Licks 
Diminished String Skipping Legato Lick


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The main challenge of this Paul Gilbert inspired string skipping lick, is to get the string skipping right. But the secret to getting it right is to make sure that you are using "outside" picking when you do it. When you move from the G to the high E-string you start with a down stroke and end with an upstroke. This will make it very easy not to hit the B-string in between the two. When you go from the high E-string to the G-string ...
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The Reversed Malmsteen Variation

Posted by The Wizard on Sunday, October 18, 2009, In : Amazing Licks 
The Reversed Malmsteen Variation


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In this lick, I use position shifting and a lick from one of the previous articles, to create a third lick. Combining licks in this way is a great way to develop the ability to improvise at very high levels of speed. The more you can combine what you know, the more choices you have.

As an exercise, try to come up with at least one new way of using these ideas used in today's lick. See if you can play the whole thing backwards. Play the...
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How To Master The Minor And Major Scales

Posted by Pure Speed on Thursday, May 21, 2009, In : Instant Fretboard Vision 
How to master the Minor and Major scales


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The same scale used in a different context

Let's get one thing straight: The "Natural Minor scale" is just your old Minor / Major scale, used over a Minor chord progression. In the last article I covered blues rock and how to mix the "Dorian" scale (Which is still the old Minor / Major scale with a new name!) with the blues scale. To play over chord progressions in a regular Minor key we'll do almost the same thing. We won't ...

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How To Nail This Challenge In Two Months

Posted by Pure Speed on Tuesday, May 19, 2009, In : Instant Fretboard Vision 

How to nail this challenge in two months


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If you fail to plan - you plan to fail

This article will show you ways to master all the things I've talked about.  And the first and most essential thing is the concept of planning. This doesn't have to take more than a couple of minutes but it's essential to your success. Planning is deciding what you will do and for how long you will do it. Here's what happens when we don't plan:

  1. We decide on something we'd like to maste...

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Breaking Out Of Limiting Scale Patterns

Posted by Pure Speed on Friday, May 15, 2009, In : Instant Fretboard Vision 

Breaking out of limiting scale patterns


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The secret to memorizing a map

The fretboard can be compared to a city with it's roads and locations: If you try to find your way around the whole city at once, you have to refer to the map at every crossing and corner. But if you live in one part of the city for a couple of months, you get to know that neighborhood so well, that you can find your way in the dark. And if you then move to another part of the city, the sam...


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Celebrating Your Victory

Posted by Pure Speed on Wednesday, May 13, 2009, In : The Ten Day Break Through Strategy 

Celebrating your victory


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A powerful experiment

I'd like to add a little note to yesterdays article. Most people that I have introduced these two methods to, has been very sceptical to whether they would really work or not. If you feel the same way, here's my recommendation:

Pick a one or two string lick that you would like to master. Then practice playing it to the point where you can do it without referring to the tablature. Then use the methods I described in th...


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Two Strategies That Will Triple Your Results

Posted by Pure Speed on Tuesday, May 12, 2009, In : The Ten Day Break Through Strategy 

Two strategies that will triple your results


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How to improve your chops when you are away from your instrument

In this article I'm going to give you two methods that you can use to practice when you don't have a guitar. With these two strategies, you can practice everywhere. Depending on what you do for a living, you might add as much as 6 to 8 hours of valuable practice time to your daily shedule. When you use them enough, they become automatic and you'll start to...


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Turbo Charge Your Practice Sessions

Posted by Pure Speed on Monday, May 11, 2009, In : The Ten Day Break Through Strategy 

Turbo charge your practice sessions


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How to program your mind to achieve extraordinary results

Greetings fellow shredder. This article will give you a vital strategy that you can use to improve your results dramatically. It's a little long but reading it is well worth your effort. By now you should have laid down a plan for the ten days. You have scheduled every possible 30 minute session during this period and should be clear about the rules of the game. Now it's t...


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Essential Rules of Engagement

Posted by Pure Speed on Saturday, May 9, 2009, In : The Ten Day Break Through Strategy 

Essential Rules of Engagement


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Now that you've laid down a plan for the next ten days, let's talk about the rules of the game. The first thing to be very conscious of, is what kind of practice routine you are preparing for. It's important to distinguish between these two kinds of practice:

1. Technique
2. Integration

Practicing technique

Improving your technical skills requires repeating a certain pattern of movement until it's embedded in the brain. When you engage...


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Expand Your Practice Regimen Explosively

Posted by Pure Speed on Friday, May 8, 2009, In : The Ten Day Break Through Strategy 

Expand Your Practice Regimen Explosively


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Select three dream licks

Let's begin the planning part of your ten day challenge. The first thing you must do is to find three licks that you would really, really like to master. Don't aim too low when you select them: They have to be so far away from your current skill level that they really inspire you. Ideally, the thought of "acquiring" them should make you feel like a little kid before Christmas eve.

Also the three lic...


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The 10 Day Breakthrough Strategy

Posted by Pure Speed on Thursday, May 7, 2009, In : The Ten Day Break Through Strategy 

The 10 day breakthrough strategy


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I'm very excited about this particular subject. This ten day strategy has meant more to the development of my skills than any other single thing. You will not believe what will happen to your skills when you use this strategy on a regular basis. This is the way to crush your challenges in the fastest way possible.

Here's the basic mistake that we all tend to make:

When ever we are confronted with a challenge of any kind, we estimat...


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The Secret Picking Method...

Posted by Pure Speed on Tuesday, May 5, 2009, In : Economy Picking Revealed 

The Secret Picking Method...


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The most effective and versatile technique


Today I'm going to introduce you to a simple but radical picking technique: It's the "Pick-the-notes-in-the-easiest-way-possible-technique" It's the most versatile and effective way to pick, that I know of. Alternate picking has a vital advantage. It doesn't care much about how many notes you play on each string. It's based on such a simple mathematical up and down process that you can use it ...
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The Magic of Mastery

Posted by Pure Speed on Monday, May 4, 2009, In : Economy Picking Revealed 

The Magic of Mastery


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Making economy picking more versatile

If economy picking is the only picking style you master, you have to be very careful with how you structure your licks. You have to have an uneven number of notes on each string in order to be able to make the string shifts happen. Also there are a few things that are practically impossible to play with economy picking only, because of this mathematical limitation. But there's a quick and easy way around thi...
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How to make super fast picking easy

Posted by Pure Speed on Sunday, May 3, 2009, In : Economy Picking Revealed 

How to make super fast picking easy


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Guaranteeing success

As with alternate picking, the hardest lick to play is a full three-notes-per-string scale pattern over all six strings. That's why it's so essential to start with very few string shifts and build from there. If you do that, you virtually guarantee that you'll progress faster than most people around you, and you'll create those little successes - that will motivate you to go for more. In the last article we we...
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The hidden key to learning economy picking fast

Posted by Pure Speed on Saturday, May 2, 2009, In : Economy Picking Revealed 

The hidden key to learning economy picking fast


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A radically different process

Practicing economy picking is a radically different process than practicing alternate picking. And the reason is this: Because economy picking involves a sweeping motion, you have to use two different practice routines to get the best results fast:

1. Playing the metronome game
2. Chunking several movements into one
3. Integrate immediately

1. Playing the metronome game

If you are unfamili...


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How to pick like a Swedish virtuoso

Posted by Pure Speed on Friday, May 1, 2009, In : Economy Picking Revealed 

How to pick like a Swedish virtuoso


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Play with flow and ease

If you want to play like the wind and the water, economy picking is for you. Alternate picking feels and sounds like a machine gun, where as economy picking flows like a river. Once you have it down, economy picking feels easy in comparison to alternate picking. It feels completely effortless and that frees up a lot of energy to focus on other things. As a consequence, I always use economy picking unless I...


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My best alternate alternate picking exercises

Posted by Pure Speed on Thursday, April 30, 2009, In : The Ultimate Guide To Alternate Picking 
My best alternate alternate picking exercises

Six notes up and down

Before I end this series on alternate picking I want to give you some of the "exercises" that I have used to build my picking speed. Please pick the ones that you are most comfortable with. The first two are super simple but also very fundamental. I use these licks all the time and you will too once you have them down. You can take these two licks and use them to go all the way up and down the neck. Try going all the way up an ...
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How to pimp your axe for maximum speed

Posted by Pure Speed on Tuesday, April 28, 2009, In : The Ultimate Guide To Alternate Picking 

How to pimp your axe for maximum speed


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Creating the ultimate shred machine

Years ago, I thought that any skilled guitar player should be able to play fast on any guitar. Even though I loved playing on a guitar that had all the qualities that I'm going to discuss in this article, I still did nothing to make my own instrument more playable. "Playing on an impossible instrument will just harden me and make me better in the end" I thought. but I missed the point. ...


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The killer strategy for mastering string shifts

Posted by Pure Speed on Monday, April 27, 2009, In : The Ultimate Guide To Alternate Picking 

The killer strategy for mastering string shifts


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The two headed monster
 

Every technique has its challenges. When it comes to alternate picking, shifting strings is definitely one of them. What most people aren’t aware of is that this is a two headed monster. There are two different string shifts that you can make:

1. Outside shifting

2. Inside shifting

Outside shifting is when you go from picking down on, let’s say the B-string, and then picking up on the high ...


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How to break through the speed barrier

Posted by Pure Speed on Sunday, April 26, 2009, In : The Ultimate Guide To Alternate Picking 

How to break through the speed barrier



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The strategy described in this article could increase your speed instantly! (Seriously)

I assume that you are using the methods described in the category “Get more out of praticing”. If you are not, you are going to experience a lot more challenges than I describe in these articles. But even though you do everything right, at some point, you are going to hit the wall. You are going to reach a level of speed that you cannot ...
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