Video Question: Fast Picking

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Date: July 9th, 2008 | Length: 5.13 | Instructor: Nick Greathouse

StephenWhan asks, "Can you give any advice as to how to improve fast picking techniques? By way of example, I've been messing around with the intro to Iron Maiden's "Wasted Years" for a while now and find that I keep missing the string every 3-4 picks. Either I miss the string altogether, or I dig too deep into the preceding note and it throws off my rhythm. I've tried practicing without using my left hand and get fairly accurate relatively quickly, but as soon as I re-introduce the left and start depressing strings, I go right back to missing strings again. Slowing down, I'm 100%, so it's the tempo and length of the repetition that's throwing me off. Any and all help, as always, is greatly appreciated. Jam on!" Another benefit of being a member of JamPlay is the video response section. Our expert staff fields questions from our members and provides video responses each week.

Other Video Responses:

Bridge - August 5th, 2008 (3 minutes, 23 seconds)

Mclend1 asks, "My question is about the bridge, which on my guitar has the tune-o-matic part for adjusting the intonation and then there's further back, the metal bar piece that the ball ends secure into. What I'm curious about is the metal bar where the strings ends lie. It has two large screws for adjusting its height, and I wondered why or when would you ever adjust that or if you even need to? Does raising or lowering that bridge part effect the tone characteristics in any way? Is it generally tightened down to the body of the guitar or not, does it even matter that much? On classical/ acoustic type guitars the bridge is glued flat to the body for better resonance, so I wondered why electric guitars have a slightly different set up. As that's where the sound connects to the guitar, I guess it must do the same thing. I'm interested to know what the adjustments might do. Hope that makes sense. Thanks in advance, Matt." View Response

Easy 2 or 3 Chord Songs - February 19th, 2008 (1 minutes, 16 seconds)

Umbertone asked, "Hy guys, First of all, I love this site. I wish I could have had this opportunity 40 years ago. Oh, well!!! Since I'm not in it to become a master guitarist, but to have a bit of fun with my guitar, I'd like to ask you guys if you could prepare some videos about what I think may be easier songs. For examples, I'd like to learn some Beatles songs, or some CCR, or Eagles, or Queen. I would really appreciate the effort. Thank you very much. Keep up the excellent work you're doing. Umberto." View Response

Super light strings - May 23rd, 2008 (1 minutes, 80 seconds)

Avalvira asks, "I restrung my guitar for the very first time and used Martin "super light" gauge strings. I noticed that the 6th (E) string resonates so much that if I pluck it too hard, it hits the fret board. Does this have to do with the gauge? The action on my guitar is low (the way I like it), should I be using thicker gauge string? This only happens with the 6th string. Thanks. Aileen A.V. ALVIRA" View Response

What are triads? - November 5th, 2008 (5 minutes, 21 seconds)

Philman writes: "Hello there, I would like to learn about triads, 1st 2nd and 3rd inversions can somebody at Jamplay.com help me out. Thank you for your time and great site." View Response

Shifting Chords - April 11th, 2008 (2 minutes, 20 seconds)

Dsrinath_123 asks, "Hi Steve, this is srinath here, enjoying your basic lessons. I have started learning guitar a few months back before joining jamplay, i learned a few chords and while i was doing a chord shifting i used to hit all open strings in the last beat, this is how I learned (I dont want to mention from where i learned). To explain a bit more, let me put this way, I am strumming a 4/4 eight note strum( D U D U D U D U) and two chords Dmajor and Gmajor and when I am going to shift from Dmajor to Gmajor or vice versa, I would hit all open strings at the last note(U) , but in your lesson it seems that we have to shift after the last note, i want to know whether what i am doing now is correct or not, if not please provide me some exercise to correct it. I would be very glad if my question is answered by Steve Eulberg." View Response