Very well done Azza! I'm so proud I can barely stand it! You've absorbed pretty much everything I"ve ever covered in our Video Chat lessons. Nice!
Todd
Great lesson, Maharzan!
Some tips when learning alternative picking, playing fast to shredding:
Like Maharzan said, it's not about the speed at first. If you want to play fast, learn to play slow correctly. When playing slowly you should be attempting to reduce the amount of movement in both hands and synchronicing them in time with each other to be clean. If you practice messy trying to play at high speeds you will always be a sloppy player. Build up slowly to your 'breaking' point, practice just over the messy point and then end by reducing the speed back down to where comfortable and cleanly played.
First notice the picking hand position:
This is important: Remember it's all about less movement equals faster reponse.
1) When you build up speed playing, the picking thumb changes from flexable (which gives more feeling/emotion in slower rock/blues/bends/etc) to straight and rigid, locked in place (which gives way more control at speeds, but sounds more technical).
2) Use a pointed pick, generally thicker so there's minimin or no flex, and choke up on it so your just using the tip. Least amount of surface of the pick gliding (not digging into) the strings, means less resistants.
3) Minimise up and down angle on the pick to zero. If your angling the pick, it makes it a lot easiler to play in one direction (so this becomes a bad habit) but it makes it a lot harder in the opposite direction coming back! At speeds alternative picking, this causes the pick to attempt to flex on the way back, move position in your hand or even fly off across the room.
4) Rotate the pick (forward normally or backwards if perfered) around 45 degrees. Suddenly rather than playing flat picking to the strings, your playing up and down right on the edge of the pick. Giving even less surface area and a sharper attack sound to the picking. Results, better sounding and much faster playing in the future. Check out Paul Gilberts picking!
Then work on the fretboard hand:
This is important: Remember reduced distance equals faster reponse.
1) Thumb position is important, in the middle of the neck gets a lot more stretch. Ensure it's not creeping up the neck to the top (there's two good locations: top is best for controlling bends but limits your range, middle lets your have more stretch and speed which is better for playing fast). Try keeping the thumb in a mid position where you can reduce it's movement or have zero shift from it when playing from the top to bottom strings. Your'll notice the hand rotates a lot quicker than the thumb position can move, but you can still slide the thumb left and right quickly.
2) Finger positions should be targeted just behind each metal fret and just hover above them when not in use (all four of them). The closer you can get these fingers comfortable near the correct frets the better. When playing make sure the other fingers aren't flicking up too much specially the pinkie. Hammer-ons and pull-offs are good to practice for this. If it's already happened (and your finger is flicked up) it's too late, focus on correcting before it happens. It takes a lot of time to bring the fingers back in position, so to play faster you want them to be in position at all times.
3) Practice lifting fingers as soon as the the next goes down in timing with the pick. However, if it's a pattern when your coming back you might not need to lift a finger or two, anchor them to the fret already ready for the return if possible. Play smarter equals play faster.
4) Most of the time your playing just with the tips of your fingers. Make sure your not pressing down too hard on the strings, the more unnecessary force you apply, the slower your'll be. A good way to practice this is another trick I learnt from Todd, remove the fretboard thumb while playing for a while. It's really crazy at first, but when you get use to use to it, you can even shred without it. This teachs the fingers to use just the right amount of pressure.
Good luck and have fun!