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What do you do when your speed plateaus? When no matter how long you grind away at it, you can't get that riff up to tempo?
Welcome to Burst Practice.
Let's use this fiendishly fast Harmonic Minor lick as an example.
Can you play this up to speed right now?
Probably not!
But let's break it down.
Burst Practice is all about breaking a complex section down into manageable chunks to build deep muscle memory.
You'll find that it's much easier to focus on a short blast of fast notes rather than trying to hold it for a sustained amount of time.
This is something that we can take advantage of and build on.
Here's a much more approachable section.
You'll want to economy pick this section with a Down-Up-Down-Down motion.
If you push your speed on this, you might be surprised how fast you can get it.
Once you're satisfied with your speed, extend the portion of the riff that you are playing.
Can you build speed on this section to match that of the 4 notes we drilled a moment ago?
And again, we extend the riff.
Notice that I include the transition to the next string every time. This is crucial, we want to include difficult jumps into our segments rather than separating them into separate riffs.
By incorporating the string transitions into our bursts, we can focus on building speed on the most difficult sections up front.
If you stopped each burst before the string transition, you'd encounter difficulty when trying to string the segments together later.
If you find you have difficulty with the back half of the riff, you can absolutely break that section down as well.
Make sure to economy pick this all the way through, it'll only hold you back not to.
I hope you've found that you're faster than you realized.
Speed is not just a physical skill, it's also a mental one. Often we're limited by our ability to think about the upcoming notes more than our fingers.
Especially with a riff like this one, where we're playing 6 notes per beat, you might feel a bit uncertain about the timing. You might find it beneficial to practice bursts from beat to beat.
Below, I've highlighted the notes that will fall on the beats. Try setting your metronome to a comfortable tempo, and playing bursts from one beat to the next. (7 notes in total).
If you can manage that, try two beats. (13 notes in total).
Getting comfortable with the timing is essential to building speed on any riff.
So if you're uncertain about a note grouping, break it down and burst it, and then incorporate it back into your practice of the section as a whole!
That's all there is to it.
For me, Bursting is the foundation of my practice when I'm really pushing my limits.
If you can remember to address the mental aspect of the challenge before pushing the physical side of it, you will vastly improve your ability to play fast and sustained pieces.
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