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Spiderlix
Metal newbie

Joined: Sat Apr 08, 2023 4:11 pm
Posts: 111
Location: Brazil
PostPosted: Mon Sep 18, 2023 4:53 pm 
 

Sorry if i repeating this topic.

Is shred so hard to do?I ask because it's my dream to shred like Yngwie Malmsteen,Ritchie Blackmore,Angus Young and another guitar players,but i only know pentatonic scales and some techniques.I see people shredding at Youtube videos and i Just get down because i can't do it.But i am Just asking that:is possible shred with pentatonic scales?

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Bad at Life
Metal newbie

Joined: Wed Jun 02, 2021 8:47 pm
Posts: 52
Location: United States
PostPosted: Fri Sep 22, 2023 12:59 am 
 

Learn your scales and practice. Practice as much as you can, and practice with a metronome if you are able to. Shred is hard, and the only secret to it is to practice as much as possible.

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hakarl
Metel fraek

Joined: Sat Sep 29, 2007 1:41 pm
Posts: 8817
Location: Finland
PostPosted: Mon Sep 25, 2023 5:41 am 
 

Takes years of consistent and methodical practice to shred cleanly. Practicing scales is hella boring too, but you can spice it up by practicing some short, faster lead runs. It's much easier to play fast when you practice a specific string of phrases. Improvised shredding is master level stuff, give it 15 years.
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Nocturnal_Evil
Metalhead

Joined: Mon Apr 19, 2021 12:00 am
Posts: 668
Location: United States
PostPosted: Mon Oct 02, 2023 2:34 pm 
 

Bad at Life wrote:
Learn your scales and practice. Practice as much as you can, and practice with a metronome if you are able to. Shred is hard, and the only secret to it is to practice as much as possible.


This is pretty much all there is to it. The real difference between who can shred and who can't comes down to the ability to do really boring stuff (precision scale/picking exercises) like they're as fun as playing songs you like. I suggest getting your laptop and finding a metronome online, and then opening another tab to play a YouTube video at a volume low enough to hear the metronome above it. That's a way to make time fly faster while you practice boring stuff. Your proficiency in picking is a product of the time you spend practicing and the seriousness/focus with which you practice.

Doing chromatic and speed endurance exercises also really help too. I also highly recommend the Paul Gilbert instructional video he made in the late 80s, as he goes over a lot of fundamentals that can trip you up starting out if you don't know any better.
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samapaco
Mallcore Kid

Joined: Sat Nov 04, 2023 1:00 pm
Posts: 18
PostPosted: Sat Nov 04, 2023 1:20 pm 
 

hakarl wrote:
Takes years of consistent and methodical practice to shred cleanly. Practicing scales is hella boring too, but you can spice it up by practicing some short, faster lead runs. It's much easier to play fast when you practice a specific string of phrases. Improvised shredding is master level stuff, give it 15 years.

and even then, it's not guaranteed that you'll be able to shred like Malmsteen.
You might be able to only reach 16th alternate picking in 140bpm, which is nice but not even close to Malmsteen level.
Everyone has his limit, everyone's brain is wired differently, not everyone will be able to reach this skill level even after years of practicing.

In my opinion, the sacrifice you'll have to do (basically an endless amount of hours from the limited amount of hours you'll have in your lifetime) in order to reach those levels, doesn't worth it.
Nobody really cares about shred anymore, its not the 80's, and even then it was just a trend.

If to shred is your 100% dream, then go for it, but I think you'll want to be a professional session musician (or an artist), you'll see that shred is a nice to have skill but you'll use it maybe in 0.05% of your time on studio/stage.

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somefella
Veteran

Joined: Sat Dec 20, 2008 11:57 pm
Posts: 3134
Location: Singapore
PostPosted: Tue Dec 19, 2023 10:27 pm 
 

Find the YouTube video that you think is cool, play it at half speed, and learn the notes. Then practice playing that to a metronome. Then find another, and another, and do the same.

Then learn what scales those fit into - even if you don't want to memorise the music theory, at least know the shapes. Then you can fit those into songs.

If you love Malmsteen, learn the intro to I Am A Viking. It has half and whole speed notes in there, so use it to practice picking fast while ensuring the notes come out clear sounding. I still use it for warmups to this day.
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hakarl
Metel fraek

Joined: Sat Sep 29, 2007 1:41 pm
Posts: 8817
Location: Finland
PostPosted: Tue Jan 02, 2024 5:11 pm 
 

samapaco wrote:
hakarl wrote:
Takes years of consistent and methodical practice to shred cleanly. Practicing scales is hella boring too, but you can spice it up by practicing some short, faster lead runs. It's much easier to play fast when you practice a specific string of phrases. Improvised shredding is master level stuff, give it 15 years.

and even then, it's not guaranteed that you'll be able to shred like Malmsteen.
You might be able to only reach 16th alternate picking in 140bpm, which is nice but not even close to Malmsteen level.
Everyone has his limit, everyone's brain is wired differently, not everyone will be able to reach this skill level even after years of practicing.

In my opinion, the sacrifice you'll have to do (basically an endless amount of hours from the limited amount of hours you'll have in your lifetime) in order to reach those levels, doesn't worth it.
Nobody really cares about shred anymore, its not the 80's, and even then it was just a trend.

If to shred is your 100% dream, then go for it, but I think you'll want to be a professional session musician (or an artist), you'll see that shred is a nice to have skill but you'll use it maybe in 0.05% of your time on studio/stage.

And even then, you're looking at the shredder who's relatively straight-forward to imitate. Basically to shred like Yngwie, you "just" need to reach a certain speed and be able to play there at certain level of cleanness.

But then there's Blackmore. You don't need the kind of speed and cleanness, but how do you even begin to develop the skills to approach this level of mastery of electric guitar?

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HighwayCorsair
Knows a guy

Joined: Thu Feb 19, 2015 11:40 pm
Posts: 714
Location: United States
PostPosted: Tue Apr 16, 2024 2:27 pm 
 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJyj0tGQ4q8
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