Otras capacidades relevantes para el

elbow is placed below the neck, it'll be much harder for you to make the stretch. (Picture 1) But If the elbow is under the neck however, you'll be able to reach and stretch your fingers much further. (Picture 2)

"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out." Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962

Only one diminished pattern

These are the three 5-string Major triad patterns so all we need now is the pattern of the diminished triad. Luckily the diminished triad is pure symmetry. It's one minor third repeating itself over and over again. Here's the first pattern:

To make it a manageable 5-string pattern that resembles the Major and Minor patterns, I've taken out one note in the arpeggio. The D note on the G-string in the 7th fret should be marked as well but that would mess up our system so I left it out. And, that sacrifice creates an extremely cool sounding and useful pattern. The next pattern looks exactly the same only three frets higher:

As you can see there's nothing new here. Only the position of the pattern shifted. Let's do it again and move it up three frets:

The diminished triad doesn't really have a root note - since the triad looks exactly the same no matter what note you start on. All the notes in the triad could be regarded root notes.

Today's lick is practically the same as yesterdays only the pattern has changed from a Minor to a Diminished triad. So there's nothing new here for your picking hand.

How to blend sweep picking with other techniques

If you're into neoclassical metal or Blues Rock of any kind you'll come a long way with these shapes. In fact, you don't need to learn any other patterns than these to be able to create a lot of cool phrases. 98 % of what I do, I do with these patterns or smaller parts of these patterns. Practice and play with them until they become second nature to you. My next article will be about how to integrate these patterns into the Minor / Major and Blues scale so you can use them as an integral part of your soloing.

"I don't follow trends no matter what. I just do what I do and that's it" Yngwie Malmsteen

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 this and it even has some nice side benefits to it: Mix economy picking with legato (Hammer-ons and pull-offs). Because economy picking and legato have a more soft sound to them compared to alternate picking, they go very well together.

Frantic Rush 01

Play impressive stuff faster and have more fun

Today I have included two downward economy picking runs that include pull offs. Notice what this does to the sound of the lick and to the level of skill it takes to play it. The pull offs give you a little break from picking. Though it is a very small break it can mean a lot to how fast you learn the lick. Previously I've touched on the effects of having a large enough pause between the more

challenging parts of a technique and integrating some legato techinque into your picking actions can help you play faster and have more fun. Also the the legato mixture gives you a more loose and easy playing style and a change to reposition your picking hand or the pick itself. Though it's a tenth of a second we're talking about your brain will use this little break to readjust and prepare for the next challenge. That's why it will feel easier to play when you have it down.

The trap you don't want to fall into (Though most people do)

I'm posting quite a few licks and runs on this blog in my hope that they will inspire you to try new things. But there's a trap that I wouldn't want to see you fall into and that is this: Taking on too much a one time. It sounds so basic and simple, yet it is the secret to getting what you want. You can practice ten licks for ten weeks an accomplish almost nothing, but you can also take on each one lick, each week and make massive progress. You practice exactly the same amount of material

during the same amount of time, the only difference is the sequence in which you take on the challenges. Everything at once, will make your brain act like a child with ADD. One challenge at a time will make your progress soar.

But that doesn't mean you can't try out new things and practice a lot of different licks in a day, you just have to decide on what one or two licks you are working on 80 % of the time. If you start every practice session by working on those one or two things and you measure your progress, you'll carve through the clutter of an overloaded mind and create results fast. It's amazing how many things become so much easier when you master just that one thing to perfection. Most people dabble with too many things and never get to master any of them.So they never experience the exponential growth that comes with mastering one little thing at a time.

Frantic Rush 02

Planetary mastery in eight weeks

When I started out I intuitively decided on one single little simple challenge that I would practice to perfection (I did somethings right after all) "If I can just play this as fast as Gilbert, then I can play as fast as him right?" I said to myself - And then I focused my entire energy on that one lick. I had a lot of other things I dabbled with on the side, but 80 % of my focus was dedicated to that one particular lick. It took me eight weeks to play that thing as fast as anyone on the planet. That's the power of focus!

From then on I could say with complete confidence and conviction "I am one of the

fastestguitarplayers in the world!" And no one could argue with me :) But bragging wasn't the coolest thing about that particular achievement. The consequences of mastering one small thing are the following:

1. You create proof that you really can learn anything you put yout mind to