Super Sonic Symphony

Three and a half weeks in (25 hours and 25 BPM faster) and I’ve noticed a few things.

• Going slow is good: I knew this before starting but it never hit home until I actually practiced it. Going slower than you would normally go allows you to focus much more precisely on individual movements. I’ve learned subtle things about my playing and have adapted to them – for instance, I changed my picking attack slightly because of the way my pick would scrape the strings when I played standing up. I think for a future update of the program there will be a specific warm up section where you play at 75% of the day’s scheduled practicing speed.
• Similarly, beginning the program at a slow speed gives you a number of sessions to focus on pure technique. As a result my picking has gotten a lot cleaner.
• I also knew this before hand but the program really reinforced it. Like in Stronglifts, progressive loading (increasing the speed by 1 BPM each session) is a huge motivator. Though the exercises are the same, each session can be treated like a new challenge.
• I have noticed though, that I am reaching a plateau in some of the exercises. The scales in 3rds and the four note pentatonic runs, as well as the 5th Caprice have all begun to test the limits of my playing. While I can get them after some practice building up to the day’s speed, I will soon be unable to play them (especially 5th Caprice, oh my god that is difficult).
• Because of this I will be working on a ‘B’ program to use once I plateau. Right now I have gone from 80-105 BPM and will likely continue to 120. The B program will go from 90-120 and then I will return to the current program at 100 BPM. Or something. I will be working on it.

Over the next couple of months I will be testing out this program. I tabbed out the exact exercises I will be using and will provide links to download it. Note that it is targeted at my deficiencies – namely picking turnarounds on different strings, sweep picking, and straight alternate picking (I economy pick too much in the wrong places). The practice routine will work well for anyone though, it is well rounded and likely useful to many guitarists with different skill levels.

The key points are as follows.

• Begin the program at a metronome speed that is easy to you. Use ONE speed for the entire practice session. Practice the exercises EVERY day and increase the speed by one BPM on the metronome EVERY day. Again, begin at an easy speed. You want to use the first weeks to get used to the routine and memorize everything. When it starts picking up you won’t have to think “what am I supposed to do here?” you’ll be able to concentrate on your playing instead.




• Cover the entire neck with each exercise. Begin on the 1st and 2nd fret and work your way up to the 17th fret or higher. If you’re doing a scale, do it up and down with the 1st fret as the root, then move up to the 2nd and repeat until you’re at the neck joint. The exercises look short but if you do them across the neck it adds up, and it gets you comfortable throughout the registers.




• Begin passages with down strokes and upstrokes equally. Either allow enough time to play each passage twice (once beginning with a down stroke, once with an upstroke) or alternate after each new root fret. Again with a scale – play the scale with the 2nd fret root beginning with a down pick, move to the 3rd and begin with an up pick, then to the 4th and begin with a down pick. Alternate to the end. Using both picking equally on the same exercises will eliminate problems with inside picking (like Petrucci said he used to encounter) or with outside picking (like me).




• Keep practice time to an hour. That means focus 100% for one hour. Play your guitar throughout the day, jam and work on songs, but leave one hour for serious practice. And get everything important done in that hour. DON’T WASTE TIME.




• Warm up with easier exercises and progress to the hardest sections at the end. Warm ups should be useful but not strenuous – use them to get ready for the more difficult passages later on.The routine I have tabbed is organized easy->medium->hard->medium->hard.




• This isn’t totally necessary though I’m including it in the supplied tabs – but have a difficult song to practice at the end of the session to test all the skills you went over. I have Paganini’s “5th Caprice” which goes into string skipping, alternate picking, arpeggios, sweeping and is generally ridiculous. This is a short section but it is not easy to play both fast AND clean. I am also practicing “Flight of the Bumblebee” but I didn’t include that in the tablature. You can find it at Ultimate Guitar.

I started at 80 BPM. I probably should have started at 73 or 75, but I’m anxious to see how it works. I will be updating the Method when I figure out more, and I will create a separate page for it as I get a better handle on the routine. Note: its available in Guitar Pro 5 and 4 format as well as pdf.

Download Super Sonic Shred Method V.1.0 gp4

Download Super Sonic Shred Method V.1.0 gp5

Download Super Sonic Shred Method V.1.0 pdf

Today I’m beginning a new practice routine that will hopefully get my chops up to speed as quickly and as efficiently as possible. It is inspired by the Stronglifts 5×5 Program, which has a trainee starting with a very low weight on his lifts, upping the weight every single workout in very small increments. The Super Sonic Shred Method does the same thing; I will run through a series of exercises at 80 BPM and will increase the speed by 1 BPM every day.

I will limit the routine to one hour a day, focusing on scales, speed picking, sweeping, some pentatonics, chromatics and Flight of the Bumblebee and a section of Paganini’s 5th Caprice. I tried out some of the exercises at 79 BPM yesterday and while much of it was easy, I noticed that I’m really going to have to focus on learning and losing the thought behind these exercises these first few days to make any of this worthwhile.

I’ll post tablature of the routine either today or tommorrow, after I finalize the exercises.