Guitar- Music or Sport?

Every day when you go onto any popular internet guitar forums you will see threads asking how can I pick fast,  or how can I get my speed up really high. If you go onto youtube you will see videos by guitarists claiming to be the faster alternate picker in the world, and you will find improvises by guitarists where they are just relying fully on speed, no phrasing or careful not selection, just full on speed. There is nothing wrong with this, playing fast is fun, its exciting, its mesmerising, it gets the adrenalin pumping and the head banging.


But at what stage does fast guitar playing turn from music into sport?


I feel there has become a very fine line between music and sport on the guitar in recent years as guitarists begin to focus more and more on pure speed. Many young guitarists will set playing fast as their ultimate goal in life, devoting hours and hours to it, and nothing else.


But is this really the best thing to do? Could this be the reason why great guitar players can be so much harder to come by these days?


Now, just to make things clear, I am not dissing fast guitar playing, I myself love fast guitar work, and most of what I love to do is fast. Nor am I saying that fast stuff is not music, because it is, any thing played on the guitar is music. What I'm saying is, should speed really be treated as the number one element when learning the guitar? And how fast is to fast?


I watched a video the other day by someone claiming to be the faster alternate picker in the world, and boy it was fast. I wouldn't have been to surprised if smoke started rising from his fingers. But even though it was pleasing on the eye, when I just listened with out watching the enjoyment seemed to go away, and ok it was only a demonstration of his skill, but I couldn't help think about how much greater that guy could be if he had focused his time on all the elements of the guitar instead of just speed. With the hours he must have spent practising that he could have become the next Steve Vai or Michael Angelo Bagio.


I myself have spent hours and hours just working on playing fast, only to look back and think 'was that really necessary'. It wasn't until after I realised That speed was just a side element to great guitar playing that I gained full understand of the guitar, improvising and composing.


I had to realise that your never really going to use alternate picking speeds of 200-300 bpm or more in a solo. Or not very often at least. Musics about what you play, not how fast you play it.


So take a look at some of the great speed players like Michael Angelo Bagio, Jeff Loomis and Paul Gilbert and you will realise its not all about speed, speeds just a small part of what makes there music so great, just one link in a very long, and very brilliant chain.


So in conclusion, don't stop working towards speed, speeds great, just make sure you know what to do with it when you get there.






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