How to Shred like a Pro in 3 Months

Yes, this can be done, it just takes a bit of thinking about. As you would when learning about any style of music, you need to break it down into its stylistic features- really think about what makes shred…well…shred, in this case.

hmmm, OK, lets start with an easier one: What are the stylistic features of, say, Rock music? At this point I’d expect you’re thinking “Distortion, Powerchords, 4/4 drum pattern…”, things along those lines, and you’d be correct. If you gave this answer, give yourself a pat on the back/smiley face/smug look (delete as appropriate). Lets try another: What are the stylistic features of pop music? Well in this case the answer is most certainly “Commercialism”- no matter how much they try to hide it. The whole genre is based around how much money they can make, but nonetheless, it’s (sadly!) a stylistic feature of the genre. So, here comes the big question…

What are the Stylistic Features of Shred?

For this genre, its almost as non-musical as pop music- and (before you say it!), I’m talking specifically about what makes something “Shred”, as opposed to “Funk”, or “Jazz”. So what are the features? What does it boil down to when you really analyse the genre? In one word- “speed”. That’s the main stylistic feature of the “shred” style- take any other form of music, speed it up, and it ends up in that magical realm known as “shred”. I can hear several thousand shredders loudly protesting at this point, possibly screaming at their computer screens- or (maybe more accurately) playing guitar really fast at their screens in order to vent frustrations. Yes, that’s right, any true shredder would have his guitar with him at this very moment- practicing his heart out. It shouldn’t be any other way, which leads me to my next point…

Practice

Practice, practice, practice- and lots of it. That’s a given. Especially if you want to achieve the target set in this post’s title. However, I don’t intend to end it there. I could just say “practice everything you can and try and get it up to 200bpm while standing on your head with your eyes closed on the back of a giant pig.”, but there is more to it than that. If you’ve been following my series of beginner guitar lessons on YouTube, you should be aware of the correct technique to practice. That and the exercises on this website should give you a fair idea of the sort of thing required. Still, there’s more, if your aim is (as it should be) to play in a musical context, the exercises alone are never going to be enough. You need to learn scales. Start with the pentatonic scale, then you can move on to the major scale and its modes, then there’s the harmonic minor and its modes…the list goes on. Remember the main stylistic feature of shred? Yes, that’s right, you have to play these scales at 160bpm at least (or work up to that speed cleanly).

Athletic Fingers

As I’ve discussed many times on my website, blog posts, and various guitar forums, the key to speed isn’t playing everything really fast. At least, that’s not the way you will gain speed. You see, the key to speed, which many guitarists overlook, is finger Independence and dexterity. This implies using the correct technique to achieve greater finger strength and speed without developing RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury). Imagine your fingers are little athletes, digital gymnasts (digital referring to fingers not computer based!), constantly stretching and bending to reach the next note. If you’ve ever watched gymnastics, you’ll know how strong, yet flexible the gymnasts are- being able to support their own weight from a bar, and also being able to flip from that bar and land perfectly on another bar! This is how your fingers should be- obviously replace “bar” with “fret” and you should get the idea.

So what have we got so far? By this point, you’re spending hours practicing finger exercises, and you can play A minor pentatonic at 200bpm. What now?

Music

Hehe, no, the above combination doesn’t make music- or anything like it. With this combination, you’ll be great at making a really fast noise, but not “music” as we know it. So how does that turn into music? To get to the solution we have to, again, turn to the shred genre. I mean, let me list off a few names here: Yngwie Malmsteen, Shawn Lane, Paul Gilbert, Steve Vai, Joe Satriani…what jumps out at you from that list? Yes, every one of them can be put in the box labeled “Shred Guitarist”, but there is more. How many of them have you heard of? If you’re an avid guitarist, such as myself, you can probably say “All of them of course!”, but what about the rest of you? The truth is that most of these names are only known to the guitar world- and I can tell you why. It’s because their music is about speed (in the case of Yngwie and Paul Gilbert), or it is based on advanced musical concepts (theory)- modes, odd time signatures, polyrhthms (in the case of Steve Vai and Shawn lane), or finally, its based on technique (in the case of Satch). I realise I’m oversimplifying things here, but I’m not wrong. Look at these things mentioned: Speed, Theory, Technique. What’s the underlying link? Every one of those things is something that you would work on as a guitarist, or an instrumentalist of any kind.

Relating to the Music

The main feature of shred is, in fact, its major disadvantage when it comes to its appeal. Its a fact that people like to hear music they can relate to, and who can relate to music that is about music theory and playing guitar? Well, just guitarists themselves, right? Now think about it, who is your audience as a guitarist? I’m talking about you specifically, and unless the answer to that question is “other guitarists, and Jazz musicians”, you’ll want to base your music on more than just speed, theory, and technique. Why did you pick the guitar up in the first place? I want you to really think about this, because its likely that its the same as what your audience wants to listen to. I always find that what gets people into music is some combination of their “inner child”, their creativity, or they have a favourite band/singer. Never in my life have I met someone who says “Hey, I just heard the A harmonic minor scale and it was so awesome that I just had to learn an instrument!”.

Who is Your Favourite Musician?

They key to becoming a great musician is actually little to do with practice. Practicing techniques will make you a better instrumentalist, but it can never improve your musical ability- only allow you to express it. What will improve you as a musician is listening to your favourite musicians. Don’t just listen though, really think about why you like that band/singer/composer- what is it about that particular style that grabs your attention. Then you need to isolate that particular feature and use it in your own music. Hopefully you’ll have more than one “favourite band”, or at least more than one that you like a lot, and so eventually you can take each of the features you like from each one- and one day -hey presto- you will find that you have your own unique style (hurrah!).

Uniqueness

How does this relate to Shred? What if your favourite musicians are all the ones I listed earlier as “Shredders”? Well, each one of those men has an individual style, and speed is just a commonality. Speed, in itself, is only one “feature” that you might take from these people. Maybe you like Yngwie more, in which case you probably want to learn the Harmonic Minor scale (as this is something he uses a lot); maybe you prefer Paul Gilbert, which means that you’ll probably want to work on your alternate picking and crazy stretches. See, each one of them has their own uniqueness.

Conclusion

So what can we conclude from the above ramble? The real way to play like a professional musician is to take many influences- listen to as many different genres as possible, and take the features that you like. You should be able to do this without being “genre biased”, and if you can, its much better for you. This is the strategy that most, even all, professional musicians have used. In answer to the original question: How can you shred like a pro in three months? Well, as far as “shred” goes, you don’t really want to, you want to play musically- but whatever your musical aspirations, I challenge you to spend three months trying to absorb as many diverse musical styles as you can. You see how much of a better musician you become- if not, feel free to…write an angry letter…or something.

You can read the follow up to this post here.

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September 14, 2009 at 6:06 am | Guitar Technique and Exercises, Practicing and Practice Routine | No comments