Most of us practice at exactly one speed.
The speed where it sounds okay. We park there like it's a free spot at the mall. Then we never leave.
That's guessing at tempo.
Today you stop guessing and start moving through it on purpose.
Here's what you need.
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- One pattern you already know.
Could be a scale, could be that lick you've played since you were 17 (yes, that one).
- And a metronome (any free app is fine).
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Step one: Set it to 40 BPM. That's slow. Like, painfully slow. Like waiting for a printer to warm up. Your only job here is timing. Every note lands right on the click. Every note gets placed on purpose. No coasting.
Step two: Bump it to around 100 BPM. Now watch your wrist. The wrist should be doing the work. If your whole arm starts flapping in like it wants to help, drop back down. Your arm means well. It's just not invited.
Step three: Go fast. Push the tempo past your comfort zone. Keep pushing until it falls apart.
And let it be sloppy...
Really sloppy...
Sounds-like-a-raccoon-fell-in-the-guitar-case sloppy. You're not here to sound good. You're here to find the exact spot where it breaks.
Step four: Go back to 40. Run it clean one more time. You end on a good rep, not a crash.
That's it. Ten minutes, start to finish.
Here's the self-check. The fast part should actually break.
If it doesn't, you didn't go fast enough to learn anything. You just played it a bit quicker and felt nice about yourself. I get it.
I like feeling nice too.
So why does this work?
The slow part teaches your hands where everything goes.
The fast part shows you the weak spot you've been hiding from. The last slow pass locks in the clean version while it's still fresh.
Most of us skip the fast part because sloppy feels like failing. It's not failing. It's a map of where to work next.
Go make some ugly noise tonight.
Your neighbors will survive.
Talk soon,
— Julio "Sloppy on purpose" Rivera
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P.S. If you like drills that end with your hands on the guitar instead of your eyes on a screen, every lesson in The FretGrid Method ends just like this one.
One rep. Ten minutes. Done.
Start The FretGrid Method