How fast can you do a trill?

[superblonde]

Just wondering. How fast can you guys do a trill like,

0h2p0h2p0h2p0h2p0h2p0h2p0h2p0h2p0h2p0h2p0h2p ….

Or even, how long you can do it at a fast speed before your hand feels like its gonna fall off and you have to stop. I can only go like 90 sec and not very fast. I’ll check with a metronome later to find my updated max.

I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

[safetyblitz]

superblonde wrote:

Just wondering. How fast can you guys do a trill like, 0h2p0h2p0h2p0h2p0h2p0h2p0h2p0h2p0h2p0h2p0h2p …. Or even, how long you can do it at a fast speed before your hand feels like its gonna fall off and you have to stop. I can only go like 90 sec and not very fast. I’ll check with a metronome later to find my updated max.

I tried this, and what surprised me was that my limits weren’t noticeably different across the 3 basic “index-anchored” trills: I had expected index-middle to perform better than the other two.

I did my testing on 7-8, 7-9 and 7-10 with their respective “obvious” fingerings on the high E string. Results were pretty much the same for each.

I was fine with 16th notes at 140bpm. 16th notes at 150bpm I had trouble staying consistent.

I was comfortable for about 30 seconds. It wasn’t unbearable at 30 seconds, but uncomfortable enough that I didn’t want to risk regretting it the next day if I pushed it. First place to get tired was near where the triceps meets the elbow.

When I want a “superfast” trill sound on the high E string, I do the old “hammer-on with the edge of the pick” trick, perhaps most famously used in Joe Satriani’s “Surfing with the Alien”. Haven’t put the clock on that, but I’m sure I do it faster than normal trills.

[Igglepud]

I also use the side of the pick and lock up the muscle in my arm. It creates a stupid fast trill by forcing the muscle to just lock and twitch.

MY ROCK IS FIERCE!!!

[superblonde]

Ok, that is cheating in this context. The point is, how fast or dexterously can you move your fretboard finger and for how long can that muscle action be sustained.

I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

[superblonde]

safetyblitz wrote:

I was fine with 16th notes at 140bpm. 16th notes at 150bpm I had trouble staying consistent.

Thats pretty fast, I think I am only at 100 bpm 16th notes. I think, because I’m not sure I was on the metronome beat. I’ll have to update this later.

safetyblitz wrote:

First place to get tired was near where the triceps meets the elbow.

This is the more interesting part because I only feel it in my forearm and it’s a real muscle burn. I dont feel anything in the triceps or near the elbow.

I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

[safetyblitz]

superblonde wrote:

This is the more interesting part because I only feel it in my forearm and it’s a real muscle burn. I dont feel anything in the triceps or near the elbow.

The last year or two I worked a lot on improving the economy of my finger motions (though working mostly at 3-note-per-string type stuff). I’d guess you’re probably getting more “air” on your trills than I am, and “swinging” your fingers at the strings through a bigger range of motion. I’m also being strict about maintaining the curl of my fingers through the entire range of motion. Note also that doing this at 7th position let me have a nice neutral arm/wrist/hand posture for this test.

I typically find the degree to which “forearm burn” becomes an issue is proportional to how demanding the stretches are (finger spread).

[superblonde]

So safetyblitz, check out the “left hand” muscle descriptions in this pdf from a classical guitarist who learned to fix his extreme muscle tension problems. He includes some exercises to retrain the muscles which he says work in just a couple weeks. He also mentions the tricep as being incorrect use (??). https://davidleisner.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/CuringFocalDystoniaArticle.pdf

I dont think I’m being too mental by digging into this because the tension in my fretting hand when I play repetitive exercises like a trill or isolated legato, regardless of speed, just does not seem right at all, and it hasn’t gone away. Especially the 2nd finger, when I’m not using it, becomes muscularly fatigued and sore and this just doesn’t seem good – if I’m not using that finger in a long trill then it shouldn’t get stressed at all. It is a bit of a mystery to me.

I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

[safetyblitz]

superblonde wrote:

So safetyblitz, check out the “left hand” muscle descriptions in this pdf

I skimmed this, and I agree 100% about working the fingers from the metacarpal, but what page number and paragraph number does he mention the triceps?

[MotleyCrue81]

It’s all about keeping the fingers close to the fretboard. But obviously the ring finger and pinky trill will be the slowest along with the middle finger and ring finger combo being second slowest. The makeup of the tendons in the hand are the reason why. The pinky is not slow, but dexterity of close tendons makes it that way. Notice how the pointer finger and pinky combo are pretty fast – thats because you can incorporate more ‘hand movement’ in that case, adding to speed.

Bring hair metal back!

[superblonde]

I started this thread back in May 2017. Now it is several months later. If anyone measured their trill speed did it improve? I didnt focus on trill every day especially max speed, because of focusing on a lot of other finger efficiency exercises. My max trill did not improve during this time but my timing consistency and finger relaxation seems to have improved. I ran across a youtube video (I forget from whom, steve stine or someone like that, or maybe it was a paul gilbert interview video) which suggested that the index finger might be the weakest for guitarists in general, because, no one ever practices hammeron/pulloffs with their index finger (the index finger is almost always used when picking so it doesn’t get that fast trill muscle practice), just an interesting perspective on the fret hand that I hadn’t heard elsewhere.

The one thing about trills is that I wonder how much practice should be placed on making the unused fingers of the hand stationary. When trilling with pinky especially, the other fingers in the hand which are not used, also tend to fly around too. I guess it is a finger independence thing, or kind of, how relaxed the unused fingers are, when the active fingers are shredding. I dont think I’ve seen it mentioned anywhere about whether or not this idle-finger-flying really matters (sure of course it does matter, but maybe not much as it might seem), there’s some speed players who have a lot of flying going on in solos yet still shred.

When I say “unused fingers of the hand stationary”, I mean for example doing a trill with the pinky, it will make the 2nd finger or 3rd finger twitch, sometimes quite a lot.

I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

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