That’s an interesting challenge Lee, I’ve never been a speed king, but just reconciled myself to it, I remember reading an interview with David Gilmour and he said he’d never been able to play fast so I figured some people just can’t do it and I’m one of them. That said I’ll join in with you and see how it goes, if only to be able to play SRV’s Scuttle Buttin, which is an amazing piece of guitar playing :) https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OoBJXwdn2Jo

Originally posted by Vuya on Mon 07 May, 2018

Just putting it out there.. but.. anyone interested in a bit of a personal challenge?

The Challenge

This year, I've set a goal for myself to improve my guitar playing chops and improve my speed. I've always been someone who looks at those fast guys and says, "nah, not into that".. but that's been a bit of an excuse I have to say. It always seems that I can only go so fast, and no faster. I've been playing a few years now and reckon its high time I was a bit more proactive in pushing some new boundaries. So I've decided to tackle my speedphobia. Which brings me to the plan...

The Plan

To round off my year and to celebrate some measure of improvement, I plan to record a version of "Flight of the Bumblebee". Not set on a speed so far, but would just be happy to be able to play this thing beginning to end and make it sound like a pretty decent effort.

So for this, I intend to create a backing track and then record my attempt at playing along with it. I was thinking to put the backing under a Creative Commons license, and then make it available if others want to join in the fun.

Doesn't have to be a guitar version, could be keys, violin, or voice! Up to you. But it is an open challenge to push yourselves and motivate each other. I figure if I create it and post as midi files, you can easily take the backing and change it to a suitable speed. We could all post our best efforts and share the progress.

The Rule

There would be one rule, and that is that the performance must be beginning to end, live, without edits.

The Goal

So the goal would be to play it all the way through without mistakes, as fast as you can.

Anyone interested? Let me know. I'll have to get started on a backing track at some point in the near future but will keep this thread updated if anyone is interested.

In the meantime, here's some motivation..!

Ready, steady, go!

Originally posted by MonkeyC on Mon 07 May, 2018

Actually, that’s just insane at 600bpm and I know that there is no way on earth I will ever be able to do that unless maybe I drink 600 Red Bulls, yeah..... but I bet he can’t play Mary Had a Little Lamb at 60bpm like I can..............

Originally posted by Vuya on Mon 07 May, 2018

I could probably play the Bumblebee tuna jingle if I really work at it.

Originally posted by tpistilli on Mon 07 May, 2018