How to play with speed, cleanliness and accuracy. By Sophie Lloyd
It’s been a whirlwind year for British guitar sensation Sophie Lloyd, who went from being one of the most prominent players online to performing in arenas with Machine Gun Kelly as well as releasing her own music with guest appearances from members of Trivium and Steel Panther. Here she shares some of the most valuable knowledge she’s picked up along the way…
In the past you’ve said legato feels like your strong point. How did you develop that fret hand finger strength?
“I bought one of those Gripmaster hand exercisers when I was a kid and thought I was so cool on the school bus doing all my squeezes. I don’t think it made any difference to my playing! There’s no replacement for picking up a guitar, feeling those strings under your fingers and building your calluses. It’s also really important to build the strength of each finger, because a lot of players might feel great about hammering on and pulling off between their first and middle fingers, but less confident about doing the same with their middle finger and pinky.”
So you must have spent a lot of time working on different trills using each of your fingers?
“Yeah! It’s really good to work on fast trills going from your middle or fourth finger to your pinky, because there are more weak links in that part of the hand. I always use my little finger in legato runs, so it’s very valuable to me. There are some players who only use three fingers and I feel like they’re missing out on a massive part of their potential by neglecting the pinky.”
How exactly do you plan ahead for practice? Is there a routine?
“My old teacher used to say practice is like a triangle – one side is speed, the other is cleanliness and the other is accuracy. And whenever you’re learning, you need to focus on two of those and ignore the other. For example, if you’re practising with a metronome, you’re probably going to start off slower. In those situations you are sacrificing speed for cleanliness and accuracy. It’s always important to get your muting technique down at this stage, whether that’s using your fretting hand fingers to cover unused strings or your picking hand, or both! You might find yourself lifting parts of your hand to only cover a few strings at a time and then also using the side of your picking hand palm to mute other ones. Once you have those down, you can start practising up to speed and keeping the accuracy, maybe sacrificing a little bit of cleanliness to begin with because you can build on that more once your speed is up. At the end, you have to add it all together to complete the triangle!”
What kind of warm-ups might you do before filming
