Okay...heres my problem and the story on how I think it happened.
I have been playing for about 9-years now....only the last 1 1/2 years have I been VERY serious about my playing involving my technique and such. I have noticed that there are certain parts in solos (for and example...the first part of the master of puppets 3rd solo) that i just cannot get my fretboard hand to move fast enough....i thought it might be cause of my picking hand....but then i put my picking hand down and tried it without picking...just to see if i could get my fingers in place fast enough....I cant. I know this may sound like a dumb question...but does speed have to devlop in your fretboard hand? Or is it just syncing up both hands that matters....cause here latley I have been feeling like I just picked up the guitar again and it is very frustrating.

The second part of my question is probably my main issue...My fingers on my left and wont stay close to the strings when i play...my fingers have a tency to kind of "wander off" when Im not using them....Is there a sure fire way to get my figers to hove above the strings like say....1/2 inch or so from the fretboard....i think thats where most of my speed issue comes from. I asspire to play alot of vai, satch and petrucci but how can I if my fingers wont stay close enough to the fretboard. I have played like this for 7 or 8 years now....and I really need to kill the habbit....some advice please? Ty.

Time will take care of this... Your fretting hand should be able to keep up with your picking or you will have a train wreck

It's important to focus on your fretting hand and make sure your fingers stay as close to the strings as possible. Both are just as important but focus on one at a time.

practice...practice.....

I used to have the same problem, i solved it by going over scale excersises(fig 1) over and over and over, i still couldn't get my patterns right even though my speed was increasing, i found that going over a scale and alternating the order of the notes to another specific pattern(fig 2+3) my accuracy improved too.

Fig 1

e------------------------------2-3-5
B--------------------------3-5------
G-------------------2-4-5----------
D------------2-4-5-----------------
A-----2-3-5------------------------
E-3-5------------------------------

Fig 2

e------------------------------5-3-2
B--------------------------3-5------
G-------------------4-2-5----------
D------------5-2-4-----------------
A-----2-5-3------------------------
E-3-5-------------------------------

Fig 3

or i would use the pentatonic like this,

e------------------------------------15-12---
B-----------------------------15-12----------
G----------------------14-12-----------------
D---------------14-12------------------------
A--------14-12-------------------------------
E-15-12--------------------------------------

thats what i did hope it helps matey.

Rock on, Rock Hard and Rock Heavy!!!

[Edited on 3/15/2006 by FrenchCrusader]