I'm looking for a luthier who can build speed bumps into the neck of a guitar. That's right, speed bumps, like the kind you find in parking lots. I also want sharp little spikes installed and a warning sign on the 12th fret that flashes: Caution, "backing up too fast can cause severe finger damage".

This would be part of my campaign to get guitarists to slow down. Like drivers with road rage, too many players are taking the turns hard, veering into the wrong lanes, and looking plain angry as they careen down the fingerboard. Super-fast players remind me of those giant vegetables you see in seed catalogs or in ads for MiracleGro. They're enormous and sumptuous, but they're also creepy and unnatural. I'd rather have 10 small, tasty tomatoes than one that's bigger that my head, and I'd certainly rather hear beautiful music than be hyped by overblown technique.

Now, I'm not opposed to speed; I play fast myself. Sometimes, I play very fast. But I'm against sloppy, awkward, excessive, unnecessary speed, which is toxic to music. An overabundance of notes can flow into measures like an oil spill into a river, clogging and choking the life out of the music. There are way too many aggressive, testosterone-charged, technically-adept-but-tasteless guitarists out there flying through pieces that beg for savvy, careful exposition. And I'm not talking about heavy-metal; I'm talking about fingerpicking, bluegrass, swing, and blues that has been weighted down with overblown technique and flailing fingers.

There is a time and a place for speed. But, just as you wouldn't drive a Formula I sports car in a race without lots of training and experience, why would you assume that it's okay to try to break the sound barrier while playing [the traditional] "Billy in the Lowground"? Similarly, it would be foolish and dangerous to attempt to jump a triple-lux after a month of figure skating; you'd likely break an ankle, or worse. Better to train in the heartfelt tradition of Peggy Fleming, full of grace and style, than to leap into Tara Lipinski territory right off the bat. Life has its seasons and tempos. So does music.

Of course, I am not alone in my disdain for excessive speed, nor am I the first to express it. When I lived in Greenwich Village in the opinionated 1960s, my friend, Marc Silber - one of the great unheralded fingerpickers of our time - would walk out of the room if someone showed-off too much. "He's making me nervous", Marc would say, his eyes flashing with scorn. "I'm outta here". The late Clarence White [the Byrds, the Kentucky Colonels] could play like lightning when the spirit moved him, but usually he was deliberate and studied. He was a great player, in part, because he picked his moments in which to step out. Once, while Clarence was giving me a guitar lesson, he showed me how to hold my pick slightly angled, to strike through a string until the pick rests on the string beneath it. "That'll give you clear tone", he said in his careful Southern manner. "You're better off playing just a few notes with great tone, than a lot of sloppy notes."

I only partly heeded his advice. I was a 20-year-old folkie with a mindset that prized speed. When I attended concerts, I noticed that people saved the loudest ovations for the flashy, the flamboyant, the daring. I wanted to rattle off jazzy, mountain-flatpicking riffs, à la Doc Watson. I aspired to bend strings with the buzz-saw flourishes of Bert Jansch. I thought the bouncy bass and rolling chords of Chet Atkins and Merle Travis were the ultimate in musicianship, and that Les Paul's heavenly arpeggios were beyond belief.

And then there was Django Reinhardt. He was a god, the essence of acoustic guitar, an alchemist in a beret. From the smoky cafés and intrigue-filled streets of post-World War I Paris, Django raised the ante for musicians everywhere. With a dazzling array of Gypsy-tinged melodies that sounded unlike anything heard before, Django and his arch-top cut through the jangle of his Hot Club band and made a statement. Listening to his recordings, I couldn't believe he could play so accurately, so inventively, with such speed.

All of these artists were fast, but they were graceful and musical. Speed was a means to making an artistic statement. Yes, what they did was the musical equivalent of nailing triple-luxes, but they had earned the right to play fast.

I, too, was playing pretty "hot" stuff in 1978, when I composed a tune called "Fishscale", which was not only fast, but changed time signatures twice before the bridge. One steamy afternoon, I sat down and taught it to David "Dawg" Grisman and Tony Rice at Dawg's Mill Valley home. They liked the tune and worked up an arrangement of it. The next day, when we got together to play, Tony counted off his version of the tempo. These guys took off like Apollo VII, bouncing into the stratosphere before I could find the fingering for the first riff. It was all I could do to keep up with them.

When we finished the tune, they smiled. They were cool and calm; I was drenched in sweat. As hot as I thought I was, I realized that I wasn't quite ready to tackle such a tempo. Like George Foreman crumbling under a barrage of punches from Muhammad Ali, I went the distance, but they clearly had out-maneuvered and out-distanced me, and I learned a valuable lesson in the process. Rice and Grisman are among the few who do it "right". Tony's technique can be compared to a Maserati driving along a curvy road on the Amalfi Coast. You wouldn't want to drive a car like that slowly; it insults the machinery.

That was more than 20 years ago. Since then, I've slowed down a lot, deliberately choosing exact spots for speed-riffs. Today, I have less to prove, yet, at the same time, I have more to teach about speed and finesse. And here's some of my hard-earned advice:

• Play at a tempo in which you can comfortably hit the notes without sacrificing tone and style.
• If you do want to increase your speed, do it incrementally. Slowly increase the tempo until the music matches the speed. It's okay to play fast - just play fast when it's okay.
• Pay attention to time and meter and the pulse of the music. Do not speed up during a difficult riff. Do not slow down. Use a metronome or a click track while you are practicing to keep yourself locked into a specific tempo.
• Use your imagination and try to know what it feels like to be Doc Watson, Tony Rice, Preston Reed, or Laurence Juber. Don't mimic their styles; rather, mimic their way of "being". Understand the relaxed state of mind and body that allows them to use their chops in support of the music.
• Ask yourself, is this riff embellishing the music or drowning it? Is this hammering-on and pulling-off overwhelming the song, like a rococo frame on a primitive painting, or does it make the song more interesting?
• Never try to impress anyone. Music is not an Olympic event.

Not long ago, I was drooling over the inlay on a guitar at Lark Street Music, in Albany, New York. I had been working on this article earlier in the day, so when I realized that someone in the back room was firing off riffs at warp speed, it seemed fitting. My ears jumped to attention. The playing was incredible, the way the special effects in Independence Day were incredible - for a few seconds. Then, it quickly became annoying, like bad science-fiction. The guys at the counter shook their heads in silent agreement.

I strolled to the back room to check out this speed-demon. He was about 20, I guessed, wearing long, shredded jeans, a silver-turquoise bracelet and a gray t-shirt. His Nike-clad feet flailed wildly on the wooden floor. He glanced up at me, tossed his Viking-esque hair back and rattled off more arpeggios. I waved goodbye to Buzzy, the owner, and went down the street for a bowl of Thai noodles, to calm my nerves.

ARTIE'S LISTENING BOOTH
There are so many amazing guitar albums, it would take a large book to pinpoint the best playing and the most outstanding solos of the past 20 years. What follow are some quick examples I came up with after glancing through my CD collection.

I consider Tony Rice to be one of the most important soloists of our time. His playing is fast, fluid, and melodic. I can't say enough about Tony. His clean lines and endless stream of ideas astound me. To my delight, he recorded "Fishscale" twice. On The David Grisman Quintet (Kaleidoscope K-5), check out Tony's jazzy solo on "Fishscale" from 1:49-to-2:53. Twenty years later, Tony recorded "Fishscale" with John Carlini (also a fine player) on River Suite For Two Guitars (Sugar Hill 3837). On this later version, Tony's playing of the melody is more fluid and mature, with a short, effective solo beginning at 1:29 on the disc.

"Port Tobacco", another good Tony Rice track with some strong soloing, can be found on Rounder Guitar (Rounder 11541). This collection generally is quite good, with tracks from innovative players Jon Sholle and Russ Barenberg. Sholle is an excellent guitarist with terrific technique ("Bully Samba"), while Barenberg shines with clear tone and smart solos on "Halloween Rehearsal".

Pat Alger is an adept, smart guitarist who probably is better known for the songwriting hits he's contributed to such artists as Garth Brooks, Kathy Mattea and Trisha Yearwood ("Thunder Rolls", "Unanswered Prayers", "Goin' Gone"). Pat was the first flatpicker I knew who understood the rhythmic subtlety of Doc Watson's playing, and he went on to develop a clean, melodic flatpicking style of his own. Pat's as-yet-unrecorded version of "Diamond Joe" is traditional flatpicking at its best. All of his deceptively simple guitar accompaniment on his album, True Love & Other Short Stories (Sugar Hill 1029), is effective, but I'm partial to Pat's riffs on "Lone Star State Of Mind".