Learn How To Use Directional Picking Technique To Play Guitar Fast And Clean
Tired of struggling to play guitar fast without making sloppy mistakes? Using directional picking technique makes playing with speed feel easy and effortless. Good news is, learning it doesn't take a long time when you learn from an expert who can clearly explain the precise movements involved.
Watch the below to learn how to play guitar faster and cleaner than ever using directional picking:
Click on the video to begin watching it.
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Now you know how to play guitar faster, more efficiently and with less sloppy mistakes. Find out more ways to become a better guitar player using these additional ideas:
How To Take Your Guitar Playing To The Highest Level
Ready to make faster progress on guitar than ever before?
Get started by using these creative practice approaches to take your playing to the highest level:
Approach #1: Practice With Your Eyes Closed
Being able to play guitar without even looking at your hands is an impressive skill that many of the best guitarists have.
Training yourself to play like this gives you greater command over your instrument than ever before!
Schedule some time to practice guitar with your eyes closed every few days or so to become accustomed to it. When you do this, don't spend time worrying about mistakes. Eventually, playing without watching your hands becomes effortless. Doing this also helps you prepare for playing in live musical situations where there is poor lighting.
Approach #2: Recording Yourself During Guitar Practice
Practicing guitar in your bedroom is a very low-pressure situation. Adding a greater sense of pressure forces you to improve your playing skills, because it simulates real-life musical situations (such as playing on stage for others).
Add pressure to your guitar practice routine by recording yourself while you play. Doing this makes you more likely to try to play perfectly rather than allow some mistakes to pass.
Additionally, it gives you the opportunity to listen back to yourself and find mistakes you never noticed before.
Approach #3: Practice Guitar While Performing (Versus Sitting Down)
Don't let yourself to get into the habit of sitting down to practice guitar every time you practice. Get outside of your comfort zone by playing guitar while standing up, walking around your room or performing the items you are playing.
This adds a higher degree of difficulty that you would never experience while sitting down.
Study videos of your favorite guitarists to get ideas for how to perform the things you practice and record yourself to judge your performance and make any adjustments needed. This helps you put on a great performance whether you are live in front of an audience or just playing to impress your friends and family.
How To Make Your Guitar Solos Sound Awesome
Your guitar solos sound awesome when you understand how to use creative and expressive phrasing.
The majority of guitarists unknowingly sabotage their solos by making mistakes that cause their playing to sound boring. Here are the mistakes you must avoid and how to make your solos sound more creative and expressive:
Mistake #1. Too Much Rhythmic Similarity
If you remove the pitches that are being played and just listened to the rhythm, a lot of guitar solos get boring pretty quickly. This is because many people spend more time learning how to play patterns/technique and not enough time improving their phrasing skills.
Make the rhythm of your guitar licks very interesting. For example: use phrases in your licks that contain 5, 7 or 9 notes each. This makes your solos more creative no matter what the pitches are.
Mistake #2. Vibrato Is Used Very Poorly Or Not At All (Especially On Bent Notes)
Consistently using the exact same type of vibrato (or none at all) quickly drains the life from your guitar solos.
Make your solos more emotional by developing a range between very slow/narrow vibrato and very wide/fast vibrato. This gives you the power to express a variety of emotions in your solos while preventing your licks from sounding too similar (because vibrato is applied in different ways).
Mistake #3. Not Paying Attention To The Emotion Of The Chords Underneath The Guitar Solo
Chords create the foundation for the emotion in your guitar solos. You need to know which chords in the song (or backing track) contain the most drama and make your guitar licks match that.
For example:
The V chord contains the most dramatic emotion and most of the fast/intense playing should generally happen over that chord. This is key to creating real emotion in your lead playing.
Practice this concept by creating a repeating backing track that uses two chords: A minor for 3 measures and E Major for 1 measure. Play slower, more melodic phrases over the A minor chord and faster phrases over the E major chord to create a climax.
Learn how my guitar students have improved with online lessons:
“I just love guitar lessons with Tom, he literally takes the time to make a specific lesson plan and sends you lessons as you need it.”
My last lesson I took with a local guitar teacher before joining Tom, I was struggling with a sweep picking pattern, which was the 5 string root major, I was really struggling to get the rolling technique down. I took it to my guitar teacher and I was like “Help me with this, I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.” This is his exact phrase: “At high speeds, it doesn’t really matter if you can play it clean or not, no one can hear it anyway.” At that point, I was just like, “Ah man.” But thankfully, in that same message, he mentioned Tom’s name. Then the doors opened. That very night, I went home and looked at every single lesson Tom had, had my guitar in hand, every YouTube lesson on you know “correct motions”, “play this over chords”... just applied it instantly, and it was instant results within an hour... just from his free stuff. I was like, oh man, I’ve got to do lessons with this guy.
I remember when I first started out with lessons, I instantly jumped on the forum to greet myself, and it’s amazing how there’s like 30 responses. Just like, “Hi welcome.” and stuff... “Hi Dan, great musical tastes”. That made me feel really at home and welcomed into Tom’s forum and community. Every time I’ve had an issue when I was first starting out be it like theory or technique, there’s always been someone there who’s helped. Otherwise it could’ve been this potentially awkward process where I’d have to wait a whole week to get an answer from my teacher, who even then may not have answered it correctly and may have never solved it. Whereas there are guys on there who have been with Tom and have been through exactly what I’ve been through. They know exactly how to help, in what order, what information you need... it’s just a friendly atmosphere really.
Dan Mayhew, Stowmarket, UK
“July of 2012, I had been managing in a retail store and was kind of reaching this point where I was really getting frustrated because I had been struggling to progress in my guitar playing. I had this mindset that I had to teach myself everything... you know and the best players are all self taught and stuff like that...”
...and I remembered Tom Hess from that book, and I said “You know, it’s time to look this guy up and see what he’s all about.” And it didn’t take me very long to figure out that this is the kind of person that I needed to get on board with.
My playing has definitely improved technique-wise, but probably the most important change I have experienced is just in my overall mindset as a player and as a practicing musician. I just feel like I have a much better frame of mind and a much better idea of where I am going and where my guitar practicing is taking me. Whereas before I just felt like I had to practice everything and I had a whole bunch of stuff going on. It’s a lot more focused now.
Being in the environment that Tom has created with his other students is incredibly motivating. I had always been in my own little shell, kind of just stayed on my own. Coming out here... like when I came out here last year was a big step out of my comfort zone. Getting around all these other musicians... it’s unbelievable how great some of these guys are, not just as players, but as people.
Andrew Tintle, Richmond, California USA
“I had problems with physical playing. I couldn’t hold the pick, I was struggling a lot, there was frustration for like years. I started out looking for a YouTube solution, maybe someone knows how to angle the pick or build up speed and accidentally ran into Tom.”
The video wasn’t about playing, he only had a conversation. I listened up to him. I saw that Tom made a lot of sense in his speech, and I got interested. I went to his site, started looking at what he offered, got very interested, filled out the form, got my first lesson, started building up myself and started getting more results than I was getting before when I was self taught. It was an amazing experience that opened up so many doors, and still there are so many doors to open.
The material is specifically done for your individual needs, to reach your goals. You can always put up new goals. You can have feedback on your playing, see your weak areas and strong areas. Tom cares a lot about his students. He always reviews and watches how I am progressing so we can review material, step by step. Not skipping the steps. He is paying attention to it, and that’s what I like about it. I last felt this kind of motivation when I was 13 and starting out with a band, now I’m feeling the same fire and passion. There are students who are more advanced, more knowledgeable and have more experience. Instead of feeling jealous, I feel much more motivated to push myself further.
Freddy Kuiva, Estonia
Learn how to consistently play fast, clean and memorable guitar solos by getting trained in online electric guitar classes.