How To Use Simple Guitar Speed Licks To Get A Lot Faster


Wish your guitar speed was incredibly fast, accurate and impressive but don't know how to fix the mistakes you make that slow you down?

Don't worry, everyone struggles with this every once in a while...

...but you're about to learn what to do about it!

I've got 7 guitar speed licks that anyone can play which help you get faster speed in no time.

These guitar licks help you improve your picking technique while transitioning from one string to the next in order to play clean while using excellent fundamental technique.

Sound good?

Let's begin.

Watch this free video with 7 simple guitar licks exercises to play faster than ever:

Click on the video to begin watching it.

Now you have simple guitar licks to practice that help you play faster in less time. However, there is much more to learn about playing guitar fast and clean.

Use these additional guitar speed tips to play solos, licks and exercises faster and cleaner:


Guitar Speed Tip #1: Use Efficient Picking Motion

It's very hard to play guitar with clean speed when you play with inefficient motion in your hands. This especially applies to your picking hand motion.

Minimizing movement in your picking hand is critical for making fast guitar playing feel effortless and smooth.

So, how do you do it?

Make your picking hand motion more efficient by:

  1. Using directional picking to always move the pick in the direction of the string you are moving to.
     
  2. Paying attention to how far you bring the pick away from the strings while playing notes (minimize this as much as possible).
     
  3. Watching your picking hand as you practice to identify any mistakes.

Focus closely on these things during the most difficult guitar licks when you make the most mistakes. This is when you are more likely to use inefficient motion or poor technique.


Guitar Speed Tip #2: Listen To Your Mistakes At Faster Speeds

For instance, when you are playing a guitar scale at fast speeds, you need to know what to fix in order to clean it up when you make mistakes. To do that, your ability to spot mistakes needs to be develop further.

Practice challenging guitar speed licks just a few notes at a time. Then play these few notes as fast as you can. This helps you see your mistakes more easily because there is less for your mind to process. Another approach that helps you during faster guitar licks is to go back and forth between playing fast and playing slow, then observing any differences in your technique in order to fix it.

When you only play fast for some minutes at a time, it is easier to fall into auto-pilot mode and start forming bad habits or making mistakes.

Combining all the approaches here helps you laser-focus on what you are doing with your hands from multiple angles in order to quickly refine your technique and play with faster, cleaner guitar speed.

You start to train your muscles to use the most efficient motions and begin to ingrain them into your fast playing.


Guitar Speed Tip #3: Use Double Picking

Double picking is a great way to line your hands up in perfect sync. Try double picking every note of a difficult guitar lick or scale at a tempo that is slower than the original. Then slowly increase the tempo to develop better two-hand synchronization.

This makes playing the original guitar lick feel much easier and serves as an excellent warm up.


Guitar Speed Tip #4: Isolate Tough Notes Within Scales

Do you ever feel like you can play a scale about 75% fast but end up struggling through a few notes that hold everything back (for example: during parts where you need to change positions or switch strings like mentioned in the video)?

This makes playing guitar fast feel like a struggle.

Keeping your hands in sync together helps make your scale runs feel much more smooth at fast speeds.

One way to improve synchronization between your hands is to practice the challenging parts of the scale separate from other parts that you have already mastered. Work on just a few notes at a time (like shown in the video) by playing them at your max speed, with a short period of silence in between each repetition. After you are able to play the notes well like this, integrate them back into the scale and practice it as a whole.


What Is The Next Step For Fast Guitar Playing?

Take lessons with a guitar teacher rather than trying to learn everything on your own.

It's hard when your guitar playing progress starts to slow down and you don't know what to work on to get better. This is a big reason why you need to work with an experienced guitar teacher who has already helped many others solve the same problems you have.

A great guitar teacher is going to help you understand where you are going wrong, so you don't waste tons of time, become frustrated or stop practicing. Not only does this make playing guitar more enjoyable, but it makes you more motivated to get better and better every day.

Not to mention - you just get better, faster and cleaner in much less time.

Here is what my guitar students say about taking lessons and how it helped them improve: