This Guitar Practice Strategy Keeps Your Hands In Sync When You Play Guitar Fast

by Tom Hess

Playing guitar fast and clean requires your hands to lock perfectly in sync for each note. When your hands are in sync, your guitar playing sounds good (even if you are playing slowly). When your hands are not in sync, your playing sounds sloppy.

There are 7 core ways to master 2-hand synchronization in your guitar playing.

This guitar practice strategy helps you integrate these methods into your technique and master them quickly.

Step 1: Select any exercise you want to improve your 2-hand synchronization with. Find your maximum speed using a metronome and write it down. Maximum speed is the highest metronome tempo at which you can barely play something 1-2 times.

Step 2: Find the fastest metronome tempo at which you are certain that your hands are in sync. This tempo must meets 2 conditions:

You must hear and feel your hands locking in perfectly for each note.
You must be able to play your exercise at that tempo at least 3 times in a row without making mistakes. Selecting a slightly slower tempo is better than selecting a faster one. Write that tempo down.

Step 3: Slow down the metronome 20-30 beats per minute below the tempo in step 2.

Step 4: Repeat your exercise at the tempo from step 3 over and over for 3-5 minutes. Focus on:

Having a bit more of the pick sticking out of your hand than usual.
Digging the pick a bit deeper into the strings than usual.
Picking the notes just a bit harder than usual.

See how these guitar technique adjustments help you fix flaws in your 2-hand synchronization:

Step 5: Increase the metronome speed by 5-8 beats per minute when you can cleanly play your exercise 7 times in a row.

Step 6: Continue steps 4 and 5 until you exceed your tempo from step 2 by 5-10 beats per minute or more. Then find your new absolute top speed (from step 1). It’s going to be higher than it was when you started.

Note: you must have a dedicated system for tracking your guitar playing progress. This helps you refine your guitar practice methods so you can progress faster.

This guitar practice strategy speeds up your progress in 2 ways:

You isolate a very specific tempo range and set clear, short-term goals for yourself. This helps you stay focused every minute of your guitar practice time and improve faster.
You close the gap between your 2-hand synchronization top speed and absolute maximum speed. This makes your guitar playing sound better at any tempo and increases your absolute top speed at the same time.

This guitar shred article gives you more strategies for keeping your hands in sync when you play guitar fast.

About Tom Hess: Tom Hess is a guitar teacher, music career mentor and guitar teacher trainer. He teaches rock guitar lessons online to students from all over the world and conducts instructional live guitar training events attended by musicians from over 50 countries.

Learn how to play guitar better in no time with your own online guitar tutor.

Forward this article to your friends