How To Play Guitar Fast – Free 14 Day Mini Course – Part 2
Welcome back to lesson 2 of the mini course on how to play guitar fast.
In the last lesson I showed you a scale sequence which is a great exercise for your guitar picking technique. We will use this sequence as a guitar speed exercise throughout this mini course. After you learn it, make sure to write down your current maximum guitar speed with playing it into a guitar speed practice log of some kind so that you can track your progress over time.
Before we get to discussing the different kinds of guitar speed training strategies that bring effective results, I want to tell you about 2 of the most important (and often ignored) elements of guitar speed that make all the difference between you learning to play guitar fast and having your guitar playing SOUND GOOD and struggling to make big progress with your guitar speed exercises.
These elements of guitar speed are articulation and synchronization.
Most guitar players make the mistake of focusing only on 'trying to move their hands faster' when practicing guitar speed exercises. The truth is that the ability to play fast on guitar doesn't come from moving one's hands or fingers fast. Guitar speed (and particularly - fast guitar picking technique) comes primarily as a result of crisp and precise articulation and flawless and relaxed 2 hand synchronization.
Before I show you how to improve these areas of your guitar playing, let me define the 2 terms for you:
Picking Articulation - this guitar term refers to being able to achieve distinct and clear separation between notes in your guitar picking technique. In other words, each note must be clearly heard and a listener should be able to easily identify when the sound of each note starts and stops, regardless of how fast or slow the notes are being played. For most guitar players, their articulation begins to suffer greatly the faster they attempt to play. Being able to maintain crisp and precise articulation at faster speeds is a very important skill to develop when working on guitar speed exercises.
2 Hand Synchronization - this term is about being able to pick and fret every note in a musical passage at the same time with both the picking and fretting hands. If there is a slight delay in either hand, your guitar playing will sound sloppy and it will be difficult to maintain consistent and fast speed with your guitar picking technique. If, however, your synchronization is perfect, the natural result is faster guitar speed.
When I train my guitar students to build their technique and guitar speed, I create for them series of customized guitar speed exercises that effectively train these two areas of guitar playing based on their current skill level and progress. In this free mini course lesson, I will show you several exercises that you can apply to your guitar playing right away regardless of your skill level and your guitar technique and speed will improve.
I want you to use the following guitar speed training approaches when practicing the scale sequence from lesson 1 between now and the next lesson. These two guitar speed training methods will help you greatly to refine your articulation and synchronization and as a result will improve your guitar speed.
First we will focus on guitar picking technique articulation:
Over the next 2 days, practice the scale sequence that you learned in lesson 1 in the following way:
Play the sequence EXTREMELY slowly first (such as quarter notes at 80-100 bpm) and focus on picking each note as hard as possible. The most important part of this guitar speed training method is in 'picking each note as hard as possible'. You want to train your picking hand to produce the maximum volume from each note without worrying too much about speed. The key is to train your hand to pick even harder than it will ever have to do during normal guitar playing. This will make regular articulation very easy by comparison.
As you do this, make sure that your fretting hand stays relaxed and does not become more tense than usual in the process.
Next, after playing through the scale sequence at a slow speed several (about 3) times while PICKING EACH NOTE AS HARD AS POSSIBLE, you should rip through it one time at your maximum speed.
Work through this whole practicing cycle in alternation for 10-15 minutes.
To practice the synchronization element of your guitar picking technique, do the following over the next 2 days:
As you are practicing the sequence from lesson 1 (or any other exercise you work on), you need to focus on picking and fretting each note at EXACTLY the same time. The most common problem guitar players have with synchronization is having one of their hands play a note sooner than the other hand. Such inconsistency leads to sloppy guitar picking technique. You can get away with these imperfections at slower speeds, but there is no room for imprecise playing as you attempt to speed up.
As you did above for working on articulation, I want you to practice playing the sequence from lesson 1 slowly (about 3 times in a row) with the focus on picking and fretting each note at precisely the same moment and then ripping through the sequence at your top speed. Alternate through this cycle for about 10-15 minutes.
Of course you need to do these guitar speed training exercises for more than 2 days in order to receive full benefit of practicing them. However, even after 2 days you should begin to feel your top guitar speed starting to feel easier, more fluid and more consistent than before.
In the next lesson I will give you some more very effective guitar speed training tips and strategies for working with a metronome that will help you to continue pushing your guitar speed to a higher level.
Although we are spending a lot of time focusing on guitar speed in this mini course, it is critical to remember that the ultimate goal that we are after is learning to play better and more expressive music. Guitar speed is only one tool that you need to attain that goal but make sure to also make time for focusing on other important musical skills. If you need help with mastering them watch this online guitar lessons video.
I will see you in two days with your next lesson!
If you need to review lesson 1, click on this link: How To Play Guitar Fast