It's much easier to increase your guitar speed when you separate the movements of your picking hand from those of your fretting hand. Most guitar players don't do this and struggle to get faster without sacrificing cleanliness of playing. Once you know how to properly isolate the movements in both hands, your guitar speed and accuracy goes through the roof!
Watch the video below and I will show you exactly how to play guitar faster using this approach:
Click on the video to begin watching it.
But here is the thing:
Simply separating the motions is not enough. You also need to know what exactly to look for in each hand (picking hand and fretting hand) while you practice.
Without this, your guitar practice is useless.
So, when you separate the motions of each hand, here is what to look for:
Picking Hand Element #1: Efficiency & Economy Of Motion
I once taught a guitar player who wanted help with building guitar speed. But when I saw him play…
… I saw that his problem had nothing to do with “guitar speed” (or lack of speed).
It was lack of efficiency.
His pick was moving way too far away from the strings between notes. Which meant: in the time it took his guitar pick just to return to the string…
… he could have picked 2-3 more notes.
So, I told him: “if all you do is cut the distance your pick moves in half, your speed would literally double”.
That’s how powerful an improvement in efficiency can be.
The lesson for you?
Pay attention to how much your pick moves between notes. And make the motions as small as you can get away with (while still getting the notes to sound the way you want).
Picking Hand Element #2: String Noise Control
Know anybody who loves the sound of sloppy guitar playing?
Me neither.
String noise makes your playing sound bad no matter how fast you play.
And conversely: the cleaner your playing is – the better you sound. (Even if you aren’t playing fast.)
The best way to mute string noise with your picking hand is by using thumb muting.
How do you do thumb muting?
Simply rest your picking hand’s thumb on the strings and slide it up and down the strings as you play scales. The thumb will stop the open strings from ringing out.
Question: “Tom Hess, when I try to do thumb muting, I hear nothing but pinch harmonics. What can I do?”
Answer: To avoid pinch harmonics from thumb muting, don’t let your thumb hang over the edge of the pick.
Instead, pull the thumb back so it doesn't touch the string you are trying to play. To help with this, hold the pick on the pad of the index finger (not on the side). This will help to do thumb muting the right way and avoid unintended pinch harmonics.
Picking Hand Element #3: Relax Unwanted Muscle Tension
Excess tension is a killer of guitar speed.
The secret to relaxing excess tension?
Do a “tension audit” throughout your body. It works like this:
Repeat an exercise over and over. As you do, focus on relaxing your picking hand shoulder, your forearm and your wrist.
Focus on each part of the body for a few seconds and relax it. You will likely find some parts of your picking hand to have more tension than others. Focus on them more and relax them.
After you focus on the elements of picking hand technique, it’s time to shift gears and pay attention to the fretting hand.
Here are the elements of your fretting hand technique to refine:
Fretting Hand Element #1: Efficiency & Economy Of Motion
Fretting hand efficiency means:
- moving your fingers just enough to fret notes, but not more.
- keeping your thumb behind the neck of the guitar, opposite the middle finger most of the time. (You can break this rule and wrap your thumb around the neck of the guitar when you do bends and vibrato.)
- keep the knuckles of the fingers curved when you fret notes. This ensures you fret notes clearly with the least amount of pressure. (The only exception to this is finger rolling during some arpeggios. )
- fret notes right next to the fret wire.
- keep your fingers close to the strings between notes (especially the index finger).
Fretting Hand Element #2: String Noise Control
Believe it or not, your fretting hand can (and should) mute excess string noise, similar to your picking hand.
Here is how:
Use your index finger to rest across the (higher in pitch) strings while you play.
Using fretting hand index finger muting (together with thumb muting) helps ensure your guitar playing is consistently clean.
Fretting Hand Element #2: Excess Tension
Excess tension in your fretting hand can cripple your guitar playing (and guitar speed) just as much as tension in your picking hand.
To relax it, do a “tension audit” of the fretting hand shoulder, arm, wrist and fingers as you play.
Also:
Pay attention to (and relax) other parts of your body that aren’t used to play guitar:
Your jaw (and tongue), your stomach, thighs, calves and feet. All these parts of the body must be fully relaxed at all times.
Now you know one of the best ways to refine your guitar technique. The next step is to transform the rest of your guitar playing (everything from your guitar technique, fretboard knowledge, creativity and music knowledge), so you can…
…Finally put it all together and feel like a real musician!
I can help you with this inside my Breakthrough Guitar Lessons.
Here is how it works:
You tell me about your guitar playing challenges, current skill level, musical knowledge and your goals.
I create a lesson strategy and your lesson materials tailored specifically for you.
As you practice your lessons, I am here for you every step of the way.
I give you feedback on your guitar playing, answer your questions live on video every week, give you unlimited email support and train you in student-only live video classes.
And if you do your best to practice what I teach you at least 30 minutes per day, you almost can’t fail to turn your guitar playing into something you feel really proud of.
To learn more, go here right now: https://tomhess.net/Guitar
Here is what some of my guitar students are saying:
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When I started learning from Tom, the main thing that made him different from other teachers was that he was showing me how to excel in all aspects of my guitar playing by applying the skills that I already knew together with the new material that I was learning from him.
He made me aware of both strengths and weaknesses in my playing that I did not even know I had. From there he gave me the knowledge, tools and guidance to literally transform my guitar playing by enabling me to overcome things that were preventing me from becoming a truly creative and self-expressive guitar player. These were the kinds of things that none of my previous guitar teachers and books I studied were able to do for me.
After Tom made me aware of all the things I was missing in my guitar playing and provided me with the strategy and tools for solving them, I began to make very fast progress in all areas of my guitar playing.
I can now write my own music and can create lead guitar solos that I am happy and fulfilled with. I also have the technical skills to confidently and easily play anything that I want to express. I have overcome all of the lead guitar challenges that I struggled with before, and increased my guitar speed to virtuoso levels. More importantly, I have the knowledge and understanding of how to continually improve my guitar playing and musical skills to higher and higher levels to continue expressing myself with my music. Overall, I have definitely transformed in a huge way as a musician and as a person through my lessons with Tom Hess. I am grateful to him for guiding me towards becoming the guitarist I always wanted to be!"
Mike Philippov, Indiana, USA
“Before I took lessons with Tom Hess, I wanted to learn how to do some sweep picking and I also wanted to fill in a few gaps that I thought I might’ve had in my playing. And also I was feeling a little bit frustrated with not knowing where to take my playing. I didn’t really know how to get better. I felt like I reached a plateau, so that’s why I sought out Tom.”
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I’ve had a few other guitar teachers before I took lessons with Tom, and most of them weren’t very good. And after reading a few articles online that Tom had written, I could tell that this guy was going to be the teacher for me.
The biggest thing that I really like is the actual guitar lessons themselves. I’m finding that I’m learning new things that I never even considered every single time I get a lesson. Something new to apply to my playing each time. But of course, I really enjoy the forum as well, because thanks to the lessons with Tom, I’ve been able to meet people from all over the world who have similar experiences and similar goals, so that’s been really motivating as well.
Before I took lessons with Tom I really didn’t like improvisation. I knew scales, and I knew kind of how they applied over chord progressions, but I just didn’t like it. Since taking lessons with Tom, some of the lessons are focused on that specific issue, and now I feel really comfortable about getting up in front of people and playing over any type of… in any key any backing track, I feel pretty comfortable doing that.
Tom actually knows what my goals are and gives me specific lessons that will help me achieve those goals. Other teachers that I’ve had before just do it their way… it’s either their way or the highway. And they don’t really care about what I wanted to do, and they didn’t really listen, and they didn’t really look into what I was doing or what my interests were and didn’t really play into that.
It’s really motivating to get to know people who are also students of Tom. It’s really good to have positive-minded musicians around even if I’m just talking to them online, or if I meet them in person, either way it’s still really motivating.
The forum has helped me because I am able to ask any music theory related questions or technique questions and I get those answered very very quickly. And I also like to participate in discussions and help share my knowledge as well with other people, which when I do that I feel that it’s reinforcing the things that I know as well, so it helps with my music theory knowledge when I share as well.
Greg Trotter, Melbourne, Australia
“If it wasn't for Tom's strategies, I would never have been able to pursue a full career in music. I always wanted to play on a very high level, but I always doubted my abilities, because if you don't have a teacher who constantly reinforces this positive mindset...you need a teacher who is telling you that you are able to do that and at the same time giving you the tools to actually accomplish those high levels.”
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Breakthrough Guitar Lessons are excellent, because Tom always brings something fresh, every time Tom blows your mind with a new lesson. You can never learn this stuff on your own, it's impossible, because you don't know what you don't know.
George Engelbrecht, Guitar Teacher, Vredenburg, South Africa
“Before I started taking lessons with Tom, I was doing things on my own and it was quite frustrating. I thought I was doing things correctly, but once I started lessons with Tom, I was able to see what I was doing wrong and quickly applied that and got results instantly, within a couple of weeks ... your playing just improves so quickly!”
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I've become a hundred of times better guitar player since I've been working with Tom. Most private guitar teachers are somewhat unprepared and kind of work on just whatever, which is ok, but it isn't really as effective as the way Tom does it in terms of how much material he gives you, what material he gives you, and the long term goal of what you want to do. Tom has all that in mind. Tom is very good at giving you what you need to reach your goals.
Mark Court, Professional Musician,
Ontario, Canada
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