Easy Way To Build Guitar Speed And Play Guitar Fast
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Building guitar speed and learning to play guitar fast takes a ton of practice time and effort, right?
Bzzt!
Wrong.
In this guitar speed article, I’ll give you simple guitar practice tips that improve your guitar technique, guitar speed…
… and help you play shred guitar licks you’re struggling with right now.
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EMAIL TO GET ACCESS
By submitting your info, you agree to send it to Tom Hess Music Corporation who will process and use it according to their privacy policy.
Plus, when you do what I explain elbow…
Your slower guitar licks will become cleaner, more accurate, more consistent and more reliable.
(So, you can play at your best when it matters most.)
Best part?
You can benefit from them even if your practice time is very limited.
To begin...
... watch the video that lays out 3 common guitar speed challenges and how to overcome each one:
Now, let’s go deeper into these secrets to building guitar speed:
Shred Guitar Practice Tip #1: Use Directional Picking
If you’re currently using alternate picking, then switching to directional picking is one of the fastest ways to boost guitar speed and play guitar fast(er) with almost no practice.
Yet, it is also one of the most misunderstood guitar techniques of all time.
It works based on this simple principle (that is key to more guitar speed):
Move your guitar pick in the direction of the next note.
This means:
When you pick on a single string, you play your shred guitar licks with alternate picking.
But when changing strings, you follow this rule: when ascending in pitch (moving towards the thinner string), always change strings with a downstroke.
When descending in pitch (moving towards the thicker string), always change strings with an upstroke.
Watch this video that shows the mechanics of directional picking in detail:
Question: “But Tom Hess, isn’t directional picking the same thing as economy picking?”
Answer: No. The 2 shred guitar techniques are similar (and both make it possible to play guitar fast), but they are different.
With economy picking, you have to change strings on a sweep picking motion. Meaning, when you ascend in pitch (move towards the thinner strings), the last note you play on the thicker string must be a downstroke.
And if it’s not? Then you have to change the lick to make it possible to play with economy picking.
Likewise, when you’re descending to the thicker string, the last note you play on the thinner string must be an upstroke to make it possible to change strings with a sweep picking motion.
Yes, this is every bit as unnecessarily restrictive as it sounds. This is why I don’t use or teach economy picking when training my shred guitar students to play guitar fast and improve their guitar speed.
With directional picking, you do not ‘have to’ change strings on a sweep picking motion. You can play any combination of upstrokes and downstrokes in your guitar licks. Simply move the pick in the direction of the next string, no matter what the previous note was.
Sometimes this means you can sweep pick on a string change and sometimes not… it doesn’t matter.
To learn more about directional picking (and why I think it is a far superior technique to both alternate picking and economy picking), check out this shred guitar technique article.
Shred Guitar Practice Tip #2: Practice Your Shred Guitar Licks With Your Picking Hand Only
One big reason many guitarists struggle to build their guitar speed and play guitar fast is:
…they focus mainly on their fretting hand while practicing and completely ignore their picking hand.
(This is a common habit almost every guitar player gets into from day 1 of their guitar practice that they never break.)
The problem with this?
Most guitarists’ picking hand ends up filled with inefficiencies that hinder their guitar speed.
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Some of these include:
- Excess pick motion. (e.g. Moving the pick outside the trench (space) of the strings, making your picking motions way larger than they should be.)
- Incorrect movement of the pick. (e.g. Moving the pick using your thumb and index finger vs. the wrist and forearm.)
- Lack of string noise control. (e.g. not using your thumb to mute the lower (thicker) strings as you practice your shred guitar technique.
- Inconsistent pick attack. (e.g. picking some notes more softly than others).
… etc.
These inefficiencies make it almost impossible to play guitar fast and cause a lot of mistakes.
Solution?
Spend some of your guitar technique practice time playing your guitar licks with your picking hand only. (Cover the strings with your fretting hand.)
This lets you watch your picking hand without worrying about guitar technique mistakes in your fretting hand (while still hearing the sound of the lick in your head).
Here is a demo of this process in action:
As you are doing your picking-hand-only guitar practice, focus on:
- Proper mechanics (use your wrist when picking on a single string and your arm to change strings).
- Economy of motion (don’t move the guitar pick more than necessary to produce an articulate note).
- Consistency of pick attack (make sure the articulation is strong and clear).
- String noise control (use thumb muting to make that happen).
Note: practicing shred guitar licks with your picking hand only is quite challenging. To simplify the process (when doing it for the first time), isolate short fragments of your guitar licks.
Make it your goal to increase your ‘picking-hand-only’ guitar speed to the tempo at which you can play using both hands.
When you do, you’ll find it much easier to increase your guitar speed.
Shred Guitar Practice Tip #3: Improve Your 2-Hand Synchronization Top Speed
One of the keys to building guitar speed and learning to play guitar fast is realizing that there is more than one top speed to track (and improve) in your guitar technique.
Obviously, there is the ‘absolute’ maximum guitar speed at which your hands can move…
But then, there are also top speeds of:
- Playing accurately in front of other people (live on stage)
- Playing consistently well time after time.
- Playing your guitar technique while integrating it with some other guitar lick or technique (more on this below).
And of course, there is: the top speed of 2-hand synchronization. This is the top speed at which your hands are able to work together (pick and fret each note at the same time).
Many guitar players have a huge gap between the top speed at which their hands can move and the top guitar speed of 2-hand synchronization.
This is a big reason why many people ‘can’ play guitar fast, but are unable to use the speed they have and make it sound good.
Watch this video to see what I mean:
Here are some of my go-to ways for improving your 2-hand synchronization:
Double picking: as the name implies, you pick every note of your shred guitar licks two times. This makes your 2-hand synchronization feel harder, by:
- Making your picking hand move twice as fast as your fretting hand
- Changing the ratio of action between the picking hand and the fretting hand.
But by practicing your licks this way, you’ll find that regular playing feels much easier (and you will sound cleaner when you play guitar fast).
Playing unplugged: simply turn off your amp (or guitar volume) and pick the strings acoustically. Your goal here should be to accent all the notes that should be accented, while keeping the articulation of the other notes in the beat nice and even.
Single string practice: this forces your hands to stay in sync for every single note and makes it very obvious when your hands are not in sync.
Changing to a new string makes it easier to mask your 2-hand synchronization imperfections.
Playing very long notes: set the metronome to about 80% of your top speed. But instead of playing the normal note values (e.g. triplets or 16th notes), play quarter notes, half notes or whole notes.
As you do, focus on the transitions from note to note in your shred guitar licks and make sure:
- There is no bleeding between notes
- You’re not cutting off each note too early.
Both of these mistakes wreck your 2-hand synchronization and make it very hard to build guitar speed.
Watch this video to see what I mean:
Shred Guitar Practice Tip #4: Practice Guitar Technique Integration
What is integration?
It’s a process of connecting the guitar technique you’re practicing with other guitar licks or guitar techniques (whether rhythm or lead).
Watch this video to see a simple demonstration of guitar technique integration:
Here are some helpful guitar practice tips that make it easy to integrate your guitar techniques together:
Isolate the transition (from one guitar technique or guitar lick to the next). Play the last 3 notes of guitar lick 1 and the first 3 notes of lick 2. Practice that isolated fragment and gradually add more notes to its beginning and end until you can play the entirety of lick 1 and smoothly transition into lick #2.
Pause during the transition: instead of slowing down both guitar licks you’re trying to integrate, put a pause between them. Make the pause 4-8 metronome clicks long.
Gradually make the pause shorter (to 7 clicks, 6 clicks, 5 clicks, etc.) until you are able to switch between the 2 guitar techniques seamlessly.
Continue refining each guitar technique in isolation: combine integration practice with mastering each guitar lick (or guitar technique) on its own.
Shred Guitar Practice Tip #5: Get Excess Muscle Tension Under Control
Excess muscle tension is a killer of guitar speed and wrecks your potential to play guitar fast.
Here are several awesome ways to get excess muscle tension under control:
- Tension audit. This is where you play the guitar techniques (or guitar licks) you’re trying to build speed with and systematically check your body for tension. Start with your tongue and relax it. Then, move on to your jaw, your shoulders, your arms, your stomach, thighs, calves and feet.
Check out this video demonstration of a tension audit:
As you relax each body part, you’ll find it much easier to play the guitar lick you were trying to speed up. - Exhale before playing something fast. This makes sure you are not holding your breath (which makes you tense all over) and makes your guitar technique feel effortless.
- Exaggerate muscle tension. This guitar practice trick is very counterintuitive, but very effective. What you do is tense up your body as hard as possible (for 3-5 seconds), then relax… and then play what you were trying to play. Tensing up your body extra hard before relaxing makes you more relaxed than you’d normally be and is a simple way to get tension under control.
Now that you know several simple ways to build guitar speed and play guitar faster, I want to help you improve your fretting hand finger independence, so you can make your shred guitar playing feel even easier. I can show you how in my free eGuide: Master Fretting Hand Finger Independence. Download it today and discover the guitar technique secrets most guitarists will never know.
TO EFFORTLESS FINGER
INDEPENDENCE FOR
YOUR FRETTING HAND
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