The Best Way To Practice For Guitar Playing Speed
One of the most common areas of frustration for guitar players is (lack of) guitar playing speed. Many guitarists never seem to learn to play guitar fast no matter how much they practice. This lack of guitar playing speed leads many guitarists to believe in the myth that guitar playing in general and learning how to play guitar fast in particular are skills reserved for "talented individuals".
The good news is that anyone with all of their limbs intact can learn to develop as much guitar playing speed (and other musical skills) as they want. Here are a few tips that will help you to improve this area of your guitar playing right away.
Tip 1 For Learning How To Play Guitar Fast: Practice Increasing Your Guitar Playing Speed With "Bursts"
Most guitar players only know one way to build their guitar speed: begin playing at a slow speed and challenging themselves by gradually increasing the metronome tempo. A more effective alternative to this practice method is to do the following:
- Take a very short excerpt of a longer guitar lick, phrase or scale sequence you are practicing (make that fragment be no longer than 1 measure)
- Practice this short excerpt at a tempo that is faster than the speed at which you play the entire phrase. You will be able to do this because your maximum guitar playing speed with a short burst of notes is always going to be higher than the speed at which you can play a lot of notes (the entire phrase).
- Instead of increasing your guitar playing speed too frequently, simply expand the number of notes you are playing while staying at that same (higher than normal) tempo. This will get your hands and mind used to playing at a consistent guitar speed that is faster than the speed at which you usually practice. By the time you are able to play the entire sequence at that new faster guitar playing speed, your older maximum guitar playing speed will feel much easier than before!
Tip 2 For Learning How To Play Guitar Fast: Improve Your Picking Articulation
One of the keys to great guitar playing speed is the ability to articulate the notes you are playing clearly. If your picking articulation is weak in general and/or if there is an imbalance between the articulation of upstrokes and downstrokes, faster guitar playing speeds become impossible to reach and sustain cleanly. Spend some time practicing guitar without the amplifier making sure that each note is clearly heard regardless of the speed at which you are playing. Of course playing guitar with distortion is also very important, but if you also spend a portion of your guitar practice time playing the guitar unplugged you will become a lot more sensitive to your picking articulation and your maximum guitar playing speed will get cleaner and faster as a result.
Tip 3 For Learning How To Play Guitar Fast: Use The Metronome "As A Test" Of Your Guitar Playing Speed
Although the metronome is a highly important tool for many aspects of musicianship, it does not "make you" play guitar faster. Instead, the metronome is really only a test of what your current maximum guitar speed is at any given moment. Before starting to test your speed with the metronome, make sure that you spend enough time isolating and refining the flaws in your guitar technique that are preventing you from playing guitar fast. Some of these flaws may include: inefficient picking/fretting hand motions, tension, poor articulation or a variety of other things. Refine them all without the metronome first and then test how well you have done so by tracking your maximum guitar playing speed with the metronome.
What you should do right now is begin applying the tips above to your guitar practice sessions. As you do this consistently, you will start to see consistent and measurable progress in your guitar playing speed.
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