How To Get Your Alternate Picking Speed Up By Practicing Smarter
Playing guitar to get your alternate picking speed up isn’t just about trying to move your hands faster – This is the same approach so many people use that doesn’t work.
So, how do you get faster at guitar in general?
Answer:
Practicing smarter.
This means you address specific flaws in your technique to fix them efficiently in the least amount of time possible.
Doing this with alternate picking technique is pretty easy actually.
Plus (and also very importantly):
It’s fun.
Here are three ways to laser-focus on your alternate picking technique while practicing to increase your speed and get better faster:
Get Better Rhythmic Timing Using This Unique Metronome Practice Method
Playing specific note rhythms while alternate picking is a great way to force your mind to focus on what your hand is doing and bring the two together.
This results in cleaner, more accurate playing.
Contrast this to practicing speed picking by simply picking an open string as fast as you can.
Although this can be helpful, it involves much less focus and is less likely to take your picking technique to a higher level.
Try this practice approach to improve your rhythmic timing, pick more precisely and make massive improvement to your picking technique:
Open recording software and set your metronome to moderate-fast speed, but not too fast.
2.
Record yourself picking a single note using 16th
note rhythms for 8 measures.
3.
Using the software you recorded with, erase one
or two measures one-after-the-other.
4. Record a separate track by waiting for the empty measures and playing the missing notes. Then go back and listen to the recording to see that you were in time and everything lines up perfectly.
Repeat this process while increasing the tempo of your metronome and using different rhythms such as triplets. After a while, your speed picking becomes very focused and precise.
Practice For Consistency Through Timed Repetition
Speed picking for just a second or two sounds cool, but being able to speed pick the same note for 10, 15, 30 seconds? That’s incredibly consistent and tight technique!
Most guitarists are only able to pick for a few seconds before they lose control and become inconsistent or out of time.
Use this practice approach to give yourself incredible consistency while alternate picking at fast speeds:
Use speed picking to alternate pick a note for 10 seconds straight. Focus on making every pick stroke even and precise without falling out of time.
Repeat this until you play in perfect time for the entire duration.
Next, increase the time to 15 seconds.
Repeat this process and make it your goal to gradually make fewer and fewer mistakes for a given amount of time each week.
This makes your progress trackable, so you know exactly how much progress you are making.
Improve Your Ability To Go From Stationary To Full-Speed In An Instant
Most guitar players find it much easier to tremolo pick after they’ve already been picking notes than to tremolo pick instantly with no build-up.
Training yourself to go from zero to 100 with speed picking
gives you tremolo technique that is a step above everyone else.
It also gives you the ability to pick with greater consistency and command.
Use these practice ideas to get alternate picking speed that you can access in an instant:
·
Speed pick in quick bursts. For example, set
your metronome to a specific tempo, then speed pick a quick triplet burst on
the first beat of every measure.
·
Mix in speed picking at different points during
your regular scale or arpeggio practice. Then do the same during guitar phrases
or licks you regularly play.
· While practicing for consistency (mentioned in the previous point), pick the first few notes with a lot of force.
After using the advice in this article, you are nearly guaranteed to increase your alternate picking speed by a lot in a short amount of time.
However, this is just one aspect of increasing your guitar speed.