Fast Guitar Speed Exercise Tips And Lessons That All Shredders Need To Learn

Looking for guitar speed exercises, tips and lessons to help you become a super-fast guitarist?


Look no further.


There are several critical pieces of advice that all shredders need to know and apply in order to play fast, clean and effortlessly.


Learning them for yourself saves you tons of time and effort that would otherwise be spent aimlessly searching for tabs or licks online and staying stuck at your current level.


Use this advice and apply the lessons within it while practicing any guitar speed exercise to get the best results possible:

Make Playing Guitar With Speed Effortless By Focusing On Efficiency


When you watch some of the greatest shredders of all time, do they seem like they are struggling to play fast?


No.


They play with what seems like easy speed as they shred through notes one after the other.


This isn’t just a look, it’s about having efficient motion that allows for effortless speed.


There are many ways to make your guitar playing speed efficient.


Let’s talk about a few right now so you can apply these concepts into your playing ASAP.


 

Stop moving your hands faster in order to “play faster.”


Focus on small, efficient movements like demonstrating in this speed picking video:

Don’t use alternate picking to play everything.


Pay attention to the motion of your picking technique to reduce unneeded movement and make speed feel easier, like shown in this video:

Only fret notes as needed. You don’t need to “prepare” to fret a note ahead of time by pre-fretting it.


This only wastes energy. This video shows why it is important to avoid this approach:

Use only as much tension in your fretting hand as is needed to fret a note… and no more.


This makes playing guitar fast feel infinitely more effortless. This video shows you how to easily practice this:

Make Sure Your Guitar Speed Exercises Help You Fix Actual Problems (And Aren’t Just Things That Are Easy To Play)


It’s easy to fall into the habit of practicing things on guitar that are fun or easy to do. However, this isn’t always the right choice to move your guitar playing forward.


Challenging yourself and practicing to correct your mistakes is key for taking your speed to the next level.

 

Don’t Overdo It By Practicing Mindlessly


Mindless guitar practice refers to what we guitarists call “noodling”.


In other words, playing around with no particular goal in mind.


To make your guitar practice effective, you need to minimize this (and/or save it for non-practice time when you are just playing for fun).

What does “overdo it” mean in this context?


When you practice mindlessly it takes up not only your time but your mental space for guitar playing.


This removes your motivation to practice the things you really need to work on.


Make every moment of your guitar practice count by planning your schedule ahead of time and sticking to it.


 

Make Your Speed As Musical As Possible


Don’t just practice for pure speed on guitar!


Learning how to use your speed in musically creative ways achieves the goal of expressing yourself on guitar and having the ability to showcase your skills!

Not only that…


But it’s fun to practice combining your speed with musical contexts.


What are some ways to do this?


Here are a few:


·         Practice scales and arpeggios by improvising with a few notes at a time in addition to normal practice

·         Combine arpeggios and scales together by finding arpeggio patterns within scale patterns, then improvising with them

·         Improvise often (add this into your practice routine)

·         Focus on using speed as an expressive tool by creating a short melodic phrase, then improvising ways to connect slower notes with fast runs


Finally, check out this free guide to learn how to play musically expressive guitar solos.