How To Easily Play Fast Metal Guitar Licks That You’ve Been Struggling With For A Long Time
Nothing feels better than finally being able to play that fast metal guitar lick you always wanted to play, but struggled with for so long. There are several ways to speed up this process so you save countless hours of frustration and enjoy practicing much more.
Here are 3 creative ways to practice fast metal guitar licks to quickly master them and become a better guitarist in the process:
Perfect Any Metal Guitar Lick 3 Notes At A Time Using 3-Note Sequences
Practicing in sequences not only sounds cool, it helps you break down difficult metal licks into small chunks that are easier to manage. This helps you fix mistakes you may have missed before without becoming overwhelmed (by trying to fix everything at once).
Play through the short lick below:
Instead of trying to play the whole thing (repeating the entire lick over and over), play through it in sequences of 3.
For example:
Etc.
However, focus on one sequence of 3 at a time until you are able to play it perfectly. Play through it several times continuously and fix the mistakes you notice before moving onto the next sequence.
To challenge yourself more (and get bigger benefit in your playing), practice playing the most difficult parts of the sequence using all upstrokes. This makes playing it like normal feel much easier.
Want to learn more ways to get rid of sloppy guitar playing mistakes? Check out this free guitar playing resource to learn how to make your guitar playing clean and consistent.
Play Flawless Sweep Picking Arpeggio Licks By Speeding Up Your Mental Processing Ability
Sweep picking arpeggios are some of the coolest sounding metal guitar licks you can play. They can also be incredibly frustrating when you aren’t able to play them cleanly using good timing or separate the notes so they don’t bleed together.
Need to strengthen your basic sweep picking technique? Check out these sweep picking resources to get started playing arpeggios right away. When you’re ready, continue on reading below…
Speeding up your ability to mentally process notes helps you slow down what you are playing in your head to fix difficult challenges.
Apply the steps below with this metal guitar lick example to learn how to clean up arpeggios with faster note processing:
Step One: Break the arpeggio lick down into 2-3 note groups.
Step Two: Play through the first group at your max speed 10 times, while pausing for a moment after each repetition to process if any mistakes occurred.
Step Three: Play through the same group of notes 10 times while double-picking each note (playing it twice).
Step Four: Play through the same group of notes 10 times while tremolo picking each note.
Step Five: Move onto the next group of notes and repeat steps two through four. Do this until you’ve played through all note groupings.
After you’ve gone through these steps, it becomes much easier to process the precise movements your hands are making at fast speeds. You are able to hear mistakes much more clearly and pinpoint the adjustments you need to make to correct them.
Play through the entire metal guitar lick example like normal and watch as you improved greatly in just a matter of 20 minutes or so.
Play Badass Rhythm Guitar Riffs By Tightening Them Up With Creative Practice
A lot of guitar players struggle to play fast metal guitar riffs that sound great. This is because many never learn how to correct subtle mistakes that cause riffs to sound sloppy.
Break the riff below into 3 note sequences and perform the following actions to make it tight:
Play with palm muting on the open string notes. As you do this, make sure to consistently palm mute in the same spot with your picking hand. Make sure that unmuted notes are clearly distinct from muted notes (there is no blending together).
Focus closely on playing each note with the same force. Listen for any differences in the sound of notes that are played with inconsistent force. For example: playing the open E string with a lot of power sounds very different than playing it weak (even though it is the same note).
Watch this rhythm guitar playing video to learn how to identify more mistakes and apply what you learn to the riff above:
After playing the note sequences using the actions above, play the entire riff and see how it sounds. It should be tighter and feel much easier to play consistently clean.
Using the three concepts in this article helps you play fast metal guitar licks cleaner than ever before. Apply what you’ve learned to any lick you are working on and feel what it’s like to finally play it exactly as it should sound.
Want to learn more ways to make your metal guitar playing sound amazing? Download this free guitar playing guide to learn 5 easy tricks that make your metal guitar playing sound better in no time.