How To Get Faster At Guitar Scales Using A Little-Known Tactic That Makes Playing With Speed Feel Effortless
Want to play guitar scales fast and clean? Mastering scales is one of the most fundamental aspects to playing cool guitar solos that sound emotionally expressive. However, simply repeating the scale the same way over and over is NOT the only way to practice them.
It’s easier to get big results and make breakthroughs in your speed when you find ways to practice scales creatively.
Use this exercise to get faster at guitar scales by
challenging yourself to play in new ways you aren’t used to.
This helps you play scales faster and cleaner than ever:
Practice guitar scales using clean settings or acoustic guitar for 10 minutes per day OR as part of a specific practice schedule.
Practicing guitar scales in this manner helps you get faster and cleaner by:
·
Improving synchronization
between both hands while playing guitar, so you fret notes at the exact
moment you pick them.
·
Improving your note articulation, so every note
sounds like a perfect, clear note.
· Making it easier to hear and correct mistakes while playing with distortion.
Exercise #1: Develop Killer Picking Technique For Scales By Balancing Out Your Pick Attack
Most guitar players struggle to play scales fast because their picking attack is weak and unbalanced. Strengthening your picking attack requires improving your upstrokes. Upstrokes are naturally weaker (because they move against gravity), so improving them takes your picking attack to the next level.
Here is one way to get your upstrokes on track so you have a balanced picking attack for playing guitar faster with scales:
For one day, spend 90% of your guitar practice/playing using ONLY upstrokes.
You may need to slow down what you are playing but try to do this as fast as
you can without making too many mistakes.
While playing guitar scales specifically, focus on using upstrokes to create clean, loud and perfect notes.
In the 10% of time you aren’t using only upstrokes, play like normal. You will notice a huge difference as normal picking feels easier already. This huge boost in picking technique feels amazing and gives you momentum to make a big difference in your playing.
After this day, practice upstrokes only as part of your normal practice time, but only for 5-10 minutes. Over just a few weeks’ time, your scales and overall guitar playing become much faster and cleaner than before.
Exercise #2: Lock Your Hands In Sync To Make Fast Guitar Scale Runs Feel Easy
One of the best ways to make playing guitar scales feel easy is using efficient picking technique. Practicing efficient picking technique on clean settings amplifies the results you get to make a massive difference in your playing fast.
You see a huge difference using efficient picking strategies compared to simply using alternate picking for everything.
Exercise #3: Make The Notes Of Your Scales Sound 100% Clearly
People playing fast guitar scales often sacrifice clarity for speed. This makes your scales sound amateur. Developing excellent articulation helps you play every note clearly, so it sounds great whenever you play through a scale.
It’s actually very easy to start playing with more articulation. How do you do it?…
Pick notes with A LOT of power.
Exercise #4: Shred Through The Notes Of Scales With Ease By Working On Lower Frets/Strings
*This exercise applies especially to playing on an acoustic guitar (because of its thicker strings), but also to playing on clean settings with an electric guitar.
Playing on the lower frets and lower strings requires wider movement in your fretting hand fingers and more force to play heavier gauge strings. Focusing your practice on lower frets/strings makes playing in other areas of the guitar much easier.
Regardless of what guitar scale, lick or arpeggio you play, practice it on the lower strings/frets in addition to its normal position. Practicing this for just a few repetitions every time you play something also has the added benefit of helping you adapt more easily when you need to improvise.
Note: If you own multiple guitars, use heavier gauge strings on one of them. This makes playing on the other one feel easier in general.
Exercise #5: Improve Your Ability To Improvise Cool Lead Guitar Ideas With
Scales
Improvising is a great skill to practice in general. Practicing this on clean settings helps you get even better for whenever you play with distortion. This is because playing on clean settings requires you to pick with more force and play more accurately to create notes.
This challenges you to play with more intention behind your note choices. Then, once you switch back to playing with distortion – your guitar phrasing suddenly seems to improve.
Here is a fun and easy way to practice improvising while playing without distortion:
1.
Choose any guitar scale and create 3 short guitar licks from
it (of no more than 5 notes). Keep these licks within the same position. Have
your guitar unplugged or set to clean settings.
2.
Improvise with the first lick you made for 1
minute. Then turn on your distortion/plug into your amp and improvise with it
for another minute.
3. Repeat this for all 3 licks.
This improvisation practice approach helps you solo more creatively with any scale on guitar while also improving your ability to play notes more clearly. This has the added side effect of making faster playing less sloppy as well.