How To Get Faster On Guitar Using 3 Killer Shortcuts

Been struggling to play guitar fast and clean for a long time with no major progress? So many guitarists run into this problem, and it is definitely one of the most frustrating situations you can end up in…


However:


There exist 3 amazing shortcuts that help you get faster on guitar quickly while minimizing the frustration that comes from slow progress.

What are they?


They are 3 concepts based on efficiency, tension relaxation and musical application.


Learn what they are and how to use them here:

Get Faster On Guitar With Efficiency


It’s nearly impossible to play guitar at super-fast speeds while staying clean when your technique is inefficient.

Unfortunately, tons of guitarists never learn how to use efficient motion in their hands and end up leaving tons of speed on the table.


Fortunately, it’s not hard to learn how to become more efficient.

 

Here are several ways to improve your picking hand efficiency:


·         Eliminate extra movement in your picking stroke by keeping it in a direct line as you pick through the string (think “vertically”).

·         Use thumb muting by muting strings below the one you are playing with your thumb.

·         Use small motions while tremolo picking to ensure that the pick strikes the string as many times as possible in a given period of time.


This video shows you how to play guitar scales faster using efficient picking technique:

Here are several ways to improve your fretting hand efficiency:


·         Always look for fretting hand finger positions that use the least amount of movement possible. For example: look for how to do this in scale patterns while moving from one string to the next.

·         Minimize how high your fingers are lifted away from the fretboard when they are not playing notes.

Use rolling technique to play notes that are on the same fret of two adjacent strings, like in the video below:

Get Faster On Guitar By Relaxing Tension


Playing guitar with tons of tension in your body makes it much harder to play fast and clean.


This applies not just to your hands/fingers, but your entire body.


Investing just a few minutes into practicing relaxing tension each has big benefits for your guitar speed.


For just five minutes per day, do the following:


1. Choose any guitar exercise you want to practice.


2. Choose only 3-5 notes from the exercise.


3. Play the notes continuous with a second of silence in between each repetition. As you do this, focus on relaxing tension in each of these areas before moving onto the next:


·         Neck

·         Back

·         Chest

·         Shoulders

·         Arms

·         Wrists

·         Fretting hand fingers (use as little pressure as needed to play the notes)

·         Picking hand fingers

 

Get Faster On Guitar By Applying What You Know Into Music


Common mistake: practicing guitar exercises outside of any musical context and expecting your speed to translate to soloing/improvisation.


Don’t do this!


Practicing a scale pattern up and down over and over only helps you play it in isolation. Trying to then play it during a solo will surprise you when you discover that your usable speed in a musical context is much less than your max speed in general.


Practice applying everything you learn into a musical context in addition to mastering it in isolation.


Here are a few ideas for how to do this:


·         Improvise freely for a few minutes with every practice item you are working on (scales, arpeggios, techniques, etc.)

·         Work on improving your guitar phrasing in addition to technique

·         Combine different techniques together to make your own exercises, such as arpeggios with scales, scales with vibrato or tapping and arpeggios


You now have three very powerful concepts to help you increase your guitar speed quickly. However, did you know that you can both practice less and gain speed faster? It’s true! Learn how to do it by checking out this guitar speed practice resource.