How To Play Fast Solos On Electric Guitar Like A Pro

Love listening to amazing shred guitar players?

Wish you could play like they do?

Want to impress everyone with your kickass guitar speed and technique during solos?

Good. Let’s get to work!

It’s much less difficult than you think to play fast guitar solos that sound pro. You just need to pay attention to the habits of great players and learn from what they do.

Here are 5 ways to play fast electric guitar solos like the pros by identifying the things they do that set them apart from everyone else:

Do This: Start Muting Effectively In BOTH Hands

Using palm muting to get rid of unwanted guitar string noise isn’t enough to give you fast and clean guitar solos at a professional level.

Why?

Palm muting is just one aspect of muting for the picking hand (and in fact not even the best way to mute for this hand!).

Excellent string muting requires efficient muting in both hands.

Without proper muting in both hands, playing fast and clean becomes a struggle!

Here’s what to do to clean up any fast guitar solo (when it comes to unwanted string noises):

Use your picking hand thumb to mute any unplayed string below the one you are playing.

Use the side of your index finger to mute the strings above the one you are on by lightly laying it on unplayed strings.

These two simple actions prevent the overwhelming majority of unwanted string noise from sounding. For additional protection, use any free fingers on your picking hand to lightly touch higher strings than the one you are playing.

Practice paying close attention to proper muting and eventually it will become second nature.

Do This: Make Everything In Your Technique More Efficient

Slow and sloppy guitar playing is often caused by a lack of efficiency.

The more efficiently you move while picking and fretting notes, the more potential speed you have.

Here is how to make your picking and fretting hands much more efficient:

Watch this demonstration of speed picking technique to see how to make your picking hand efficient:

While fretting notes, make sure to use only as much pressure as needed to get the note to sound. Find this by playing a note and gradually lessening the amount of pressure being used until the note becomes unclear. Just a bit more pressure than this is the sweet spot.

Also watch for how far you bring your fingers away from the guitar while fretting a new note. Try to keep your fingers no more than a couple inches away from the strings.

If you bring them too far away, invest a few minutes each day into slowly practicing while keeping your fingers closer. Over time you will begin to do this naturally.

Do This: Make Every Minute Of Your Practice Time Count

It’s simple: practice efficiently and effectively to make massive progress in no time.

Yet so many guitar players practice aimlessly and get minimal results from their efforts.

These are some powerful ways to make every moment of your practice time count so you are able to quickly transform your skills to play faster and cleaner than ever:

*Have a purposeful practice schedule based on short, medium and long term goals. Make sure you are progressing towards them ever day, even if it’s just a little bit.

*Find ways to practice multiple skills at once to rocket propel your progress. This video explains how to do it:

Do This: Learn From Your Favorite Guitar Players’ Music

It’s super-common for guitarists to learn the solos and licks of their favorite players.

However…

You get so much more benefit from this activity by turning these solos and licks into lessons you can learn from instead of just trying to play the right notes.

Start using your favorite guitar solos and licks to get faster and cleaner by:

· Looking for the specific skills being used during a particular solo or lick. Is this relevant to your guitar playing practice goals? If so, add it into your routine.

· Learning a specific guitar lick, then creating tons of variations of it by improvising with different rhythms or techniques. This improves your phrasing and creativity.

· Watching them perform and practicing performing using similar moves. Performance is an often neglected skill, but is a major factor for taking your guitar playing to the highest level.

Do This: Apply Everything You Learn Into Music

The more you apply techniques, exercises or patterns into actual music, the more useable they become.

Result: You don’t just master playing exercises or licks in isolation – you’re able to improvise creatively and expressively with any of your skills whenever you want.

Start applying your skills into music using these easy practice approaches:

· Practice everything by making it musical. For example, practice scales by improvising with them using many different techniques in addition to simply playing the patterns.

· Improvise to a backing track that uses a single chord, multiple chords or multiple instruments to apply your skills in different musical situations.

· Practice guitar phrasing using any exercise you practice by trying to make 3 notes of it sound as amazing as possible using any technique or rhythm without changing the notes.

Now you know some of the critical practice approaches to use to make your guitar playing sound as good as the pros. Apply these into your everyday practice and watch your skills go through the roof, fast!

Want to learn even more ways to become a faster, better guitar player in less time? Use these guitar practice ideas.