How To Play Blues Guitar Faster And Cleaner Than Ever

Amazing blues guitar players aren’t usually known for also being super clean and fast players too.

However, playing blues clean and fast sounds great too. You don’t need to settle for sloppy playing. And when you can play fast and clean, you set yourself apart from everyone else!

So, what action do you need to take to do it?

Easy.

Apply the advice below to transform your blues guitar playing to make it faster, cleaner and more musically expressive than ever:

Master Muting Technique In Both Hands

Your guitar speed is all for nothing if sloppy string noise is ruining your notes. Just because you are playing blues, does NOT mean it should sound sloppy (unintentionally).

So, how do you get rid of sloppy string noise on guitar?

Answer: You learn how to mute properly in both your fretting and picking hand.

Fretting Hand:

Use the side of your index finger to lightly dampen the strings higher than the one you are playing on, like shown in the image:

Picking Hand:

Forget about palm muting, use the thumb muting approach in this video to mute unplayed strings below the one you are playing on:

Use any free fingers on your picking hand to mute higher strings as well. After picking a string, rest your pick on the adjacent string (whichever direction the pick was moving to).

Train Yourself To Keep Notes From Ringing Together During String Transitions

Another way sloppy noise is created in blues guitar playing is when you are playing a pattern that moves from one string to the next and the first note of the new string rings together with the last note of the prior string.

This prevents the notes from sounding individually (for example: during a scale run).

To clean this up and keep it from ruining your fast guitar runs, isolate the two notes of the transition.

For example: In the short lick below, play only the first 3 notes to begin with. Focus on keeping the note on the 8^th fret from ringing together with the note of the 5^th fret on the next string.

Repeat this many times until the notes do not bleed together at all.

Once this is perfectly clean, continue throughout the lick and apply this practice approach during every string transition (while muting properly as shown earlier).

Use Speed Bursts To Practice Licks At Fast Speeds

Even when you are unable to play an entire blues guitar lick at normal speed start to finish, you can still play some of it at very fast speeds.

Here is a cool trick that is amazing for developing faster guitar speed and practicing to clean up fast licks:

Keep Your Bends And Vibrato In Tune

Playing a nice bend or using vibrato at the end of a speedy guitar lick sounds awesome!

However, it sounds really bad if it’s out of tune.

Keeping your string bending in tune adds a powerful exclamation point to the end of your shredding – making it a skill that should not be overlooked.

Here is how to keep your bends and vibrato in tune:

Practice Combining Different Blues Techniques Together

Playing cool blues licks is a staple for guitar players. Learning how to play different blues guitar techniques together flawlessly puts you a step above the rest.

Here are a few ways to do it:

· Play any double stop and combine it together with 2-3 other notes from a scale in the same fretboard position (such as the pentatonic minor scale)

· Practice a short blues lick for 5 minutes by thinking of as many different ways as you can to play it with vibrato and bending

· Apply speed picking to your bends to make them feel more intense

Now you have a lot of cool ideas to make your blues guitar playing faster, cleaner and more musically expressive.

But this is just the beginning!

Learn many more ways to transform your guitar solos into expressive works of art using this emotional guitar soloing resource.