The Top 4 Reasons Why You Can't Play Guitar Fast & What To Do About It

No matter who you are, it will be a struggle to play guitar fast, clean and effortlessly when you make the common mistakes most players make.

It’s true:

Some of the most common guitar speed practice and technique mistakes add years of time onto how long it takes to get faster.

Frustrating!

Good news is, you don’t have go through this.

These are the 4 reasons why you can’t play guitar fast like you want to and what to do about it to get faster in no time:

Reason #1: Practicing Inefficiently And Ineffectively

This means practicing the wrong things, practicing the wrong way or any combination thereof.

The majority of guitarists may even practice the right things, but just not enough or in a way that brings limited results at best.

Even more guitarists practice mindlessly by simply spending too much time “noodling around” and not enough time really practicing to get better.

Here are some tips to help you become a faster guitarist in less time by making your guitar practice more efficient and effective:

1. Practice things that help you improve multiple skills at once to get more from less time spent, like this:

2. Practice in short bursts of time, such as 15-20 minutes rather than many hours long sessions. This way, you maintain focus and motivation throughout the entire session.

3. Plan out your guitar practice schedule several days or more in advance based on your specific musical goals (not just random items).

Reason #2: Focusing On Moving Your Hands Fast Instead Of Efficient

Contrary to popular belief, moving your hands faster does not equate to faster speed.

Sad, but true!

What does?

Using efficient movement/economy of motion.

Great, now how do you do this?

Focus on your picking hand efficiency:

For example, while tremolo picking get faster using efficient motion like this:

Move smoothly from string to string without wasting motion in your pick attack. This is critical for playing clean at superfast speeds. Here’s how to do it:

Make your fretting hand more efficient:

Keep your fretting hand fingers close to the strings. Try not to move them up and away from the strings by more than a couple of inches in between notes.

Don’t fret notes with more pressure than is necessary (more on this in the next point)…

Reason #3: Using Too Much Force While Fretting

Using a lot more pressure than necessary to fret the strings leads to slower, sloppier (and potentially painful) guitar playing. Using just the right amount of force helps you play notes clearly without wasting any energy in the process.

This makes fast guitar playing feel much easier and effortless.

How do you know “just the right amount” of pressure needed to fret notes?

This video explains how:

Reason #4: Not Having A Teacher

Sometimes guitarists unsuccessfully spend years trying to increase their speed when they could’ve already reached their goals in a matter of months (or weeks).

This is where having a great guitar teacher comes in.

Working with a guitar teacher helps you not only reach your guitar playing goals faster, but helps you correct mistakes you wouldn’t see on your own and learn effective ways to practice that you would’ve never thought of.