Guitar Licks For Speed That Makes People Drop Everything & Pay Attention To Your Playing​

Want to gain tons of speed for guitar? Learning new guitar licks for speed is incredibly effective when you know how to use them correctly to improve your technique. This helps you become a faster player and have fun while practicing as you see yourself getting better every day.

Use these simple and fun guitar licks to gain speed and become a much better guitarist in no time:

Play Killer Sweep Picking Arpeggios Clean At Lightning-Speed With This Cool Lick

It’s not true that you must play big, 6-string sweep picking licks to add speed into your guitar playing. Many guitarists make this mistake and resort to playing the same arpeggio pattern over and over (which becomes boring quickly).

Here’s a kickass way to use a simple speed guitar lick to make your playing sound really creative:

Pick through the basic 3-string arpeggio below several times until it feels comfortable:

Guitar-Speed-Picking-Article-1
On its own, the simple pattern might sound too basic. However, adding repeating hammer-ons and pull-offs to the top of the pattern makes it sound both more creative AND intense. Start by repeating the top notes twice like this:

Next, add one more note and move between the two highest notes like this:

Result: You are able to play creative speed guitar licks with any sweep picking arpeggio that are easy, fun and impressive!

This cool idea applies to any guitar lick you can think of. All you need to do is repeat several notes at the end of a pattern/sequence. This transforms anything into a killer speed guitar lick that turns heads!

Make Speed Guitar Playing Feel Smooth And Effortless Using This Creative Scale Lick

Have you ever struggled to play a long scale run fast and clean? For example: you miss notes or your hands don’t feel quite “locked in”. This makes playing guitar with speed feel frustrating, but it doesn’t have to be this way.

Use this simple scale lick and guitar speed advice to make playing fast runs feel effortless:

Any scale guitar lick becomes easy to play fast when you use efficient guitar picking technique and break down the pattern into smaller note groups.

Try this by first playing through the scale below:

Guitar-Speed-Picking-Approach-With-Phrygian-4

Note: while picking through the scale, use the exact pick strokes notated. While transferring from one string to the next, continue the downstroke picking motion like a sweep picking motion. This is critical for maintaining consistent speed!

There are many reasons why playing a scale fast and clean might feel like a struggle. One of the biggest ones is not having your hands in perfect sync together.

By breaking up the scale into smaller note groupings, it’s easier to focus on every movement your hands are making to keep them locked in sync together. The tab below shows you how this works:

Note: while picking through the scale, use the exact pick strokes notated. While transferring from one string to the next, continue the downstroke picking motion like a sweep picking motion. This is critical for maintaining consistent speed!

There are many reasons why playing a scale fast and clean might feel like a struggle. One of the biggest ones is not having your hands in perfect sync together.

By breaking up the scale into smaller note groupings, it’s easier to focus on every movement your hands are making to keep them locked in sync together. The tab below shows you how this works:

Notice how the scale groupings end on the first note of the next string. This helps you isolate the moment when you transfer strings to make it smoother. Practice the scale both ascending and descending.

After using this practice approach, playing guitar scales with speed becomes effortless!

Develop A Faster, Cleaner Picking Attack Using This String Skipping Lick

String skipping is a great technique to practice for making fast guitar playing feel easy whenever you play normally. It helps you lock both hands into perfect synchronization together, so you only fret at note at the exact moment you pick it.

Use this string skipping speed guitar lick to make your fast playing cleaner, so every note sounds great:

Using heavy picking articulation (more power in your picking attack), play through the tab below for 1 minute. Pay attention to the mistakes you make and correct them as much as you can after each repetition.

Use the same approach to play the next part of the speed guitar lick below. Make the lick easier to master by breaking it down into three sections: the first 3-4 notes where the skip occurs, the middle and the last 3-4 notes where the second skip occurs.
Now, play through the entire non-string skipping version of the lick below using a normal amount of picking force. After string skipping and picking with heavy articulation, playing like normal feels much easier.
Guitar-Speed-Picking-Pentatonic-Scales-9

Now you understand that becoming a faster guitarist using speed guitar licks is not just about finding as many licks as possible – it’s about using them to learn concepts that make fast playing easier.

Want to increase your guitar playing speed while practicing 50% less time than you were before? Download this free speed guitar resource and learn how to double your speed using creative practice strategies that most players never learn.