How To Improve Your Guitar Speed Using Creative Technique Integration Practice
Improving your guitar speed isn’t just about playing something as fast as possible by itself. For example: burning up and down a scale at 200 beats per minute. Having excellent command over your speed means being able to use it in real musical situations, such as:
·
Improvising lead guitar phrases or
· Writing guitar solos
You increase your guitar speed and become a much better musician by integrating different skills together during practice (in addition to working on the in isolation from each other).
Good news is, this is very fun and you don’t have to fully master any particular skill before integrating it together with another.
Use these practices ideas to get started improving your guitar speed right away using integration:Idea #1: Get Better At Soloing With Speed Over Any Chord
Playing fast and great-sounding guitar solos is easy once you learn how to combine scales together with chords in an effortless manner. There are many ways to practice this. One great way to do it is to practice just a few notes of a scale at a time together with a chord that begins on the first note of the scale.
For example, follow these steps:
1. Play an open E minor chord several times.
2. Immediately after playing it, improvise several phrases using the first 5 notes (only) of an E minor scale.
3. Play the open E minor chord again as in the first step.
4. Improvise again, creating new phrases using the E minor scale.
The more you do this, the more you begin to get a feel for creating phrases that quickly move between chords and single note melodies.
As this process becomes easier, work on adding inversions of chords and new chords as well. Focus on trying to make the chords feel part of the phrase until both blend together smoothly.
Idea #2: Master Using Any Technique In A Musical Way Using A Laser-Focus Approach
Learning how to use every guitar skill you have in a musical manner makes your playing more self-expressive and engaging for people listening to you play. Doing this transforms your guitar speed and technical skills into emotional, memorable music.
Make your technical skills more musical by focusing on specific techniques while improvising.
Start by playing just a few notes at a time, to help you focus more on the technique without becoming overwhelmed.
Here are some ideas to help you get started:
Bend from out an of scale pitch to in-scale pitch
-Use many variations of vibrato from subtle, narrow vibrato to the heavy and fast vibrato seen in this video:-Practice using slides creatively by sliding into a note and away from it
-Create short phrases using tremolo picking
-Play with palm muted and unmuted notes
-Us pinch harmonics on some notes
-Restrict yourself to using tapping only and try to make a memorable melody
-Play with a focus on double stops
Idea #3: Use Different Guitar Techniques In Different Positions
It’s easy to fall into the trap of only playing certain patterns in specific areas of the fretboard (limiting your creative potential in the process).
For example: you always begin and end an A Minor scale on the 5th fret of the low E string or always play the same arpeggio pattern in the same position.
Breaking this habit helps you use your guitar speed more creatively by challenging yourself to adapt and think outside-of-the-box.
Below are some ways to challenge yourself to get your playing to the next level.
Choose any scale (only one octave for now) you know and do the following:
1. Practice playing the pattern by beginning on each string. For example, begin playing the pattern on the low E string, A string, D string, G string, etc.
2. Familiarize yourself with the modal patterns in close positions to the scale you are playing. For example, if you are playing A major starting on the 12th fret of the A string, closeby modal patterns are G# Locrian and B Dorian. These patterns use the same notes, they just begin on a different fret.
Learning just one or two modal patterns gives you many more options to help you begin memorizing the fretboard, so you are not confined to the same positions over and over.
Choose any arpeggio you know and do the following:
1. Practice playing the arpeggio by beginning on each string. For example, begin playing the pattern on the low E string, A string, D string, G string, etc.
2. Practice the arpeggio in different inversions and different positions.
3. Practice combining arpeggios together with scales to make them flow together like in this video:Determine which of these practice approaches you need more work on, then schedule time to work on them specifically to get the best results.
Learn more about how to become a super-fast guitar player while cutting your practice time in half using this resource on how to double your guitar speed.