Speed Picking Guitar Lesson: How To Play Guitar Faster And Cleaner Than Ever Before
Playing killer speed picking guitar licks is easy when you understand how to practice effectively. Effective practice involves training yourself to pick with consistency, articulation and power to make playing with speed with effortless.
Apply the concepts of this speed picking guitar lesson into your playing right away to quickly develop lightning-fast guitar playing:
Creative Tremolo Technique Practice For Lightning-Fast Speed picking
Tremolo picking technique instantly adds tons of speed and intensity into any guitar lick. Practicing this technique creatively not only makes anything you play sound fast, but helps you pick more consistently and clearly.
Use the following exercises to develop lightning-fast guitar picking using tremolo:
Speed picking Exercise 1:
Step One: This example contains one octave of a minor scale. Play through it several times using the indicated picking approach.
Note: While transitioning from string to string, do not break the momentum of the downstroke. This keeps your hands in sync and makes playing fast effortless using efficient movement in your picking hand.
Step Two: Use tremolo picking to play the first note of the scale. Then play the remaining notes using the indicated picking approach.
If needed, insert a brief moment of rest between the tremolo-picked note and the second note of the scale (to make it easier to use the right picking direction). This helps you fluently integrate tremolo picking speed together with a normal picking approach.
Result: picking faster in common musical situations becomes easier and you articulate notes better (so they sound clearly).
Step Three: Use tremolo picking to play the first and second note of the scale. Then play the remaining notes using the indicated picking approach.
Step Four: Repeat this process until tremolo picking is used for every note in the scale.
Step Five: Play the scale starting by using tremolo picking on the last note only. Then work your way backwards in the same manner used in the other steps.
Speed picking Exercise 2:
Repeat the same process used in exercise one, but by using a descending version of the scale (with the opposite picking directions as notated).
Speed picking Exercise 3:
Now apply tremolo picking to two notes in the scale that you choose ahead of time. This helps you gain the ability to instantly play with speed at the drop of a hat. Repeat this process several times, then choose two different notes to apply tremolo to.
Insane Power Picking Technique To Play Fast Notes More Clearly
Playing with a weak picking attack opens the door for sloppy mistakes to creep into your guitar playing. Playing with a powerful picking attack makes everything you play sound clear and purposeful. It also reveals inconsistencies in your picking technique so you know what to fix to play faster!
This video shows you why picking strings with power is crucial for fast and clean guitar playing and how to increase your power with no effort:
If you are using more power to play notes, you may begin missing notes because your hands are not in synchronization. When you return to picking with normal power, it becomes much easier to play fast and in sync (making your playing cleaner).
Practice using extra picking power for just 5-10 minutes per day until it becomes your default approach. As a result, your speed guitar picking technique becomes cleaner over time.
Effective Speed picking Circuit Training Practice
Practicing guitar using circuit training is an incredibly efficient way to make tons of progress in less time. Circuit training simply means practicing various skills one after the other in short intervals.
Use this guitar practice circuit to improve your speed picking in no time:
Start by choosing any short guitar lick or practice item you want to improve, then follow the steps below.
Step One: Practice the lick using only upstrokes for 1 minute. The immediately move to the next step.
Step Two: Practice the lick using only downstrokes for 1 minute. The immediately move to the next step.
Step Three: Practice the lick using only tremolo picking for 1 minute. The immediately move to the next step.
Step Four: Practice the lick using a powerful picking attack on the first and last note only for 1 minute. The immediately move to the next step.
Step Five: Practice the lick using a powerful picking attack on every note for 1 minute. The immediately move to the next step.
Step Six: Rest for 1 minute, then repeat the circuit.
Repeat this circuit for a total of 3 times and in under 20 minutes your speed picking improves massively (plus whatever lick you were practicing becomes cleaner).
Want to learn more ways to quickly improve your speed guitar picking technique as well as any technique you want to get better at? Read this guitar practice article to learn another practice circuit to apply into your practice approach right away for fast results.