How To Develop Killer Speed Picking Technique For Fast, Clean And Consistent Guitar Playing

It’s a myth that developing tons of speed in your picking technique has to take many years of practicing for 5 hours a day. Good news is, practicing effectively helps you pick with incredible speed that you never was thought possible… and it doesn’t take much time at all!

There are many great guitar practice routines for increasing speed picking technique. Here is a great one:

Guitar Picking Speed & Endurance Development Training

One of the most underrated skills that improves speed picking technique is endurance. Training yourself to pick fast continuously for a long time helps you remain consistent so your playing sounds pro.

For example:

Guitarists with weak picking endurance can be identified by a tremolo technique that sounds inconsistent.
Guitarists with strong picking endurance can be identified by a tremolo technique that remains fast and never wavers/slows down.

One way to improve your speed picking endurance and consistency is to practice picking a note and gradually increasing your speed.

Repeat the open string exercises below 5 times (you don’t have to match the exact note rhythms, just focus on gradually speeding up):

At first you may notice inconsistency in your pick attack. This is fine. Smooth out your picking attack by doing the following:

Use the gradual speeding up approach until you reach your max speed. Then continue picking at that speed for 10 seconds. After 10 seconds, slow all the way back down.

Use this as a way to train your endurance by varying how long you remain at your top speed and by using a variety of picking attacks (besides strict alternate picking). This helps you speed pick for longer without making mistakes and helps you quickly warm up before practice.

Result: Clean guitar playing while speed picking.

Here is another excellent exercise that helps you practically apply your picking speed into music:

Guitar Picking Technique Integration Practice

It’s a common mistake for guitarists to isolate all their techniques from each other. This results in not being able to use them musically (which is the whole point of learning them!).

Speed picking technique should be used only for tremolo picked runs. Integrate it together with other aspects of your guitar playing to make it feel natural in anything you play.

Here is a fun and cool-sounding way to integrate speed picking technique into other areas of your playing so it feels effortless to play fast in any musical situation:

Quickly play through the short scale lick in the tab below:

This lick consists of notes picked as normal combined with tremolo picking at the end. Adding speed picking to the end like this gives the lick much more intensity and helps you quickly transition from a slower picking rate to a really fast one (a skill most guitarists never master).

Practice this lick for several minutes by applying the tremolo picking to the last note. Then practice it by choosing a new note to add tremolo picking to. This forces your mind to stop and adjust in the middle of the lick, helping you integrate speed picking into it more fluently.

Next, speed pick a total of 2 notes. Continue in this way until they entire lick is played using speed picking technique.

Now that you understand this concept, use it to add speed picking to any other guitar lick you want to play. Before you know it, your speed picking technique becomes consistent and locked-in!

Here is a unique training exercise to help you pick with speed and clarity like never before:

Guitar Picking Technique Power & Articulation Development

Speed picking technique sounds weak when you use little force to pick the notes… and most guitarists pick this way! Not only does this give your playing a weaker overall tone, but it makes you more likely to pick inconsistently because you are unable to hear mistakes as easily.

Picking notes with tons of power sounds great, makes the notes more clear and helps you understand when you need to improve your picking consistency or correct other mistakes specific to the lick you’re playing.

Begin mastering a powerful picking attack by using the same “gradual increase” approach mentioned above in this article:

Practice slowly increasing the power with which you pick notes until you are at your max power. At first do this by only playing slower notes (and focusing exclusively on power). Then combine both an increase in power AND speed as demonstrated in the tab.

These concepts are easy to understand, require little practice and really improve your speed picking!

All of the ideas in this article take only 5-10 minutes to practice and can be used as a warm up before a practice session or independently on their own. This means your speed picking technique quickly improves by practicing them for just a few minutes each day!

Want to learn more ways to quickly become a faster guitar player? Check out this free guitar speed resource and learn how to double your guitar speed in half the practice time.