The Best Speed Picking Technique For Fast Guitar Playing That Feels Effortless

Want to develop amazing speed picking technique that melts faces and makes all your guitar playing friends jealous? Most guitarists focus only on alternate picking as fast as they can… but this is NOT the best technique to practice for insane speed.

The best speed picking technique needs to be one that makes fast guitar playing feel easy and effortless whether you are playing a single string lick or a scale run across the fretboard.

It needs to help you develop multiple guitar skills at once so practicing it helps you make faster progress in less time.

So what kind of technique helps you do these things?

Answer: Guitar picking technique that uses motion as efficiently as possible.

Apply the following guidelines to your picking technique from now on to make playing guitar with speed much easier:

  1. Use alternate picking whenever you remain on a single string

  2. Whenever you move from one string to another, do the following:
  • Use an upstroke while moving from a thinner string to a thicker one

  • Use a downstroke while moving from a thicker string to a thinner one
  1. While moving from one string to another, always maintain your picking momentum. In other words, use a sweep picking/strumming motion.

The tab below demonstrates a scale that uses these guidelines to pick efficiently:

Efficient Guitar Picking With Scales

Play through the scale 4 notes at a time at a slower speed to get used to the way it feels. While transitioning between strings, do not use two separate downstrokes. Instead combine these together into ONE big downstroke performed in a sweeping manner.


Using Efficient Guitar Picking Technique Helps You Play Notes More Clearly With Tons Of Power

One of the most underestimated guitar skills is being able to play with power. Using a powerful picking attack makes your notes more clear, giving you a kickass tone that sets you apart from other players who pick with a weak attack.

Efficient speed guitar picking technique helps you articulate notes with power due to the natural movement of the pick from one string to the next.

Pay closer attention to the scale you just played. Notice how it is much easier to pick with power when you play the notes in the transition from the string to string. This is because you do not break the picking motion (as is done using conventional alternate picking).

Emphasize the transitional notes using extra power. This smoothly connects each string to the next making the notes of the scale sound clear and awesome.

Practice adding power to every note in the scale by starting with the notes of the string transitions and adding one note at a time, like indicated below by each color:

Doing this helps you fix mistakes one note at a time so you don’t feel overwhelmed. After completing this exercise, you play the notes of any guitar lick cleanly, clearly and with killer tone!

You Also Naturally Lock Both Hands Together, Making Clean Playing Easier Than Ever

Having both hands locked in perfect sync means you fret a note at the exact moment that you pick the string. This is the key to making fast guitar playing feel easy… yet tons of guitarists never work on this skill! Fortunately, efficient picking technique helps you do this.

Picking efficiently forces you to focus more closely on what your hands are doing. This helps you mentally process what you are playing better than if you mindlessly use alternate picking to play everything regardless of how inefficient it is.

Having your hands locked together makes fast guitar playing feel easy. Read this article about playing guitar clean to learn more about locking your hands together in perfect sync for effortless guitar speed.

Practicing With Efficient Guitar Picking Technique Improves Other Cool Guitar Skills

Practicing efficiently is the key to making fast progress on guitar in a short period of time. Think about it: if you only had 30 minutes to practice guitar each day, would you rather improve in 1 area or 5 areas in that time? Using efficient picking technique helps you do the latter.

The following video explains how practicing efficiently leads to massive progress in your guitar playing:

Using efficient picking technique helps you improve several skills at once such as:

  • Sweep picking

  • Picking technique integration

  • Picking articulation

  • Two-hand synchronization

  • Mental processing speed

This helps you get more benefit from your guitar practice, meaning you make faster progress in less time.

So how do you practice it?

How To Effortlessly Transition From Your Current Picking Approach To A Much More Efficient Approach Without Taking Your Skills Down To Zero And Starting Over

It’s common for guitar players to feel discouraged when they discover a more efficient guitar picking technique because they think they must start over like a beginner. This is not the case.

Making your picking technique more efficient doesn’t have to happen overnight. It’s easy to transition from your current picking approach to a better one over time by practicing just a little each day. This way you see yourself progressing little by little and become more and more motivated as playing cleanly with speed becomes easier.

One way to transition seamlessly to a more efficient guitar picking approach is to practice for just 10 minutes per day using it. Play normally for the rest of the time.

Then after one week increase the time you practice it to 20 minutes. Continue like this until using efficient guitar picking technique is your default approach. This way you gradually improve your technique gradually without feeling like a total beginner by starting over.

Want to learn how to become a faster guitarist in 50% less time? Check out this free guitar speed eBook and learn lesser-known practice techniques for becoming an insanely fast guitarist while practicing less.