3 Keys To Making Your Legato Guitar Technique Better For Speed & Accuracy
Right now, your legato guitar technique is slower and less accurate than it should be.
Changing this is not very difficult though!
Most guitar players play legato in a way that slows them down and makes it more difficult to play the licks they want.
There are 3 simple keys to playing with insane legato that transform your technique and quickly bring you up to pro level skills.
Watch this video, then study the points below to master the 3 keys:Legato Technique Key #1: Use Your Fingertips To Play Notes
Legato is difficult to play with precision and accuracy when you do not use the tip of your fingers to play notes.
What does “not using the tip of your fingers” mean?
Fretting notes with the soft padding of your fingers.
This is common bad habit guitarists get into that makes guitar playing less efficient.
Here’s a simple exercise to make sure you always fret notes on your fingertips:
1.
Choose any legato guitar lick or exercise.
2.
Play just the first few notes of the lick at a
slower speed. As you do this, make sure you are playing on the tips of your
fingers consistently. Do this 10 times in a row.
3.
Now, play the same notes at the normal (faster)
speed, while paying attention to fretting with your fingertips. Do this 10
times in a row.
4. Continue adding more notes from the lick using this process until you’ve played the whole lick.
This doesn’t take long and helps you quickly develop consistent fretting hand technique that always uses your fingertips.
Legato Technique Key #2: Pull Off With Speed, Not Power
Playing fast and clean legato guitar technique is about speed, not power.
But wait, this doesn’t mean what you think.
This doesn’t mean to just play legato guitar runs as fast as possible.
Instead:
It means to limit the amount of time your fingers are in contact with the string, so while pulling off a note your momentum allows you to perfectly plays the note.
Think of this like snapping your fingers (as mentioned in the video):
Using a lot of power doesn’t necessarily create the “snap” sound – it’s the combination of a little power and quickly pulling off from your thumb with your index finger that creates it.
As you perform a pull-off, think of this concept explicitly in your head. Eventually, you’ll find that your pull-offs and hammer-ons feel more crisp and sound better.
Start applying this idea now using this simple lick. Use legato to play the notes:
Legato Technique Key #3: Only Put Your Fingers Down To Play Note When Needed
It’s a massive waste of energy and motion to keep your fingers on the fretboard when you are not playing notes with them.
This happens commonly when:
You play a legato guitar run where notes need to be pulled off, so you keep your fingers prepared on notes below the one you are playing.
What is the problem her exactly?
It requires much more effort to keep your fingers on the fretboard, then lift them up to put them down again to play a new note than it does to simply put your finger down to play a note whenever it is needed.
At fast speeds, this causes a slight delay that throws off your timing to cause sloppiness.
Train yourself to only fret notes when needed by using this exercise:
Using all legato to play the simple lick below, watch your fretting hand carefully to ensure that you are only fretting a note when it is being played.
Focus on keeping any fingers note playing notes within an inch or so, so they are ready to play, but not wasting energy by actually fretting.
The ideas in this article help you massively improve your legato guitar technique.
However, there are ways to not only improve it and make it faster, but make it two times faster while practicing less!
Sound intriguing?
Thought so!
Learn how to speed up your guitar playing in no time using this resource about how to play guitar faster.