Shred Guitar Speed Exercise Lesson: How To Make Your Guitar Solos Flow Effortlessly From Note To Note

Have you ever been playing a guitar solo or improvising and suddenly you run out of ideas or get lost on the fretboard? Nothing sucks more than having to struggle through a solo like this when everyone is listening!

Good news is, training fretboard visualization gets rid of this frustration and makes your guitar solos flow effortlessly at any speed.

Fretboard visualization means being able to visualize scales, arpeggios and patterns in your head before you every play a note.

Having excellent fretboard visualization gives you more time to think while soloing, so it’s easier to think ahead and know exactly where you want to play next.

Combining shred guitar speed exercises with fretboard visualization is a great way to both improve your top speed AND help you integrate this skill into your soloing.

Result: You play better solos and have a lot more command over the entire fretboard.

Use these guitar speed exercises to get started playing seamless and flowing solos:

Exercise #1: Use Scale Runs To Play Flowing Guitar Solos With Excellent Picking Technique

Play guitar solos with speed that flows effortlessly is easy when:

  • You use an efficient guitar picking technique that locks your hands together with perfect timing
  • You eliminate hesitation while moving from pattern to pattern because you have a clear mental map of the fretboard

Using an exercise that combines both skills together helps you play flowing shred guitar licks like never before. Here’s how to do it:

Learn three mode patterns that are right next to each other:

3-Modes-On-Guitar

Play through each one using picking technique that uses the following pattern while ascending:

  • Downstroke to play note 1.
  • Upstroke to play note 2.
  • Downstroke to play note 3.
  • Continue downstroke in a sweeping motion to play note 4.
  • Upstroke to play note 5.
  • Continue downstroke in a sweeping motion to play note 6.

While descending, use the same approach, only backwards.

This locks your hands together with efficient picking technique.

Once you have this motion down, improvise freely with all three patterns. Doing this covers a lot of ground on the fretboard. Good news is, these patterns are moveable to anywhere else (and you can add more patterns later as your fretboard vision improves)!

Another great way to make your guitar speed flow across the fretboard is to use the same principle of efficient picking to play this pattern:

Here is another variation that starts on different strings:

Exercise #2: Add More Arpeggios To Your Guitar Soloing Vocabulary

Many guitarists only learn a few basic arpeggio patterns and must return to them every time they play. This makes your soloing sound less organic and more robotic. Learning arpeggios in different inversions (meaning: different notes as the lowest-pitch note) helps you visualize the fretboard better and gain more creative soloing options.

Below are 3 three-string arpeggios that start on the 5th string. A minor root position (A is the lowest note), A minor 1st inversion (C is the lowest note) and A minor 2nd inversion (E is the lowest note):

Expressive Sweep Picking

Fret the root position arpeggio using your pinky, middle finger and index finger respectively.

Fret the 1st inversion arpeggio using your middle finger, then rolling with your index finger and playing the highest note with your pinky.

Fret the 2nd inversion arpeggio by rolling with your third finger and index finger.

Shredding through all three arpeggios in a row sounds awesome! It’s amazing how much expression you can get from an arpeggio by simply putting a different note in the bass.

Note: If you need help with sweep picking, read this article about sweep picking rolling technique.

Exercise #3: Massively Expand Your Fretboard Vision By Integrating Arpeggios & Scales Together

Learning how to integrate different patterns together on guitar is critical for transforming scales or arpeggios into flowing, musical phrases. Practicing them both together makes fast guitar playing flow from phrase to phrase.

Practice combining an A minor arpeggio with an F Lydian scale:

Sweep-Picking-And-Scales-Exercise

Practice each one separately, then improvise your own speed guitar licks by combining them together.

Next, combine an A minor scale with an A minor 1st inversion arpeggio and B Locrian scale pattern:

Again, practice each part separately at first. Then combine the first two parts, the second and last part and finally all three together.

Note: The B Locrian scale contains all the same notes as the A minor scale.

Now you are ready to continue expanding across the fretboard by learning more scale and arpeggio patterns. In the meantime, don’t neglect your guitar phrasing skills!

Having excellent phrasing is what turns patterns on the guitar into musical expression. Learn how to become a very expressive guitar player now with this free guitar soloing guide.