Guitar Speed Exercises Video: How To Make Shred Guitar Playing Effortless
Feel like playing guitar with tons of speed is harder than it should be?
You’re probably right!
Fortunately, there many ways to make playing guitar fast easier by using the effective practice approaches of expert guitarists. Learning from experts removes the work and frustration of trying to increase your speed through trial-and-error like most people.
Check out this expert video to learn how to achieve faster guitar speed in an effortless manner:
Making Your Picking More Efficient Is Key For Effortless Speed
Speed is often killed by too much unnecessary movement that slows you down and causes sloppy mistakes.
You saw this in the video where it was shown how extra movement in the picking attack made playing scales fast more difficult.
Use this exercise to perfect efficient picking and make speed come effortlessly:
Slowly play through the tab below using the picking approach from the video:
As you do this, watch for lifting your picking hand away or moving up and down the string (towards the bridge or towards the fretboard) without thinking about it.
As the picking hand motion starts to feel more natural, try picking just the first four notes as fast as you can, over and over, with rest in between each repetition.
Focus on maintaining a smooth picking motion from the first string to the next – more on this in a moment.
As this starts feeling more natural, add more notes from the tab.
Maintain Continuous Motion In Your Picking Hand To Minimize Mistakes
Maintaining continuous motion is critical for having smooth speed at any tempo.
Most guitarists break up their picking into separate (unnecessary) strokes, causing their hands to go out of sync and mistakes to occur.
This habit can be hard to break.
But it’s easy when you slow down and focus on maintaining your pick’s momentum.
Pick again through the tab, this time watch your picking hand to ensure your picking motion is one smooth, sweeping motion while transferring from string to string.
In the second group of notes, there is a second note on the second string. Follow through with a smooth picking motion, then pick this second note with a heavy accent. This locks the movement in place, helping your fingers memorize it while locking your hands together as well.
Why It’s Easy To Make Your Picking More Efficient Without Sacrificing Your Current Speed
The big problem guitarists have with developing efficient picking is that it feels overwhelming…
Like you have to change everything about how you normally pick…
Good news:
Changing your picking to make it efficient for super-fast playing is easy and doesn’t require turning your technique upside down.
It’s easy to gradually improve it over time without sacrificing your current skill set or having to slow down every aspect of your playing.
Here’s what to do:
Start small, by setting aside just 5-10 minutes per day to work on this style of picking. During other times, play as you normally would.
As you do this, make it easier to integrate this picking attack into your normal routine using the chromatic exercise from the video. Here is similar example:
Over time, gradually increase the amount of time you work on efficient picking until becomes natural to use for everything you play.
Want to learn more ways to play faster and better lead guitar? Check out the free advice in this guitar soloing tips page.