Speed Exercises For Electric Guitar That Make It Easier To Shred
Want to increase your guitar speed but aren’t sure what to practice first?
Good news:
Getting faster guitar speed is easier when you practice to improve upon common problem areas that all guitarists have.
By correcting common mistakes, you also fix the things that hold you back from playing guitar with fast, clean speed like you want.
Use these guitar speed exercises to start shredding faster than ever:
Exercise: Smooth Out Difficult Transitions From String To String
One of the most common causes of mistakes during fast guitar licks is transferring from one string to the next.
During this time, the fretting hand often moves positions on the fretboard causing your brain to focus on both this and picking the string at the right time.
This causes your hands to get out of sync.
Smoothing out this transition helps you make your guitar playing much more smooth and effortless.
For example, see the highlighted section below:
Frets 12 and 10 make up the two notes of the transition from one string to the next.
Practicing just these notes (and the others like them in the pattern) at fast speeds in isolation from everything else make the pattern more smooth when you go to play the entire scale.
Notice that two other notes are highlighted too.
Playing these notes is a way to both isolate the transitional notes and help integrate them into the rest of the pattern without having to play the entire pattern every repetition.
As this gets easier, add more and more notes around the highlighted area until you are able to play the whole scale with no mistakes.
Exercise: Line Your Hands Up In Sync For Easy Speed Using Double Picking With Single String Licks
Speaking of keeping your hands in sync, double picking (picking notes twice) is a great way to do it. Additionally, single string licks also force you to pick notes exactly when they are being fretted.
Combing both together results in a killer exercise that locks your hands together like the teeth of a gear.
This makes playing guitar with tons of speed feel super easy.
For example, here is a basic single A minor string scale:
Alternate between practicing this scale 5 times in a row like normal and double picking each note 5 times in a row.
Breaking down the scale into a few notes at a time makes it easier to play without needing to slow down as much.
Note: Double picking notes requires playing at a slower tempo than picking them one at a time. Work on increasing your speed with this. The faster you can double pick, the easier it becomes to pick notes like normal.
Exercise: Sweep Pick Arpeggios Like Never Before Using Correct Muting & Picking Technique
Sweep picking technique is infamous for being one of the hardest, yet most impressive things you can do on guitar.
Good news is, it’s much easier than what most people think.
How do you make sweep picking easier?
Learn correct sweep picking technique from the beginning, then practice short arpeggio licks to perfect it before moving onto more complex patterns.
Here are the fundamentals to have in place for perfect sweep picking technique:
Sweep pick using thumb muting while keeping your fretting hand thumb behind neck on the lower area of the neck.
This video shows you how to use thumb muting instead of palm muting to make your sweep picking arpeggios (and anything else really) cleaner than ever:
Focus on always maintaining momentum in your picking hand. This means, don’t individually pick each string. Treat your sweep picking attack like one big continuous strum.
Break arpeggios down to play them two notes at a time. Play at fast speeds with short rests in between repetitions to look for mistakes, then focus on correcting them during the next repetition. From here, add more notes as you are able to play consistently without making mistakes.
Get started by applying these ideas to this arpeggio:
The concepts in this article are simple, but effective for helping you shred with great guitar speed without facing as much frustration as most guitarists do.
Apply the ideas into your practice routine right away and enjoy making faster progress!