Guitar Exercises For Left Hand Speed That Really Work

Developing speed in your left (fretting) hand feels great and makes playing guitar fast seem effortless.

Here’s what not to do:

Practice random chromatic exercises that don’t achieve anything for your technique or musical expression.

Why?

Although this might help a little, it is not a very efficient use of time when it comes to preparing yourself to get faster at things you will actually play (such as scale patterns you solo with).

Here are three ways to develop faster left hand speed in your guitar playing that make efficient use of your practice and help you get better in less time:

Use Laser-Focus To Perfect The Movement In Each Hand

Common mistake: Practicing everything on guitar by playing with both hands at once.

That’s right!

Why is this a mistake?

Yes, of course you need to play with both hands for most things – However, practicing both hands separately and together helps you fix problems you would never notice otherwise.

This helps you correct mistakes and improve your technique. Especially with your left/fretting hand.

Here’s several ways to do it:

· Mute the strings using right hand and only play the patterns with left by moving your fingers across them. Don’t actually press down, just make the finger movements

· Use legato only to fret and play notes without picking

· Mute the strings entirely with your fretting hand, then pick the strings like you would as if you were playing (whatever lick, exercise or pattern you want to practice)

Adding these into your common guitar practice approach (playing with both hands) is a killer and little-known way to improve faster than ever before.

Use High Repetition Counts To Quickly Improve

Most guitarists only practice things a few times before they get it right once. Then they move onto something else.

That’s a problem.

Why?

This basically trains you for inconsistency!

Instead:

Use high repetitions helps you to gain speed and consistency in your left hand.

This video shows you the massive benefit of using high repetition counts while practicing guitar:

Try this idea with scale runs using just a few notes at a time by practicing just one or two strings in a pattern over and over. Then add new/more notes after several hundred repetitions.

Another powerful approach is to practice only with legato during high repetitions. This is like giving your fretting hand a super-warmup!

It makes it much easier to lock your hands together when you go to pick the notes.

Only Fret Notes When You Need To

Getting a faster fretting hand isn’t just about how fast you move it, it’s about how efficiently you use your movement and energy.

Fretting notes when you don’t need to causes you to waste energy and move less efficiently.

Instead:

Focus on only fretting notes when needed, like shown in this video:

This may take a little training if you are used to “preparing” (fretting) notes in advance. Fortunately, it doesn’t take long to get used to this and your guitar playing gets much faster and cleaner when you do!

Lock Your Left Hand And Right Hand Together In Sync

Practicing the right exercises helps you get both hands in sync.

What does this lead to?

Faster and smoother guitar speed.

Here are a few examples of the types of licks that are great for getting both hands in sync together:

· Single string licks

· Licks that use double picking, triple picking or tremolo picking to play a single note

· Use pedal point style over different scale patterns within a musical context

· String skipping

Additionally, certain picking techniques are much more efficient for locking your hands in sync than others. For example: Economy picking.

Implement practice time for these things to start playing with better two hand synchronization and smoother guitar speed.

Now you understand some great exercises to bring your left hand speed up to shred levels. Don’t stop there though!

Learning how to harness this speed and use it in a musical manner is essential for playing things on guitar that make people stop and pay attention.

Learn how to use what you know on guitar to play emotional and expressive guitar solos.