Guitar Finger Exercises For Speed That Make You A Better Lead Guitarist

Developing faster finger speed on guitar is one of the main goals for tons of guitar players.

However, this should not be the only goal for you.

What is a better goal?

Learning how to not only play guitar with speed but also make it musically expressive.

Having this skill sets you apart from the majority of other guitarists and gives you the ability to impress anyone who hears you play.

Not just with speed.

But with memorable and catchy guitar phrases.

Playing guitar like this feels great and motivates you to get even better over time.

Here are three exercises for faster finger speed that improve your musical expression at the same time:

Train Yourself To Use Speed In A Musically Expressive Manner

It’s a common mistake to learn how to play guitar fast and fall into the trap of playing everything as fast as possible.

Problem here is that this approach makes guitar solos sound like a big mess of notes instead of actual music.

Learning how to use your speed in a musical manner is critical for transforming technical, but boring solos into technical and emotionally expressive ones.

Let’s get started doing it now.

Use this simple approach to begin applying this concept into your playing:

Exercise #1 – Practice short scale patterns and focus on making them musical

Here is what to do:

1. Take any guitar scale and play only the first 5 notes of it.

2. Set a timer to 5 minutes and use every technique you know to create as many musical phrases as you can using just these notes. Use faster notes to play these phrases only once in every instances.

While creating variations, focus on getting as much expressive power from each little run as you can, like demonstrated in this video:

Using just a few notes at a time forces you to play more musically by preventing you from giving in to the urge to play tons of notes all over the fretboard (really fast).

Additionally, it helps you memorize scale patterns more easily.

Use this approach to train your fingers to play a variety of different fingering patterns by thinking of 3-5 different scales (or arpeggios) to use for this exercise.

Master Legato Guitar Technique By Making It A Critical Part Of Your Soloing Practice

It’s no secret that playing with legato gives your fingers an excellent feel for the fretboard so that playing fast becomes smoother and easier.

When used exclusively to improvise with, legato guitar technique also changes the way you think about your note choices.

You begin to use slides, hammer ons and pull offs more musically. This is because you are likely used to playing licks with both hands and it forces you to step outside of your comfort zone a bit.

Use this exercise to improve your fretting hand technique and play more musically expressive solos:

Exercise #2 – Legato only!

Repeat the exact approach from exercise #1, only this time only use legato to play the notes (no picking allowed except first note of phrase).

Note: While playing with legato, only fret notes when you intend to play them (don’t prepare them ahead of time). Watch this demonstration to see why:

Think Backwards To Move Your Fretting Hand Forwards

Using legato is excellent for training your fingers to play fast and smooth.

However, challenging yourself to play legato in the opposite way that you’re used to helps you both improve your technique and think of new guitar phrasing ideas.

What does this mean?

I’ll show you:

Exercise #3 – Use legato in the opposite way you normally would

Choose any guitar scale you want to play.

Using legato only, do the following:

While moving from thicker strings to thinner strings (ascending), start from the highest fret and use pull offs to play the notes on the string. For example, in A minor: 15 – 14 – 12 on the A string, 15 – 14 -12 on the D string, etc.

While moving from thinner strings to thicker strings (descending), start from the lowest fret and use hammer ons to play the notes on the string. For example, in A minor: 12 – 14 – 15 on the A string, 12 – 14 -15 on the D string, etc.

Using this approach makes normal legato playing more challenging, because most licks hammer on while ascending and pull of while descending.

This helps your skills increase and makes playing legato like normal feel much easier.

Now you know some powerful ways to increase your finger speed on guitar and play faster than ever.

It’s time to learn how to play cleaner too.

Make every note a perfect one by reading this free resource about playing guitar perfectly.