How To Practice Guitar Licks To Massively Improve Your Speed In Just A Few Minutes Each Day

It feels amazing to play guitar licks with tons of speed and it doesn’t have to take many years to get there. Getting faster on guitar is about practicing as efficiently as possible with whatever time you have available. Even if you only have a limited time to practice guitar each day, it’s more than possible to get great results for your overall speed.

Here are just a few creative practice ideas that help you practice guitar licks to improve your speed in just a few minutes each day:

Practice The Things That Help You Improve The Most Skills At Once

The best guitar practice is the kind that kind that helps you improve as many skills as possible in as little time as possible. This is much more effective than simply practicing things at random (as many do).

Identify the main skills involved with the guitar licks you want to master. The find exercises that help you improve all these skills at once.

This video explains the concept:

Write down your practice items ahead of time so you are able to schedule them. Then use the limited practice time you have to get the most results possible.

Intensely Practice Many Skills To Get Killer Results Using Mini Training Circuits

Borrow the idea of using circuit training from physical exercise to improve your guitar playing fast. Practicing 5 different skills for just 2 minutes each leads to massive progress in just 10 minutes per day.

Here’s a simple example of a practice circuit that could improve your playing fast:

  • Practice a sweep picking lick for 2 minutes.

  • Practice a string skipping lick for 2 minutes.

  • Practice a specific part of a lick that uses scale runs for 2 minutes.

  • Practice tremolo picking for 2 minutes.

  • Practice improvising at a fast tempo for 2 minutes.

This simple little circuit helps you improve various guitar skills in just 10 minutes of focused practice.

Imagine how much progress you’ll make even if this was the only time you spent playing guitar! Even better, many of these practice items train you in similar skills. This kind of synergy means your practice is more effective and you get better faster.

Get more ideas for how to create powerful and effective guitar practice circuits.

Improve Any Guitar Lick Quickly By Adding One Note At A Time

You get massive results from guitar practice by breaking down your guitar licks and focusing on each note like a laser. This helps you immediately identify the biggest mistakes that are holding you back from playing that guitar lick with speed and accuracy.

Use this process to get rid of the mistakes in your guitar licks that slow you down:

  1. Play the first two notes of the guitar lick at normal playing speed.

  2. Listen for any inconsistencies in your picking attack, the clarity of the notes or timing between both hands.

If there is a mistake, work to correct it and play the notes again until they are perfect.

If there are no mistakes, continue to the next step.

  1. Add one more note to the previous notes and check again for inconsistencies.

  2. Repeat this process for every note of the lick until the lick is mastered. Note: This does not have to be done all in one day.

Need help finding subtle mistakes that make your guitar licks sound sloppy? Read this article about how to play guitar without mistakes.

Improve Your Guitar Licks A Little Every Day With Repetition Training

Getting good at something rarely happens on the first few tries. All the guitar skills you’ve mastered have likely taken a lot of repetition to get there.

However, most guitarists only repeat the difficult parts of guitar licks a few times. Spread this out over weeks or months and this means it takes them a really long time to play the lick correctly (if they get to this point).

Good news is, you’ve won half the battle once you know which part of a guitar lick you struggle with.

The next step is to isolate this part and repeat it MANY times.

This video shows you how to isolate tough parts of guitar licks to speed them up and get rid of sloppy mistakes:

It is easily possible to repeat a guitar lick you struggle with 500-1,000 times in 15 minutes or less. Doing this means you getter better fast rather than having to wait several months to finally be able to play a guitar lick how you want.

Want to discover more ways to play guitar fast, improve your technique and shred killer solos? Learn more ways now by reading this page about how to practice guitar effectively and become a faster player.