Guitar Speed Exercise Video: How To Easily Play Fast Guitar Licks Using Staccato Practice

There are many misunderstandings when it comes to how to use guitar speed exercises to get faster, play cool shred licks and become a better guitarist.

In many cases, increasing your guitar speed is actually much easier than you think.

You simply need to practice using approaches that are effective (but that are sometimes less conventional).

Watch this guitar speed exercise video to learn a simple, effective way to practice to play any guitar lick faster and cleaner:

Playing something correct once is much easier than playing it correct by continuously playing it many times in a row.

Using Staccato Makes Practice Easier By Making It Easier To Focus

The easier it is for your mind to focus on a note, the easier it is to play that note perfectly. So, how do you make focusing on a note easier?

Simple.

Break down any given guitar lick into smaller groupings of notes by playing only a few notes at a time.

Then, play those notes as staccato as possible. Meaning: don’t let the notes ring out, make them as short as you can.

Add a short rest after the last note to accent that note as you saw in the video.

Note: This applies to any kind of guitar lick, not just the sweep picking arpeggio that was demonstrated.

Here are some additional tips to make this exercise even more effective for increasing your speed in less time:

1.Focus On One Note At A Time

 Increase your ability to focus on and correct subtle mistakes in notes you play by doing this one simple thing:

While playing a few notes at a time, focus your attention only on ONE of the notes you are playing. This means, listen for that single note to hear that it sounds perfectly.

When it doesn’t, adjust to correct it.

Then repeat this process with another note.

Here is a demonstration of how to focus on one note:

2. Practice For Consistency

Use consistency practice to perfect any guitar lick.

This means practice something to see how many times you are able to play it perfectly without stopping.

When you make a mistake, take note of how many times you were able to repeat the lick.

Then focus on trying to increase the number of repetitions each time you sit down to practice.

See if you can make it to 20 repetitions in a row.

This tells you that you’ve really mastered the lick! Imagine being able to play a guitar lick perfectly for 20, 30 or even 50 times in a row…

This is totally possible and practicing like this makes your overall guitar playing incredibly consistent.


3. Use A Practice Circuit

A practice circuit just means practicing multiple items one after the other with no pause in between. This is like how weightlifters finish one exercise, then immediately move to another.

Try this out:

1.   Choose any guitar lick or item you want to work on.

2.   For 1 minute, practice the item using the staccato approach you learned about on this page (in the video at the beginning).

3.   Immediately move to the next step.

4.   For 1 minute, practice the item by playing it continuously with little to no rest in between (similar to how the arpeggio is played in the video)

5.   Immediately move to the next step.

6.   For 1 minute, alternate between using the staccato approach and the continuous approach.

7.   Rest for 2 minutes.

As you see, this guitar practice circuit does not take very long and vigorously trains you to get big results for your guitar speed and cleanliness.

In addition to using this approach, apply the advice in this guitar speed eBook to increase your overall speed even faster.