Think that picking notes on guitar with more speed is just about how fast you move your picking hand? This is actually just ONE piece of the puzzle. Many guitarists are playing much slower than they should be because they are completely unaware of the mistake that is slowing them down:

Playing with too much tension.

Even when you play guitar with great technique, having too much tension in your hands creates mistakes and makes playing with speed feel like a struggle. Eliminating this tension is critical when you want to play with tons of speed and accuracy.

Use these guitar speed picking drills to eliminate tension in your hands while making it feel easy and effortless to play fast:

Guitar Speed Picking Drill #1: Make Playing Fast Easier By Minimizing The Force Needed To Play Notes With Tension Control Training

It’s very common for guitar players to use way too much force to fret notes while playing guitar. This especially applies while playing at fast speeds. Speed picking accurately becomes surprisingly easy when you reduce tension in your fretting hand.

At first, getting rid of extra tension in your guitar playing may seem like a big task. However, working on this a few minutes each day adds up quickly and makes a huge positive impact for your guitar playing.

Use this exercise to improve your accuracy while playing fast by getting rid of tension in your fretting hand:

1.   Fret any note on the guitar and speed pick it continually for 10 seconds or so.

2.   While picking, slowly release pressure in your fretting hand finger until you can pinpoint the exact amount of pressure needed to produce the note (and no more!).

This is the right amount of pressure you should be using 90% of the time while fretting notes. This includes an exception of times when you need to use more power to bend notes or apply heavy vibrato.

3.   Next, choose any short guitar lick and go through the exact same process again. Work on this just a few minutes each day until you are able to play the entire lick with optimal fretting pressure.

Before you know it, this becomes second nature for you and you no longer have to deal with your hand/arm getting tired, guitar playing injury or mistakes that come from wasted energy.

Guitar Speed Picking Drill #2: The Moments You Tense Up Reveal The Mistakes You Must Correct To Get Better

Do you have specific guitar licks you struggle to play clean? The key to both mastering them and playing them consistently clean is isolating the notes that cause you to struggle. These notes are easy to spot, because you see yourself becoming tense while playing them.

An excellent way to begin cleaning up difficult sections in guitar licks is using speed picking in your picking hand to help your fretting hand keep up. This helps because many mistakes at faster speeds are caused by your fretting hand not being able keep up with your picking hand.

Many guitar player struggle with “rolling” the notes of an arpeggio like the one below to get them to sound individually.