How To Build Alternate Picking Speed In 5 Minutes Per Day
Want to play guitar with blazing fast alternate picking speed?
Good news: You don’t have to practice guitar 5 hours a day to get it.
Try 5 minutes!
That’s right. Practicing alternate picking just 5 minutes a day has the power to get you tons of speed in no time.
It’s all about tackling your alternate picking technique from all angles using effective practice.
Use this 5-minute alternate picking speed training drill to improve several critical elements of picking technique:
1 Minute – Strengthen Your Upstroke
Developing a stronger upstroke picking attack makes your overall picking technique faster and more reliable.
Why?
Upstrokes are naturally more difficult than downstrokes due to pulling against gravity.
Strengthening them balances out your technique to make it smooth and effortless.
1 Minute – Train Your Picking Motion Efficiency
Picking speed on guitar comes from efficiency, not by just moving your hands faster.
Practice your picking technique for efficiency with great focus to fulfill your greatest potential for speed.
This video demonstrates efficient tremolo picking technique:Want to learn a great way to train your picking technique to make it more efficient?
Practice rolling technique as shown in this video on any two frets of adjacent strings:1 Minute – Speed Pick For Consistency
Speed picking a single note for just one or two seconds is one thing – being able to speed pick for 15 seconds or more without wavering…
Now THAT is consistent speed picking skill.
Focus on making your speed picking more consistency by practicing in terms of repetition for set periods of time.
Like this:
Speed pick a single open string or fretted note for 5 seconds straight without wavering/getting out of time/messing up.
Once you are able to do this, rest for a moment, then:
Speed pick a single open string or fretted note for 10 seconds straight without wavering/getting out of time/messing up.
Do this until you reach 15 seconds, then keep going over the course of many practice sessions to see how far you can go. While doing this fret different notes in different parts of the fretboard and take rest when you need it.
Note: Alternate picking for consistency essentially gives you tons of repetitions to help you master the technique faster.
This uses the same repetition concept as in the video below, only with a single note rather than an entire lick:1 Minute – Pick With Tons Of Power
Picking the strings with power helps keep both hands locked together in sync for smoother speed.
Practicing picking with power makes this second nature, so you are always using picking technique that helps you keep every hand movement together with good timing.
This video explains the importance of picking with power on guitar:1 Minute – Speed Pick Any Note (Like Normal) As Fast As You Can
Now that you’ve speed picked using the other practice approaches, it’s time to return to basics.
Alternate pick with the fastest speed you can just like you would normally.
While doing this, pick the note you are fretting (or open string) for varying lengths of time.
Note: Adjust the amount of time you practice the elements above based on which ones you need to improve most.
The practice concept in this article is taken from “circuit training,” an effective practice approach used in many different sports, hobbies or professionals.
Learn more about how using circuit training helps you quickly become a better and faster guitar player.