How To Increase Picking Speed On Guitar In One Practice Session
Despite what people think, it IS possible to increase your guitar picking speed in just one practice session.
The key is to focus heavily on making your technique more efficient.
Why?
Most guitar players use very inefficient picking technique that slows them down and causes them to make sloppy mistakes when they try to turn up the tempo.
Taking just one practice session to make your technique more efficient allows you to make massive progress very quickly and sets you up to continue playing faster from here on.
Sound good?
Great!
Let’s begin.
Set aside 25 minutes for guitar practice and work on these exercises for 5 minutes each:
Guitar Picking Speed Exercise #1: Speed Pick A Single Note While Focusing On Your Picking Hand
Most guitarists play for many years without ever looking at what their picking hand is doing.
Don’t make this same mistake.
Watching the movement of your picking hand helps you correct any inefficient movement and tighten up your technique to allow for the fastest picking speed possible.
Watch this video to see exactly how to make your picking hand as efficient as possible while speed picking to play faster:Now practice this simple exercise:
1. Play any fretted note or open string using speed
picking. As you do this, watch your picking hand to ensure it is efficient like
in the video.
2. Next speed pick through the first few notes of a
scale and watch your picking hand. This slightly increases the challenge to
ensure you do not stray from efficient picking when more notes are added in the
fretting hand.
3. Continue like this by speed picking and entire
scale, arpeggio or guitar lick.
Guitar Picking Speed Exercise #2: Speed Pick In Bursts
Increase your guitar picking speed isn’t always just about picking a note over and over nonstop.
Using short bursts of speed trains your brain to approach picking technique from a different angle, while helping you to more easily process what your hand is doing.
This video explains the general concept of playing guitar with bursts of speed and why this is a very effective practice approach:
Exercise:
1. Choose an open string.
2. Speed pick the string in groups of three using
the bursts approach from the video
3. Rest.
4. Repeat this 10 times in a row.
5. Rest for a little longer.
6. Repeat from the beginning by choosing a new
string or fretted note.
Guitar Picking Speed Exercise #3: Pick With Accents In Sequences Of 5 And 7
Accenting notes with a little more power in your picking hand causes your brain to focus on that note and focus more on the movements your hand is making.
Picking in sequences amplifies this effect.
Result:
Your picking becomes more precise and any mindless motions you were making come into the forefront (allowing you to make them more efficient).
This helps you increase your picking speed because you are no longer wasting energy or motion unconsciously.
Use this simple exercise:
1. Pick a single note in sequences of 5, accenting last note with a heavier pick attack.
2. Rest.
3. Again, pick a single note in sequences of 5, accenting last note with a heavier pick attack.
4. Rest.
5. Now, pick a note sequences of 7, accenting last note with a heavier pick attack.
6. Rest.
7. Pick a note sequences of 7, accenting last note with a heavier pick attack.
8. Rest.
9. Repeat.
Notice how pickstroke alternates, this is why sequences of 5 and 7 are used. However, feel free to experiment with other sequences to challenge yourself and improve further.
For even more challenge, divide up each sequence by accenting more than one note within it, like in this example where the 1st, 3rd and 5th notes are accented.
This may require picking at a slower speed, but it massively improves your ability to focus and pick with more precision and speed at faster tempos.
Guitar Picking Speed Exercise #4: Pick With Power
Having a weak pick attack makes playing fast more difficult.
Why?
Simply put: the pick does not cut directly through the string and stays in contact with the string longer. This slows you down and causes you to waste excess motion.
Picking with power makes the pick cut right through the string, articulating the note better while helping you play with more efficient guitar technique and faster speed.
This video demonstrates the importance of picking with power:Use this exercise to practice speed picking with more power:
1.
Choose any guitar lick to practice.
2.
Play through the lick using speed picking for
every note. As you do this, gradually pick with more power as you near the end
of the lick.
3.
When you reach the final note, continue speed
picking with power for a few seconds extra at the end.
4.
Rest.
5. Repeat step two, except pick with the most power and gradually decrease the power as you near the end of the lick.
Guitar Picking Speed Exercise #5: Pick Multiple Strings At Once
This unconventional practice approach makes normal speed picking feel incredibly easy by comparison.
Picking a single string involves a very concise picking motion (as you learned in exercise #1), and speed picking many strings requires a much wider motion.
This takes a lot more effort and energy, making speed picking a single string feel much easier.
Choose any 3 chords/power chords that take up 3 strings on the guitar.
Then do the following:
1.
Freely speed pick each one on its own to get
used to how it feels.
2.
Next, set a metronome to a moderate pace.
Add more strings to your chords and repeat this until you are speed picking entire 6 strings chords.
After going through these exercises, your speed picking improves massively in just 25 minutes!
Keep using this practice routine for just 2 weeks and your picking will be in a different dimension!
Want to learn more ways to play guitar faster than ever?
Find out how to double your guitar speed.