How To Improve Your Speed Picking By Using Laser-Focused Training For 1 Week
The majority of guitar players practice for speed by slowly getting faster and faster over time…
Not a terrible approach – but not a great one either!
Sometimes, to make a lot of progress, you have to go all out in a short period time.
You want to improve your guitar picking speed? Laser-focus on this for one week straight to make massive improvement in a short period of time.
How?
I’ll show you.
First, understand that many people do not actively practice speed picking, yet hope to get better.
What do they do?
They speed pick a little bit here and there and very slowly over time make improvement.
You want to get better fast though, right?
Thought so!
Schedule tons of time to practice guitar
picking speed for the rest of the week (compared to what you’d normally
practice) and apply these ideas:
Make Your Picking Technique As Efficient As Possible
Picking faster isn’t just about moving your hands faster, it’s about moving them efficiently to strike the string more in a given period of time.
Watch this video to learn how to make your speed picking faster by making it more efficient:Practice this by:
1.
Speed pick a single open string or fretted note.
2.
While picking, watch your picking hand and focus
on making the picking motion as small as possible.
3. Try to pick continuously for 10 seconds without losing your speed or timing. Work on this until you can do it perfect, then increase the amount of time you pick and/or speed at which the notes are played.
Start Picking With Tons Of Power
Picking the guitar strings with more power articulates notes better and brings both of your hands into sync for cleaner playing.
Most likely:
You could be picking with much more power than you are now.
It’s common for many guitarists to either pick with a weak attack or pick with less power when they make mistakes (causing their overall picking to become weaker without them realizing it).
Picking with more power is an easy way to start improving the quality of the notes you play and overall accuracy and timing of your playing.
Watch this video to see what picking with power does for your technique:Practice Guitar Licks Or Other Patterns Using Only Tremolo/Speed Picking
The more you use speed picking, the faster you master it.
Don’t just use it in total isolation to play short runs her and there. Use it together with the licks you already know.
This has the added benefit of making playing those licks like normal feel much easier.
Practice this by simply choosing 5 guitar licks you want to play. Then play through each lick both like normal and by using strict tremolo/speed picking.
*For added benefit to your picking technique, use heavy picking power.
Concentrate On Improving Your Upstrokes
For the vast majority of guitar players, playing notes with an upstroke is harder than playing them with a downstroke. This is because you have to fight against gravity to use and upstroke, which takes more effort and energy.
Having weak upstrokes is frequently the cause of inconsistent or sloppy speed picking.
Improve your upstrokes, get faster…
It’s as simple as that!
Here is one of the most powerful ways to improve your upstrokes for better speed picking:
Practice any guitar lick, scale or arpeggio using ONLY upstrokes for several minutes at a time.
This requires playing at a slower speed than normal. Focus on playing the notes as clean and clear as possible.
Then go back and play like normal to see how the lick instantly became easier 🙂
From here, focus on increasing your “upstrokes only” practice speed to improve your upstrokes and overall picking technique even more!
Now you know some great ways to quickly improve the quality of your speed picking technique.
This isn’t the end of the road though.
Learn more ways to practice to get increase your speed and become a better guitarist in less time.