Play Guitar Fast & Easy Using These Efficient Picking Practice Drills

Looking for some fast and easy ways to play guitar with speed like never before?

I’ve got just the thing for you!

It’s using guitar practice drills that promote efficiency as the main focus.

Why efficiency?

Because playing guitar faster and easier is achieved through efficiency (not through things like moving your hands faster).

Sound good?

Great.

Here are three simple practice drills that help you play guitar faster and more effortlessly than ever by improving efficiency in different ways:

Master Efficient Scale Picking To Build A Foundation For Effortless Speed

One of the things that makes playing guitar fast feel very difficult is when your hands are not together in synchronization.

What is this like?

Think about a time when you went to play a scale and some parts of the scale were easy to play fast and sounded good…

…but other areas of the scale seemed to get out of time or you struggled to play some of the notes perfectly.

This is what is feels like for your guitar speed to not be consistent and effortless (like you want it to be).

What causes your hands to get out of sync?

There are various potential causes, but one of the biggest and most common is using picking technique that creates unnecessary motion.

At fast speeds, all the extra motion created makes you play sloppy and pulls your hands out of sync.

This commonly happens when guitar players use alternate picking to play everything.

Focusing on minimizing unnecessary motion in your picking attack fixes this and makes playing with speed become MUCH easier.

How do you do this?

Watch this video and see how to use efficient picking technique for fast and smooth playing:

Note: It will take some time to get used to this approach, but it pays off massively in the end! Practice it more and more over time until it becomes your default approach.

What are some easy ways to integrate efficient picking into your guitar playing?

·         Isolate the picking hand only by using your fretting hand to mute the strings and picking 3 notes per string both ascending and descending

·         Fret 3 notes per string in a simple chromatic pattern (think patterns like 1-2-3) so you don’t have to worry about position changes and can concentrate on the picking hand

·         Practice 3-note per-string scales using this approach by repeating the first 4 notes of the scale many times and adding one note to the end as it becomes easier. Do this until you play through the whole scale

Use Rolling Technique To Quickly Play Fast & Cool Arpeggios

Want to play super-fast while improving your inside picking?

Combine the efficient approach of the previous point with the concept of rolling to do it.

If you don’t know what rolling technique is for guitar, watch this video:

Next, use this exercise as a way to practice rolling and efficient picking to lock your hands in sync, play fast and make your speed feel more effortless:

The concept is simple, use rolling across just two strings (like from the video):

Use this to slowly master any sweep picking arpeggio a few notes at a time or to work on rolling technique for any of your fretting hand fingers.

Make Fast Musical Ideas Flow Together By Combining Scales With Sweep Picking

The more efficient your picking technique, the easier speed becomes. Integrating different patterns together helps you learn to adjust to any situation so you don’t have to mentally think about the picking technique being used – it just feels natural.

Plus, efficiency isn’t just about the motion in your technique, but how well you use your practice time to get the most results from as little as possible.

Practicing combining different areas of your guitar playing together helps you improve multiple skills at once and helps you learn to effortlessly integrate these skills during musical situations.

For example, here is how to combine scales and arpeggios together in your guitar playing:

Do this long enough and it becomes easier for your speed and phrasing flow together effortlessly during licks or solos.

It also improves fretboard visualization by removing hesitation in your mind (that comes from having to find patterns) that interrupts your speed.

Learn more about practicing guitar more efficiently by watching this video:

Now you know some powerful drills to practice to improve your speed and play guitar faster than ever.

Make super-fast progress with these ideas by using this guitar practice circuit.