Exercises For Killer Guitar Speed And Accuracy While Playing Scales

Do you play perfectly accurate and super-fast guitar scales at will?

Don’t worry.

Most people don’t, but it doesn’t take long to do it when you know how to maintain momentum and stay efficient while playing.

What does this mean exactly?

It means eliminating the extra movement in your picking hand that keeps you from playing fast and clean at really high speeds.

Here’s how to do it:

Make Your Picking Motion Super-Efficient

Efficiency is critical for speed.

Think of efficient picking technique like running a race in a straight line instead of sometimes running straight, sometimes running at a slight angle (using inefficient picking techniques).

Inefficient picking for scales usually means exclusively using alternate picking no matter what.

This means every time you play a note, you alternate picking up or down.

Very inefficient.

Why?

I’ll show you.

Slowly pick through the notes on the left of this tab example (play this several times):

What do you notice?

Alternate picking sometimes feels like you are forcing yourself to move awkwardly to play the next note or the next note on the string.

This is because you are!

Now slowly pick through the scale as shown using the picking on the right side of the tab.

Notice how this problem has been solved – but ONLY when you use the momentum you gained to smoothly transition from string to string.

This video explains how this concept of momentum works:

Train yourself to best use momentum for smooth speed.

Now you understand how momentum works to make your guitar picking technique more efficient.

It’s time to train yourself to use this momentum whenever possible

When you play 3-note-per-string scales, you can use momentum from the previous string to play the notes on the next string.

This makes it easier to articulate notes clearly and accurately.

Here are several ways to play them to train yourself to use momentum for faster, more efficient playing at high speeds:

Pick the notes of a string transition with power.

Picking notes with power accents them both by making them louder and by bringing the note

to the forefront in your mind (making it easier to identify flaws or mistakes).

For example: Check out the notes marked in the tab below.

These are the notes of each string transition. The last note on the first string and the first note on the next string.

Unless you move smoothly from one string to the next, playing fast scale runs will always feel like a struggle.

Practice these transitions by only playing the transition notes one after the other (using heavy picking), then integrate them back into the rest of the scale when they feel smooth. Play the scale, then isolate the notes again as needed.

Pick a few notes at a time and add more incrementally

In the tab you just looked at, play only the first notes of the scale.

Focus on your picking hand while doing this to ensure you are picking with the efficiency shown in the video. For now, focus primarily on using the correct pick strokes and maintaining picking momentum.

Pick the notes at a fast speed. This is easier than you think, because having only a few notes to work with makes it easier to process mentally.

Gradually add one note at a time to the scale after mastering the previous notes. For example: After you feel good about playing the first four notes, add the fifth and practice for a bit to make the notes sound great. Then add a sixth, seventh and so on until you have played the whole scale ascending and descending.

Now you know some great ways to both play guitar with faster and cleaner speed. This is just the beginning though. Learn more ways to clean up your playing in this free resource on how to play guitar perfectly.