3 Lightning-Fast Shred Guitar Exercises That Give You Killer Speed Picking Right Hand Technique
Want to have speed picking right hand technique that makes you feel like you have lightning in your pick? Not only is this possible to do in a short time, but it’s easy and fun! Most guitarists make the mistake of practicing exercises without knowing how to practice them efficiently to make progress. This doesn’t help you improve your picking speed.
Instead, use these speed picking exercises to understand the specific skills needed to develop lightning-quick guitar picking technique:
Speed Picking Exercise For Developing Efficient, Articulate Technique And Effortless Speed
Here’s a little-known secret that most guitarists don’t know: effortless guitar playing speed doesn’t come from just moving faster, it comes from having solid foundational technique and using efficient movement.
One of the most common right hand picking technique mistakes is using alternate picking to play everything. This causes you to pick with extra unnecessary motion in your picking technique. This extra movement brings your hands out of sync with each other and makes playing clean at fast speeds feel like a struggle.
This exercise helps you eliminate inefficient movement in your right hand picking technique to give you effortless speed:
Step One: Play slowly through the tab below several times using the exact pickstroke notation indicated. Maintain consistent momentum with your pick attack as you transfer from string to string on notes 3/4 and notes 6/7 (like a sweeping motion).
Step Two: Play through the scale several more times at a fast speed. Split the scale in half by only playing the first four notes and focusing on making the transfer between strings as smooth as possible.
Step Three: Add one more note to the previous step. Concentrate on executing the upstroke perfectly on this note and practice until you are able to play without mistakes. Using a heavier pick attack to accent the last note helps you focus on playing it perfectly.
Step Four: Continue adding more notes until you are able to play the entire scale fast without mistakes.
After practicing this short scale lick, your right hand picking technique improves with:
- Stronger articulation, so you play notes more clearly
- More efficient pick movement, so playing fast becomes effortless
Use this same efficient picking motion whenever you are moving from one string to the next and watch as you quickly play guitar faster than ever before!
Read this guitar picking technique article to learn more about how to speed pick with incredibly efficient technique.
Speed Picking Exercise For Developing Incredibly Tight Right Hand Technique
One of the best ways to improve your speed picking technique is to challenge yourself to pick in new ways you aren’t used to. This helps you adjust to playing in different musical situations in a way that strict alternate picking can’t.
It’s easy to quickly tighten-up your right hand technique to play faster (and more creatively) using simple, single-string guitar licks.
Using the notes in the tab below, apply the following limitations:
Limitation 1: Pick the notes using only upstrokes for 1 minute.
Limitation 2: Pick the notes using only downstrokes for 1 minute.
Limitation 3: Pick the notes using the following pick stroke pattern for 1 minute: Downstroke, downstroke, upstroke
Limitation 4: Pick the notes using the following pick stroke pattern for 1 minute: Upstroke, Upstroke, downstroke
Limitation 5: Pick the notes using the following pick stroke pattern for 1 minute: Downstroke, upstroke, downstroke, downstroke
The more unique the combination of pick strokes, the more you challenge yourself to focus and improve your picking consistency. This makes speed picking with normal alternate picking feel incredibly easy.
This video demonstrates how using alternative picking approaches improves your guitar playing (at around 1:20):
Add more notes to the single string pattern to begin taking your speed picking to an even higher level:
Challenge yourself to think of 10 unique pickstroke combinations/limitations to practice in the same way.
It’s amazing how quickly this improves your picking technique.
Speed Picking Exercise For Cleaning Up Unwanted Sloppy Noises
Have you ever been playing a cool guitar lick with tons of speed but it became ruined by sloppy string noise? Fixing this is easy once you know how to mute effectively.
This simple exercise helps you clean up any string noise so your speed picking technique sounds cleaner than ever:
Get started by understanding the basics of proper muting technique.
Rather than using your picking hand palm to mute unplayed strings, use the side of your thumb. This keeps your picking technique efficient and is more effective for eliminating any open string noise below the string you are playing on.
This video demonstrates why thumb muting is much better than palm muting for cleaning up string noise:
Next, use the side of your fretting hand index finger to mute any strings above the one you are playing on.
With these two things in place, play slowly through the tab below.
As you play through the lick, pay attention to times when you hear any open string noise. Then determine what the cause of it was (improper technique in fretting hand or picking hand).
Once you are able to play the lick cleanly at a slow speed, play through 3-5 notes at a time at a faster speed. Repeat the process of stopping to identify flaws in your muting technique until you are able to play fast through the entire lick without mistakes.
Want to learn more ways to become an incredibly fast guitarist in no time? Download this free guitar speed guide to learn how to double your speed while practicing much less.