Learn How To Play Guitar Faster With These Speed Picking Lessons That Most Players Don't Learn

“There are many ways to skin a cat”.

Surely, you’ve heard this saying before and it applies to playing guitar faster just like it does with anything else.

How?

There are tons of different ways to add speed into your guitar playing and many lessons to be learned for how a little speed can go a long way. Understanding this helps you avoid the common overwhelm players feel when trying to learn too many technical exercises at once.

Today, you are going to learn some of these lessons in order to use speed picking to play guitar faster and with better precision than ever.

Sound good?

Let’s begin:

Guitar Speed Tip: Make Your Fast Guitar Soloing More Creative By Playing At A Variety Of Tempos

Many guitar players overlook a simple change to their soloing, which is:

Don’t get locked into playing at the same tempo as the backing track all the time.

You’d be surprised at how much the tempo of music you play over effects your soloing approach without you noticing. Slow vs fast tempos create a specific feeling in music that often changes the way we play notes.

Practice specifically playing over a variety of tempos to fill out your soloing skill-set. Additionally, experiment with playing over different time signatures besides 4/4 to really get your creative juices flowing.

Question: “My fast guitar solos seem to lack the level of musicality and memorability of my favorite players. This applies especially when I start using stuff like tremolo picking. How do I fix this?”

Guitarists have a tendency to sometimes overuse guitar speed and techniques too much in the same solo.

For example:

You may use the same kind of fast scale runs again and again when you aren’t sure what to play.

Anytime you experience this feeling of not knowing what to play next, it is a sign that you should focus on using more variety.

Arrange time to practice improvising using just a handful of notes and creating as much variety as you can per repetition. This helps you develop a better balance between using techniques you like vs overusing them to the point where the ideas become too predictable.

Guitar Speed Soloing Tip: Give Yourself More Time To Think

Let the backing track play first a couple times through the progression before you start soloing.

This is good for 2 reasons:

First, it is a better aesthetic choice in general.

Second, it gives you more time to think about how you want to start the solo.

Guitar Speed Soloing Tip: Don’t Let Your Hands Get Tensed Up

Use as little force as possible to fret notes and pay attention to your body as you play (to get rid of unnecessary tension).

This video shows you a great way to eliminate unwanted tension to make your guitar playing feel effortless by using less tension in your hands:

Want more help to become a faster guitarist? Get tons of free tips to help you play guitar faster in all areas of your technique by downloading this free guitar speed eBook.