Guitar Learn to Play Faster – 3 Exercises to Practice

So you can probably remember how excited you were when you could finally switch well enough between the basic major chords to piece a song together. Then the first time you played a small lead part over a backing or practice track on a CD. Now you’ve hit the point where you’ve got the basics covered but you want to be able to play faster.

This is a logical step that many people want to make but let me say one thing about learning to play guitar quicker. You want to improve your speed while maintaining your skill level. Anyone can play quickly and possibly if there’s a enough distortion going on no one will notice the misplayed notes. How ever for real skill you want to play well an quick.

Below are three exercises you can integrate into your practicing routines. They will start yielding you some results for both speed and accuracy in about a week or two. Keep at them and you’ll be a guitar speed demon in no time.

Scales up and Down the Neck

Do you know the basic pentatonic scale shapes? If not no worries if you’re using a guitar lessons dvd or some other form of self study course jump a head a little bit in your lesson book or videos to see if you can find a basic scale shape.

What you want to do is take that scale shape and start at fret number on right next to the nut and work your way all the way up the neck. So at fret number one play the scale starting from string number 6, Low E, and then play it right down to string number 1, High E. Now play the scale backwards as well back to string number 6.

Now move up to fret number two and do the same thing, then fret three and fret four. I’m sure you get the idea. Go all the way up the neck and then back down to number one. This might seem boring at first but it’s the beginning of building accuracy and consistency. Next we’re going to add some speed increases.

Metronome

If you don’t have a metronome I suggest you get one. They’re cheap and are a great tool to improve accuracy and speed that’s in time. Using a metronome when you practice will make it far easier to play along with other instruments later one.

Turn your metronome on and find a number of beats per minute that you feel comfortable with playing the same scale you played in the first exercise. No turn that back maybe 10 beats per minute or so. Start again at the first fret and play the scale up and then down. When you move up to fret number two increase the beats per minute by one. Do this at each fret and you’ll find that by the time you reach the top of the neck you’re playing faster then you felt comfortable when you started.

This is a great exercise to slowly introduce small speed increments. In time you can also start at a higher number of beats per minute on fret one and move upwards.

Up and Down Picking

If you’re starting to find it tough in the second exercise when you reach the top of the neck to keep up the picking speed by just plucking the string on the down stroke this is going to help. You can double hit the string both on the way down and the way up.

You’re going to want to practice this first just on it’s own on one string, then on a couple of strings and eventually working up to playing your scales this way.

It feels a little uncomfortable at first and you will make some mistakes. It can be difficult to get your picking hand in time with your fretting hand but it will come. This tip will add a whole other dimension to your speed of playing.

So that’s it, those three tips will improve your speed and accuracy so you can become a faster guitar player. Keep at it consistently and you’ll see results in just a week or two but don’t stop there. Speed and accuracy are the things great guitar players are made of. Keep pushing yourself to improve your speed and do it with new scales or riffs you learn to push your limits.