If you want to shred on the guitar the most important skill you will need is speed. No matter what you play, if it isn’t fast you aren’t shredding! Not to worry though, building speed is not as difficult as many people think. All you need to do is practice correctly, have some patience and persistence, and you will learn to play at hyper-speed! This lesson will teach guitarists of all levels how to practice correctly to build speed.

The key to speed is practicing proper technique. Whenever you are trying to build speed (or any time you play guitar in general) you should be practicing with the following fundamentals for proper technique:

• Ensure that your technique is smooth and “clean”:
  • Picking hand
    • Direct, proper contact with the pick (focus on coordination and accuracy)
  • Fretting hand:
    • Fret each note firmly but smoothly (focus on coordination and accuracy)
• Tension
  • When practicing, make sure that you minimize tension in your fingers, hands, wrists, arms, and shoulders. It is common to tense your muscles when you are trying to play fast, but this will actually prevent you from building speed. Tension must be addressed right away: whatever you do, do not try to play through tension (if you practice with tension it will become part of your muscle memory and will become difficult to get rid of later).
• Economy of motion
  • Picking hand:
    • Use alternate picking for now (eventually you may want to learn economy picking as well)
    • Try to minimize movement so that you move the pick only as much as is necessary (you do not need a big wind-up or follow-through)
  • Fretting hand:
    •  Only move your fingers as much as is necessary (smaller, concise movements are best)
    • For each note you play use the most efficient finger to economize motion (in order to play fast you will have to use your pinky!)

Note: if you need more detail on any of the fundamentals above, resources are available all over the internet (or feel free to ask me in the comments section or at dr@drguitarlessons.com)

Building Speed:

1. Using a scale or exercise of your choice and a metronome, find a speed at which you are comfortable playing with proper technique (as explained above). Don’t be afraid to slow down as much as you need to in order to maintain proper technique. Even if you are able to play at faster speeds, maintaining proper technique is much more important than speed right now. I will provide some speed building exercises that you may find helpful when completing these steps.
2. Practice at your comfortable speed (determined in step 1). You may want to use my speed building exercises. Do this until you are very comfortable playing with proper technique. Depending on your guitar playing ability and how much work is needed to perfect your technique, this could take 1 or 2 practice sessions or it could take many more. Be patient: this step can be very boring but is important. You want to make playing with proper technique a habit.
3. Once you feel comfortable with step 2, you can gradually increase the speed on your metronome (don’t try to make big leaps in speed, you should increase the speed at small/gradual intervals). Now practice at this new speed. Once again, maintaining proper technique is most important. If you are unable to maintain proper technique then move back down to your original comfortable speed and continue practicing step 2. If you are able to maintain proper technique while practicing at the new increased speed, then this will become your new comfortable speed, and you can repeat step 2 with your new comfortable speed.
4. Repeat step 3 to increase your speed to a desired level.

Note: While speed building exercises (or scales, arpeggios, etc.) are best to increase your general playing speed, you can also use steps 1-4 with specific passages or songs that you are working on.