Ever motivated by great fast guitarists (watch Paul Gilbert and Shawn Lane), then it's time to start practicing and getting fingers in shape to play some strange beautiful music.
For each note to sound clearly, left and right hand synchronization is the most important thing. You'll find a few exercises in this article to improve this synchronization. It's important to understand that these practices would only improve your speed and finger strength, composing good music is an altogether different thing.
Maybe you don't want to play lightening fast guitar but learning speed picking would be a good addition to your skill set and not to mention that playing everything else would be a cake-walk.
How to hold the pick? There is no one particular method that's "right". In order to have good picking technique, you should hold your pick in the way which is most comfortable for you. All guitarists have their own style of holding the pick and you should find out yours too.
I'd suggest sticking to alternate picking if you really want to improve your picking speed.
Remember always to use a metronome. Start with 60BPM and then keep on increasing once you are comfortable with current level. Again metronome is very important and it helps your keep track of progress and as Joe Satriani also points out, it also builds your phrasing skills.
In the same video, check out the basic chromatic exercise with alternate picking (Exercise 2) and a tongue-twister for fingers (Exercise 3, Advanced).
Getting the left hand posture right is also very important to improve speed. For correct left-hand posture, watch this.
Following is a basic exercise to improve speed. Begin with, say, 60 beat per minute (4/3 division/subdivision). Increase metronome frequency only if you feel comfortable with current speed and each note is sounding correctly.
Exercise A: (Use alternate picking, d - down pick, u - up pick)
d u d u d u d u d u d u d u .....
e|------------5--6--8-------------5--7--8--------------|
B|--5--6--8-------------5--7--8------------------------|
G|-------------------------------------------------------|
D|-------------------------------------------------------|
A|-------------------------------------------------------|
E|-------------------------------------------------------|
Do the same thing in reverse order.
e|--8--7--5--------------8--6--5-----------------------|
B|------------8--7--5--------------8--6--5-------------|
G|-------------------------------------------------------|
D|-------------------------------------------------------|
A|-------------------------------------------------------|
E|-------------------------------------------------------|
To improve strength of fingers, following exercise is recommended. it improves the strength of pinky a lot. Again practice it with metronome.
Exercise B
e|------------5h6h8--------------5h7h8------------------|
B|--5h6h8--------------5h7h8----------------------------|
G|----------------------------------------------------------|
D|----------------------------------------------------------|
A|----------------------------------------------------------|
E|----------------------------------------------------------|
Exercise C (Advanced alternate picking)
e|------------------------------------------------------------------5--|
B|-----------------------------------------------------5---6---9------|
G|--------------------------------------------5---7-------------------|
D|-----------------------------6---7---9------------------------------|
A|---------------5---7---8--------------------------------------------|
E|--5--7--8-----------------------------------------------------------|
To reach the 9th fret, use the pinky and make sure that note is sounding correctly. Also make sure that you are using alternate picking even when you are changing strings. For example, pick the 8th fret on E string down and then pick 5th fret on A string up. You are basically playing all the notes in A harmonic minor scale. As done in exercise A, practice the same pattern in reverse order.
If you will do above exercises regularly, you'll certainly see a lot of improvement in your guitar picking speed and strength of fingers in less than a week. Few more cool videos: Jason Becker, Slash, More.
Read More...
Summary only...
Posts
