I am sure that many of
you have realized that it is a lot tougher to play something that is
fast and clean when you are playing a real song as apposed to when you
are play the same solo or guitar lick repeatedly.
When you attempt to increase your speed it is important that you
remember that you have to be able to use this increase in speed in an
actual song, or why practice to increase your speed? One of the most
frustrating things for many guitarists is practicing over and over to
gain good speed and technique on their guitar only to realize that
they are unable to use their skills in an actual playing situation.
When you practice to improve your speed playing on the guitar, keep in
mind and practice for real life playing situations. The following are
3 common real life-playing situations that the majority of guitarists
struggle with when it comes to applying their speed to actual music.
1. Going from playing rhythm straight into a fast guitar lick or solo.
2. Diving directly into a very fast lead guitar part without any
guitar playing preceding it.
3. Playing very fast guitar licks one after the other that
necessitates the use of radically different techniques, hand
positions, or positions on the guitar neck.
There are simpler and more advanced answers to solve the problems
that are listed above that are very effective. Below are seven simple
answers that you can begin to use now in order to increase the speed
at which you play the guitar. It’s a fact that the majority of
problems that guitarists encounter are in reality mental and not
physical in nature, a few of the answers might seem to have nothing at
all to do with playing the guitar, but they are tremendously useful in
most cases.
1. If you are going directly from playing a rhythm part into playing a
fast guitar lick and need a swift burst of speed to play, you should
exhale just before you dive into the lick.
2. Guitarists that physically master the ability to play guitar with a
lot of speed frequently find that their next challenge is to conquer
their slow mental ability to process and analyze what is going on in
real time. Their hands actually outrun their mind. When this happens
the most typical problems that arise are the ability to coordinate
both hand, you get out of time with the song’s rhythm, excess string
noise, articulation that lacks consistency, the inability to shift
positions smoothly on the neck of your guitar. These are just a couple
of the errors that occur when the mind can’t keep up with what is
going on as you play the guitar in real time.
As a guitar instructor I spend a lot of time helping my students to
prevent this problem from ever happening. The first thing that I do is
to learn precisely where their mental awareness is at in relation to
the various playing speeds. The exercise below is much simpler to do
with a knowledgeable guitar instructor, but give the following a try.
Try this out, play some scales at half of your max speed. Take note of
how mentally aware you are of the issues talked about above. When you
test yourself, the results won’t be that accurate due to the fact
that you are concentrating on doing this test and not actually playing
as you normally would, that is the reason why having a guitar
instructor to test and measure your process is much better when it
comes to getting real results. If you become aware of some issues with
your mind’s capability to analyze the details of what you are
playing, write them down and the speed at which you were playing, you
will need a to use a metronome.
If you are not certain of whether or not your analysis is correct, try
to record yourself playing the guitar and then play back the
recording. Now listen to the recording, can you hear things that you
did not hear before? If you answered yes then you have recognized an
issue with your mental processing that has to be corrected. If you
didn’t hear any difference then increase the speed of the metronome
slowly until you reach a point were you discover a problem with your
mental processing.
When you find a problem with your mental processing, it is time to
adjust the speed of the metronome and practice at a slower speed, a
speed where you can hear and analyze what is going. The objective is
to ultimately reduce the amount of time that it takes your brain to
analyze exactly what is happening, and make the necessary physical
adjustments in your guitar playing so that you can play at full speed.
3. A simple yet effective
solution to the problem of shifting from one position to another on
the fret board while you are playing very fast is to prepare yourself
for the next phrase by fixing your eyes on the very first note of the
next phrase. For example, if you are playing a fast phrase near the
3rd fret and the next phrase begins on the 12th fret, once you begin
playing the first phrase fix your eyes on the first note of the second
phrase.
4. A very common problem that many guitar players have is switching
from playing rhythm guitar to fast guitar soloing. We will look at two
possible causes for this problem. The first may be a physical problem
that is caused by your hands not being sufficiently warmed up due to
playing rhythm. Playing strictly rhythm guitar is not enough to keep
your hands warmed up for fast soloing. When you are play live before
an audience keep your fingers warmed up by doing exercises between
songs. I have also found it useful to have a small heater set off to
one side of the stage, so that I can warm up my hands between songs.
The second probable cause for the problem of switching from playing
rhythm guitar to fast guitar soloing may be a mental problem. There is
simply not enough space in this piece to go into a lot of detail about
why this occurs in the minds of guitarists, so let’s take a look at
one possible solution for solving this problem. Take some time every
day to practice switching back and forth between rhythm and lead
playing.
5. It can be very challenging to jump into a fast solo not having
played any notes prior to the solo, for all of the above reasons. The
reason is that there isn’t any momentum in your left or right hand
prior to the solo part of the song.
If you want to do away with this problem, take some time practicing
playing fast licks without playing anything before the guitar lick,
just dive in and play a fast lick on your guitar. It’s one thing to
run through the same guitar lick repeatedly, but that does not help
you to use the speed that you have acquired when you want to play that
same guitar lick when there is nothing played prior to it in a real
song.
6. If you have ever practiced a guitar lick or technique very fast
again and again with excellent results, and then find it difficult to
play that same lick in a guitar solo, the cause is usually due to the
fact that you have not been practicing a broad variety of these
techniques in random order. Spend some time practicing a lot of
various guitar techniques in a random fashion, with time and practice
you learn to combine various types of techniques at super high speeds.
7. An additional solution to a lot of the problems talked about is to
start your first guitar lick using legato. If you are a fan of Yngwie
Malmsteen you can hear him using legato a lot at the beginning of a
solo. Not only does this solve these challenges, but it also sounds
good. When you hear Yngwie Malmsteen play a very fast descending
scale, particularly after playing a rhythm guitar part you will notice
that he will typically begin by picking the first note on the first
string, and then use pull-offs to play the remaining notes on that
string and then he will play the remainder of the scale by picking all
of the remaining notes.
Learn
To Play Lightning Fast Shred Guitar in just 2 weeks, spending only 20 minutes a day. Rapidly increase your guitar speed and gain the ability to run rings around every other guitar player!!!
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