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Tuesday, March 03, 2009

How To Play Guitar Fast!

By Sean Martin

Playing fast guitar became famous around the 1980s when most guitarists wanted to play fast like Steve Vai and others. The need for speed has never really gone away, and today guitarists like Satriani still give shredders the taste of what is possible. But its not as easy as it looks, how do you play guitar really fast, because a lot of teachers can't do it themselves.

You can learn fundamentals that can help you develop the speed you want, and concentrating on each of these will pay-off in the long run. First of all, you want to work on your right-hand technique, your left-hand technique and recognize that practising to build up speed doesn't happen over night. Its not possible to increase speed and fluency by developing just one aspect of your playing. Also, playing fast without accuracy just sounds plain awlful. Left hand proficiency takes time to build up. You need to develop excellent finger and thumb placement, and good finger dexterity and accuracy. The two basic thumb positions used by guitar players are over the top of the fretboard, and resting behind the fretboard. Behind the neck will give you greater reach on the fretboard and better control and consistency. If you practice guitar scales and exercises fast in this beginning thumb position, you will increase your speed in time.

Placing your fingers on the neck in the right positions when you play is vital for speed. Your four fingers should be resting just above the first 4 frets until needed. Keeping your fingers there will help optimize speed when playing scales and exercises, but finger motion is a bit more tricky. Guitarists can either press the finger down when used, and leave it there until it is needed (finger anchoring), or lift each finger as the next one comes down (finger movement), for speed, finger movement is most effective. Finger accuracy involves consistently fretting a note right behind the fret, this improves dexterity. Remember to use the flat part of the finger tips and not the side of the finger. The more discipline you have, the quicker you will become.

Having just one technique down is not enough. Everything you do, from how you hold the pick, to the alternating pattern you use will all have an impact on your speed. Picking can be alternating, sweeping or circular, and should probably be acquired in that order as they increase in complexity as well as speed. One technique is not better than another, it depends on the situation.

How you hold the pick is important, the pick needs to be vertical to the strings and only the very tip of the pick needs to touch the strings, this reduces resistance. The motion from your wrist is just as important, you want the motion to come from the wrist to be as loose as possible. Try not to use finger and thumb muscles as they tend to become very tense which hinders speed.

To build speed you just have to practise. Set aside a regular daily or weekly time to work on exercises, scales, arpeggios etc, to build speed using these techniques. It's no use having people round; they'll get bored as this practise is very repetitive. Work with a metronome " it's essential to learn to play really fast. Start slowly and increase the speed gradually. Never speed up before you are perfectly accurate at one speed.

Its just a matter of time with these simple techniques, with practise and discipline, you will be playing guitar really fast in no time.

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