By Nicholas Anderson
Every guitar player I’ve ever me has wanted to be able to play fast. It’s fun, it’s impressive, and it sounds cool. However, not many guitar players have a good strategy for building speed. Most players just try to play fast and hope that they will eventually reach their goal. That is how I practiced for a long time. Thankfully, there is a superior way to building speed that is easy to begin applying, even for guitar players who are just beginning to learn scales. While this is not a complete strategy for building speed, it is a good starting point.
First, and perhaps most important, slow down. This is counter-intuitive. In order to play fast, you have to first play slow. Very slow. Actually, you must play slow so that you can play accurately. Accuracy is key. This is the #1 secret to building speed, and not many guitarists or guitar teachers know this. Speed does not come from trying to play really fast. Speed comes from developing picking and fretting hand discipline in combination with developing synchronization between the two. This should be fairly obvious, but to most people it is not.
Second, relax. There are many ways that you hurt your ability to play fast. Being tense is one of the most common ways. If you’re going to play fast, you have to be relaxed, otherwise you will not be able to play accurately or for a significant amount of time. Tension can also lead to serious injuries. Relaxing allows the muscles to move freely and fluidly. Tension restricts movement. Most guitarists play with a lot of tension not only in their hands and wrists, but also in their arms, neck, shoulders and back. As you practice, pay attention to the tension in your body. Relax as much as possible. It will help your playing in many ways.
Third, track your progress. While this may not sound like something that could make a big impact, it is. Tracking your progress will do one of two things. It will show you that you are making progress or it will tell you something you’re doing is not working (or maybe that you’re not practicing enough or consistently). Imagine that you’re going on a 30 mile hike. Would you want a map? Would you want to track where you are and where you’re going? Of course you would. The same idea applies to guitar. If your goal is to be able to play 1,000 notes per minute but you have no idea if you’re playing at 200 or 400 right now, and you never measure you’re progress, you will almost certainly get fail.
To recap, there are three things you need to do to begin building speed: Slow down, relax as you play, and track your progress. Of course, there are a lot more strategies and techniques that go into building speed. As you get better, you will need different strategies. But for now, implement these into your playing, whether you’re working on scales, arpeggios, tapping or whatever. You will find that these three point apply in some way to everything you do as a guitarist.
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