I have been playing guitar for 5 years now and i feel like i am at a stand still. Meaning i have not made much progression over the past year. So i was thinking that i would like to start doing some shred guitar. What is the best way of building up speed?

I'm no speedster but it all start's at slow speed. Take a sweep lick that you like and play it with a tempo that you can handle cleanly. Then up the beat 5 bpm til you get to where you want to be with it. Then move the shape around the neck and before you know it, you will start to see major progress.

100% agree with Skennington take it slow and grow to love your metronome! There are some speedpicking lessons from Kris and Pavel that are excellent to start with also legato exercises are good as they increase your feel for the fretboard as well as the dexterity in your left hand. Muris has a good beginner legato exercise I believe

Well, when I used to play like 7 hours a day I used to play patterns, 3 and 4 note patterns; scales all over the neck and with all techniques, legato, tapping, etc.
Just practice, practice, practice.

Take a shred piece. Find the highest speed you can play it cleanly. PLay it with a metronome ofr an hour. The next day put the speed up 5bpm, and play it for an hour with a metronome. Continue doing this until you can play it at full speed.

This works for me, but everyone has different approaches so you should try stuff and see what works.

This worked for me as well. I recomend this approach. The point is to play as slow as it is enough not to make mistake, no matter how slow. Then from there start increasing tempo.

Yeh, you're the one who gave me that advice. Thanks Emir.

You can build up speed using any exercise and go to faster tempos. What I would like to hear from you is what kind of method of practicing did you use so far mate? Did you study some theory?

I've made a plan here so you can possibly pull out some ideas out of it, check it out here. If you want we can discuss about it when you see it:
https://www.guitarmasterclass.net/guitar_fo...st&p=312457

When Steve Vaiwas questioned on how to play fast he replied with: "In order to play really fast, you have to play really slow." basically slow down and examine the section you are playing very slowly. Which notes are up-picked? Down-picked? How are you fingering each note? get to where these things are just natural then work on slowly building speed with a metronome. This works for me almost all the time.

People tend to confuse the subject all the time. Ask yourself:

What am I really looking for?

I want to play fast!

Yea, right. No problem. Just move your hands as fast as you can and it'll sound very badly.

We need to rephrase that.

I want to be able to play fast with high accuracy and play interesting things so that it sounds good and is fun at the same time!

So you basically need find out what you are lacking here. Is the problem that your muscles are too weak or do you lack control?

Most probably you lack control. I mean, you can play it at one speed and when you raise it your accuracy goes down. Suddenly you come to a level where your brain says: I'm not fine with this anymore, it sounds like crap.


So you have to start analysing. WHY doesn't it sound good? and how can you make it sound good?

Here are a couple of scenarios for you.

1) You lack coordination with your right and left hand. This is built up by taking a piece and slow it down a lot and work at it so that you don't make any mistake 10 times in a row, then raise the speed gradually and always confirm by playing it 10 times in a row without a single mistake.
2) Your motions are ineffective. Are your strokes powerless, are you using weak muscles (thumb and finger the only ones moving?). Can you make your motions smaller? Can you make a motion that feels nice and makes you feel relaxed while playing? etc.
3) Obviously, when you've fixed your technique and your coordination you're going to have to develop stamina and strength. Do this by taking one piece that you've worked with a lot. A very small one; a lick so to speak. Make sure that you can play it perfectly. Just move up in speed as much as you can and stay there for a while, play it over and over again. Then try to raise it even more. 2 beat per minutes every day for starters (when you're at the top of your capacity). Remember 2 beats per minute everyday equals a raise in 700 bpm in one year! When you're at like 200 bpms, you can go from quarter notes to 16th notes and lower the tempo to 100, or from 16th notes to 32th notes etc.


Just make sure that it's speed you really want and not the most beautiful bends or coolest phrasing.

I am just starting theory. i know a little but i want to get more in depth. I have never had a practice method. I would just learn a song at a time. I never have played scales much. But for the past year i kinda quit practicing getting better at guitar and focused on writing songs. My songs have simple guitar so thats why i have not really gotten better over the past year. But now i am at a point where i want to leave song writing alone for a bit and get really really really good at guitar. But now that i want to start up again and practice guitar i am kinda lost and dont know where to start. i think some sort of practice plan would be a good thing

This post has been edited by Becks: Mar 9 2009, 12:21 AM

Most people will say play it slow, and slowly build up speed. This is not wrong, but it may not work for you. It didnt for me.


Do not take what i am saying as the absolute truth, but different people learn differently. The way I approched playing fast is more of the Shawn Lane/ Chris Impellitari way. I took simple patterns, for example:



E--------------------------------------------------------------------
B--------------------------------------------------------------------
G-----------------12--13--15-----------------------------------------
D---12--13--15-------------------------------------------------------
A--------------------------------------------------------------------
E--------------------------------------------------------------------


and would play them as fast as i could, forward and backwards. Then i would alternate by playing the indivdual 3ps pattern backwards ascending, I.E. 15.....13.......12 on the D string 15.......13.........12 on the G string. etc. I would try to do it as many ways as i could break up the patterns, groups of 3's, groups of 4's, 5's etc.


At first it was utter chaos and slop, but instead of slowing down i slowly cleaned it up. For some people like me, in order to play fast you have to know what its like to play fast. You can't know it until you do it.

I tried the other way, and i just got no results, i banged my head against a metronome for almost 9 months with no real results. Until i saw this video by Shawn Lane and it made sense to me, after that i was playing things i never thought i could play.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhkbSBxPYcU


Both methods can and do work, the question is which is right for you. The only way is to try each of them


Daniel

+ 1 on Oxac's post !

Play slow clean and be precise about every note and phrase you play. Work tempos up with your metronome.
Practicing technique is just like practicing sports ! You have to be consistent in order to reach level of professionalism you seek. If your goal is to play 16th notes at 200 bpm clean and have runs that sound melodically interesting, you need to practice every day with metronome/drum machine/backing tracks and work on your lines while increasing bpm by no more than 4bpm.

I increase tempo only if I can play certain run 20 times in a row without any mistake at given tempo. If anywhere in between those 20 attempts I mess up somewhere, I go back to beginning and start counting again !

Good luck with speed

Best way would be to work on some faster solos, or some classical stuff with lots of scalar patterns. Of course, you will start with speed you feel comfortable with, then practice until you reach the desired level. Choose something that is like 5% among your limits.

+1 to this!

Slowly building speed simply didn't work for me either. I played fast and then I cleaned it up as much as I could. There are, however, exercises and patterns that needed thorough muscle memory which I had to acquire by going over and over that specific exercise slowly. After that, i skipped the turn-the-metronome-up-with-1-bpm-every-day schedule and started at reasonably higher speed to advance even further.

Sometimes, if you set rules like "i won't increase speed until i could play this and this 20 times without messing it up" then it will only make the whole business frustrating.