Technique/speed Questions Options

[Retribution]

Hello GMCers,

I had a few questions about some techniques and speed building. I've been playing guitar for a little over a year now and I'm rather pleased with how far I've come. I feel like I've come a long way and I've learned a lot over the past year, but I know I've still got a looong way to go. Before I moved off to college, I had a friend who had been playing guitar (mainly bass) about a year longer than I had and I really looked up to him. It all seemed to come so easily to him and I always tried to keep pace with him, but he just seemed to grasp everything a lot easier than I did.

Anyway, on to the questions. First, any tips on improving pull-offs? Hammer-ons came easily when I first started learning them, and I got confident about alternate picking after a good bit of practicing. But, I just can't seem to grasp pull-offs well. They're not too tough on the lower strings (EADG), but I've got problems with them on the higher ones (mainly B and e). I can do pull-offs from a single hand position pretty well on the lower strings, but anything that involves moving my hand up or down the fretboard while keeping the pull-offs/hammer-ons going is hard for me. I can do about three or four notes at a time, but then I'll have to pick the string again in order to keep the tone going. I'm using pretty high gain, so I'm guessing it's just something in my technique or something I just haven't learned yet.

Second question, speed building. What's a good exercise or lesson to build speed? I usually warm up by playing major scales slowly at first and then slowly build speed until it's going towards my top speed. I try not to play it too fast or I get sloppy, and sloppy speed just sounds like crap. I've been trying to think of different ways I could build speed, but I haven't really thought of any good ones.

I'd really like to learn sweeps, too, but I'd like to get more confident in pull-offs before I even begin attempting it.

Sorry for the long post. >_<

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