How to Do Speed Picking Exercises on Lead Guitar – Part 2

Hey, guys. Claude Johnson here with guitarcontrol.com and
I’d like to share another speed-building exercise with you.

In the first speed-building lesson that we did a couple
days back we just focused on one note at a time. What
we’re doing here is just focusing-in on that right hand,
or left hand if you’re left-handed, but for most of us
we’re picking with the right hand. You’re just going to
be alternating between the down stroke and the upstroke
and then building-up speed just doing it faster. By just
doing one note we’re basically focusing on that right hand.

Now we have to bring the left hand in, but we’re going
to start very simply with one string. On the G string
try taking the 9th fret, 10th fret and 12th fret and
then just go up and down and repeat. With this just pay
attention to the coordination between your left and
right hand. Just make sure when you’re picking you’re
up or down and you’re switching fingers. Also, just make
sure your fingers aren’t coming too high up the neck.
Keep them nice and tight to the fretboard which will help
your economy of motion which is important when you’re
trying to achieve fast speeds.

Just to demonstrate I’ll just use my metronome on my
phone here. This is 100 beats a minute and we’re just
going to start-off nice and easy here. Now we can increase
the speed. Let’s go to 126. We’ll go up again; that’s 144.
A little faster. That’s 158. And faster. That’s 184. I’m
getting my fingers warmed-up to the beat.

Now, if I want to go any faster, let’s say I’m going
to go back to 100 but then I’ll try to double-time it.
Here we go. Sometimes it’s good to go really slow, too.
It’s another way to help you. Here we go. We’ll go real
slow and we’ll build-up to the 200 beats a minute. When
you’re going that slow it gives you a nice chance to
really make sure your fingers are close to the fretboard.
You can go even faster if you want. This is 120, so double
that would be 240.

There you have it, a speed building exercise. Try it out
and remember speed is only one aspect of guitar playing.
I talk about a lot of the other aspects in Killer Guitar
Control Secrets. So check that out at guitarcontrol.com/secrets.
Thanks for watching and have an awesome day.