Let me start out by saying that this article is about playing guitar faster, not learning guitar faster. The ability to play fast occasionally comes naturally but most guitar players have to seriously work at it. And unfortunately the exercises you need to do to play fast are always boring.

You can't learn to play guitar fast by simply picking up your guitar and trying to play fast. You just end up playing a lot of nonsense and people will look at you funny. I've seen it happen.

The key to playing guitar fast is to learn how to properly execute two things: picking between strings and alternating picking. Alternating picking simply means that you pick down on one note and then pick up to play the next. If you do not do this you will never play fast.

The third piece of the puzzle is to learn to pick with as little effort and movement as possible. By picking with little effort and little movement the guitar pick ends up much closer to the next string after the picking movement and you can play that note that much faster. This is where I see most guitar players making a mistake. They believe that to play guitar faster you have to play it harder. This could not be further from the truth.

If you truly want to learn to play guitar fast you have to know how to play guitar slow and deliberate first. No unnecessary motion, light touch on the guitar pick, and you must hit each string with the same amount of force every time. When you've truly mastered playing fast it becomes almost effortless to pull off.

Here are a few exercises to get you started.

The first exercise is too practice picking between strings. You will play one string by picking down or up and then play the next guitar string the opposite way. So your pick is always striking: down, up, down, up etc. The exercise is such play each of these string combinations one after the other. The numbers represent each string.

For the purposes of this exercise I usually number the low E string as number 1 and the high E as number 6, but the reality is you can just as easily do it the opposite way. You will get the same result. Practice playing the following combinations keeping an even tempo. Only speed up when you can do each combination at the same speed as any other combination:

1-2,1-3,1-4,1-5,1-6,2-3,2-4,2-5,2-6,3-4,3-5,3-6,4-5,4-6,5-6

Here is another picking exercise. Play the following string combination striking each string 4 times: up, down, up, down:

6, 5, 4, 3, 5, 4, 3, 2, 4, 3, 2, 1

Now on to the left hand. There are 2 secrets to learning to play fast with your left hand: using your pinky and only lifting your fingers as far off the fretboard as you have to. A lot of guitar players never learn to use their pinkies. They will never be able to play as fast as those who do. No matter what you are playing, even if you are just fingering chords get into the habit of using your pinky as much as possible.

OK, here is simple left hand exercise to increase you guitar playing speed ability. Before you mess around with stuff like bends, and tremolo you need to get the basics down. The basics are simply learning to switch between all fingering combinations. In the following exercise I've numbered your left hand fingers as follows: 1-index,2=middle,3=ring,4=pinky.

Practice the following combinations one after another. Start on your high E string at the 12th fret, playing only on that string. Do every combination using alternating picking then move to your B string and repeat. Then move to your G string, etc.When you finish on your low E string, move back over to your high E string but this time start on the 11th fret. Continue in this manner until you end up on your low E string on the 1st fret.

Here are the combinations:

1-2-3-4, 1-2-4-3, 1-3-2-4,1-3-, 1-4-2-3, 1-4-3-2, 2-1-3-4, 2-1-4-3, 2-3-4-1, 2-4-1-3, 2-4-3-1, 3-1-2-4, 3-1-4-2, 3-2-1-4, 3-2-4-1, 3-4-1-2, 3-4-2-1, 4-1-2-3, 4-1-3-2, 4-2-1-3, 4-2-3-1, 4-3-1-2, 4-3-2-1

Practice all of these exercises. If you have access to a metronome I strongly recommend that you practice with one, noting each time the highest speed at which you correctly executed the exercise. Gradually build up your speed. I guarantee that if you follow these exercises for two weeks straight just as I have said, you will end up being able to play faster than you ever imagined. By doing exercises like this there is no limit to the speed at which you will be able to play.

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