Practicing Guitar To Increase Top Speed: Why Most Guitarists Fail To Build Speed

Guitar players often fail to achieve great speed in their playing because they adhere to one of the following (common) practicing principles:

1. Because they are taught to do so by their teacher, guitar players will practice ‘slowly’ all the time under the belief that it will increase their top speed. Reality is, guitar teachers who put this advice forward are terrible at producing guitar students who play very fast.

2. Some guitarists only want to play fast because they feel impatient while practicing slowly. This leads them to ‘try to play as fast as possible’ every chance they get. They believe that working on increasing their top speed every day will eventually help them play faster.

The truth is, both of these practicing approaches do NOT help you increase your guitar playing speed. Although they may seem like ‘common sense’ approaches to some, each approach has its own problems that are never discussed or solved by most guitar instructors. On top of that, if you practice too much using either one it can actually damage your overall guitar playing (without you even being aware of it). To truly increase your guitar playing speed, you need to understand the advantages of practicing both slow and fast so that you can get the best of both worlds.

Now you will learn why you will not increase your guitar speed by always playing ‘fast’ or ‘slow’ and which approaches you should be taking instead:

Why ‘Always’ Practicing Slowly Doesn’t Help You Build Your Guitar Speed

Reason 1: Constantly Practicing Slow Does Not Prepare You Mentally For Faster Playing Speeds

To play guitar at the highest possible speed, you have to posses the ability to comprehend notes at the same tempo (or faster) that you are playing on. If you never practice at fast speeds, you will never improve your ability to mentally comprehend the notes in a way that is necessary to play cleanly at higher tempos. This will result in sloppy playing at higher speeds and a lack of ability to follow the tempo in faster music.

To avoid this issue, you must invest time into training your mind, picking hand and fretting hand to play at faster speeds.

Reason 2: You Develop Poor Habits That Make It Difficult To Make Any Progress Toward Becoming A Fast Guitarist

While practicing guitar at slow speeds as your only means of practice, you begin creating habits of playing with sloppy movements that you would never use while playing fast. It’s harder to notice when you are wasting movement in your picking/fretting hands while playing at slow speeds (when you have a lot more time between each note to get it right). If you try to apply the same movements while playing at faster speeds, you will quickly notice a lot of mistakes and it will be hard to keep both hands coordinated together.

Here are two very common examples of this that I see while helping my newer students become better players:

• They try to pick each ‘individual’ string within a sweep picking arpeggio pattern instead of using a single sweeping motion to move across all strings simultaneously
• They play 3 note per string scale patterns with continuous alternate picking technique. This involves excessive and unnecessary picking motion, leading to slower playing and general sloppiness.

Reason 3: You Don’t Know What Prevents You From Increasing Your Speed
Before your ‘slow’ practice can effectively help you build speed on guitar, you have to know which problems are preventing you from becoming a faster player now. This is crucial! If you don’t take the time to understand this, your guitar practice time will bring you little to no returns. You simply can’t get big results by blindly practicing and hoping that you start getting better. To become a faster guitarist as soon as possible, you have to explicitly know what needs to be fixed in your playing and how doing so will help you increase speed. This requires actually playing at faster speeds and looking for any mistakes or errors that you can take note of. Only AFTER you’ve identified these things can you truly begin to have effective slow practice.

When you practice at slow speeds without going through the steps from above, it’s like walking across a tight rope with your hands over your eyes while attempting to keep your balance. To take your hands away from your eyes and maintain your balance (so you can make it across) you have to know what is keeping you from becoming a faster guitarist. Always make sure you understand this before you practice slowly.

Why ‘Always’ Playing At Your Highest Speed (With Less Than Perfect Precision) Will Damage Your Ability To Play Fast
Now you understand why practicing guitar slowly all the time will not help you become a faster player. However, it’s just as ineffective to exclusively play at fast speeds (when you haven’t fully mastered what you are playing yet). Here’s why:

Reason 1: You Increase The Chances Of Wrist/Arm Injury

A major drawback to playing fast with mistakes is the injuries that can occur from poor, under-developed playing technique. Poor playing technique comes from not learning how to play efficiently/correctly at slower speeds so that you don’t use excessive force or movement at higher speeds. This is serious: I’ve seen many guitarists hurt themselves from continuous playing at high speeds — resulting in many months of recovery time away from guitar.

To make sure this never happens to you, always remain aware of how much tension you are using in your body as you play at faster speeds (you can only observe this while playing fast). Once you have pinpointed any unnecessary tension in your body, slow down and play using only as much tension as you need. Next, play at a faster speed again while using ‘just enough’ tension to play effortlessly.

Note: NEVER play guitar if you are feeling pain somewhere in your body (from playing)! If you ever notice pain or discomfort, put down your guitar and take a break.

Reason 2: Your Guitar Playing Becomes Sloppy

If you practice a lot at fast tempos while making mistakes, you are essentially solidifying these mistakes into your muscle memory. This deeply ingrains poor playing habits into your mind — essentially ‘training’ you to become a worse guitar player! I see this all the time with newer students. To help them become faster guitar players I first identify the mistakes they are making while playing fast. Then I show them how to spot these mistakes on their own so they can quickly improve.

To make sure you do not run into this problem, balance your guitar practice by practicing for total accuracy as you play slowly while also training the skills that can only be improved through faster playing.

About The Author:
Tom Hess is a successful professional guitar player, composer and international guitar teacher. He also helps musicians learn guitar online and reach their guitar playing goals. Visit his rock and metal guitar lessons site to read more articles about shred guitar playing, plus get free tips and resources to give you practice materials for your guitar practice schedule.