How to develop speed on the Guitar

Speed is not the be all and end all of guitar. I cannot stress that enough. Players like Vai, Malmsteen
and Satriani are Rock Gods and their speed and technique is mind blowing, but give me Dave Gilmour and
BB King any day! That being said, developing good speed is an important part of any players practise
schedule.

You do not have to be able to play a million notes per second either. Developing speed can be as simple
as wanting to play a jimmy Page riff, but you are just not quite there. As you become a little more
proficient on the guitar (or any instrument) you will want to be able to play a succession of notes with a
clean and fluid technique. Vital for any speed level.

To be able to do this you need to have a systematic and structured way of building speed. A system
that can be implemented by a guitarist of any level, from the complete beginner wishing to master their
first chromatic warm-up exercise to the hardened shredder wanting to practise 'Arpeggios From Hell'.

I came up with this idea when I was building my first ever practise schedule. I couldn't even play a basic
chord progression, yet I came up with an idea that I still use today and so can you. It is hardly rocket
Science, but man does it work!! If you put 10 minutes a day into this exercise, you will show extremely
fast results. No pun intended.

Let me introduce you to the speed Graph….

The Speed Developer Graph!

Now, please don't get put off by the fact that I am showing you a graph as a way of improving your
speed technique!!! If you showed this to me when I was learning, I would have been disgusted by the
fact that maths was being mixed with Music! But the simple fact is, it works. In fact it works really well,
so let me explain it.

You will start with an exercise; this can be a specific technique exercise, a riff or a section of a solo
etc. You are going to repeat this exercise a lot using a metronome. You cannot complete this exercise
without a metronome so get one now. My 10-Week Course for Intermediate Guitarists is based solely on
you building your own practise schedule so keep checking my products page for when it arrives for
download. It has loads of technique, speed and strength exercises.

You will then start at Point A on the graph.

Point A is where you play the exercise at a ridiculously slow speed. This has to be a speed that you
can pretty much do it without thinking. On a piece of paper, write down the BPM (beats per minute)
and write next to it one of the following scores:

1) Completely easy.
2) A little harder, you are having to concentrate now.
3) All your attention is being put into the exercise, you are not making any mistakes but if you let your
game down a little, you will.
4) The same as 3 but you are making a few mistakes. You find it very difficult to get through the
exercise but can, inconsistently though.
5) Completely unobtainable. After a few notes it all falls apart.

If you have done this correctly, the first score will be 1.

When you can play the exercise through a few times without making a mistake, go to the next step.
The next step is to raise the tempo very slowly. 5 BPM is great but 10 BPM is ok too if it is really easy.

Mark the score down again and keep repeating this process until you reach score 5. This is a point
where you just cannot get anywhere with the exercise. After a few notes the whole thing falls apart.

When you are scoring yourself it is VITAL that you are honest. If you made a slight mistake
then do not ignore it. If the notes are not sounding fluid or sustaining for the correct amount of
time then you are not playing it right. NEVER GO ONTO THE NEXT STEP BECAUSE YOU WANT TO -
YOU WILL SHOW ABSOLUTELY NO SIGNS OF IMPROVEMENT.

See how important that last paragraph was? I put the whole thing in bold!!! Wow!!

Anyway, when you reach score 5 you are at Point B. You will now do exactly the same thing but
decreasing the tempo. Remember to go slow and be honest. You will eventually find yourself back to
where you scored 3 - all your attention is going into the exercise and it could easily go wrong but isn't.
If you can't do the exercise 5 times without making a mistake, then you have to lower the tempo. If
you can, but couldn't possibly raise the tempo as mistakes would creep in, you are at the right tempo.

You are now at Point C.

Point C is your optimum speed level. Play this exercise about 5 times (with each exercise repeated 5
times) This is the point that you want to get faster, not anything else. That is the most important part
of this lesson and something that you really have to understand. You cannot play any faster than this
without making mistakes, so this is what you have to work on. By sticking to this graph every time you
practise, you will show AMAZING results. Keep a note of the results and the next time you practise,
raise the tempo by 2 or 3 BPM. Small amounts of tempo increases like this are what really improve
technique. You will not notice it as the development will be so gradual but after even a Month you will
notice that your Optimum speed (point C) has increased by quite a bit.

Most important part of the lesson: Again, do not increase the tempo because you are excited!
You have to be honest with your self here.

Good luck dudes(ettes) and remember to warm-up and practise with good posture.

Peace.

JB :)