How To Correct Guitar Mistakes That Happen While Playing Fast

Do you have a hard time playing guitar both fast and clean? You’ve probably heard the advice of: “Practice slowly, then build up to speed once you’ve fixed your mistakes.” This seems logical, and can work sometimes…but you need to do more than this to master guitar technique.

You probably notice that when you play fast, you start to struggle and make mistakes. As you play at a slower tempo, these same problems don’t seem to apply making it harder to improve your technique.

The following video demonstration shows you how to fix guitar playing problems at faster speeds:

https://youtu.be/nuaLXAW4k3E

This eBook about sweep picking demonstrates new ways to make your guitar technique more developed and clean.

Do This Right Now To Correct Guitar Playing Problems At Faster Speeds:

Think of an exercise to work on that includes some type of pattern, then complete the following steps:

Step 1: Figure out the specific speed you have to play at before mistakes begin happening in your playing (use a metronome to determine this). Mark down this speed. As you improve, you will be increasing it.

Step 2: Set the clicks of the metronome to be 5-10 ticks below the tempo from step 1.

Step 3: Select a single note to intensely focus on, as demonstrated in the video. Allow yourself to play all other notes in the exercise on autopilot. For now, it is fine if you make mistakes. Instead of focusing on those mistakes, only focus on the one note you selected.

Step 4: Play through your exercise several times until the note you are focusing on is perfect (make sure you can do this at least 8 times out of 10). Work to refine your technique every time you repeat the exercise.

Step 5: Move onto to the next note in the pattern of the practice item and let the former note go into autopilot mode. Analyze your playing during every repetition to make sure every note is flawless.

Step 6: Repeat the fourth and fifth steps until all notes in the pattern a perfect.

Step 7: Raise the speed on your metronome by five beats and repeat the entire step by step process.

Note: Occasionally use this approach without distortion to improve your 2 hand synchronization, articulation and focus for playing each note perfectly.

This process is excellent for improving scales, arpeggios, licks and difficult parts in songs. It also works well when you want to improve any guitar technique (such as sweep picking, string skipping or tow hand synchronization.)

What To Do If You Have A Difficult Time Focusing On A Single Note

Play With Speed Bursts

Playing with speed bursts makes it less difficult to focus on a certain note in any pattern. Play a quick burst of fast notes, pause for a moment, burst again, and repeat.

The silence between each burst of notes is very important. This helps you focus on the notes so you can easily identify mistakes. As you repeat this burst of speed, make corrections to fix any inconsistencies.

Practicing with speed bursts develops other areas of your guitar playing. This is how:

*You can practice at much faster speeds than the tempo at which you usually play. This makes playing fast feel a lot more effortless.

*Speed bursts also help you relax so that you do not have too much tension in your body. The moment of rest between your bursts helps you spot areas of tension and relax the areas where you feel it most. This makes it easier to play guitar with less effort and greater consistency.

Briefly Reduce The Notes Being Played

Choose only a few notes from the exercise you are practicing and repeat them over and over. Choose one note to focus on and pinpoint it. When you reduce the number of notes your focusing on, this process becomes easier.

Slowly add more notes to the number of notes you play (one by one) until you are playing the whole practice item. By doing this, you gain the ability to hear every note as you play it. This is very important for playing fast and clean.

Articulate The Note You Are Focusing On

Use more power to accentuate the note you are focusing on. This guarantees that you hear any inconsistencies in your playing. Then after moving onto a new note, accent that note using more power.

Critical: make sure to play at the same rhythm the whole time! Don’t hold the accented note any longer than any other note.

Integrate the concepts in this article to fix mistakes in your guitar playing that only happen while playing at faster speeds. This helps you make your guitar playing more accurate, consistent and reliable while making your music more fun to play.

This eBook about sweep picking demonstrates new ways to make your guitar technique more developed and clean.