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3 Reasons Why You Struggle To Play Guitar Both Fast And Clean
By Tom Hess - 05/11/2015 - 10:49 PM EDT

The first part of this article discussed the immense importance of developing perfect 2 hand synchronization when trying to increase your guitar speed. So, the next logical thing to learn is WHY so many guitar players struggle to improve their own 2 hand synchronization.

There are 3 huge reasons that are holding you back from achieving high levels of guitar speed in your playing:

Your Hands Move Slowly Or Lazily When You Practice At Slow Tempos

Most guitarists wrongly believe that when they are practicing at slow tempos, they need to move their hands slowly as well. While slow hand movements ARE necessary sometimes, using them incorrectly will severely hurt your ability to perfectly synchronize your hands in 1 of 2 ways:

1. Your pick hits the string at a different time than the fretting hand does. This makes your playing sound sloppy, cripples your ability to synchronize your hands, and makes it impossible to play guitar fast.

2. Your hand’s sloppy movements create unwanted string noise on either side of the note you’re playing.

Slow or lazy hand motions affect your technique. Note that there are sloppy noises at both the beginning and end of each note. This is where your hands aren’t in sync.

So how do you fix this problem? It’s actually pretty simple. Move your hands quickly when playing each note but also make sure each note sustains for a long time. Keep in mind that this doesn’t mean you increase the tempo of the exercise! Simply by moving your hands faster for each note, you create space in between the notes. Attacking the strings with the pick faster eliminates the noise. This will allow you to greatly improve your 2 hand synchronization.

You Are Using The Wrong Picking Technique For Playing Guitar Fast

In order to improve your 2 hand synchronization you need to greatly increase the efficiency of your guitar playing. This requires you to do 2 things:

1. Instead of using strict alternate picking, starting implementing directional picking technique. Using alternate picking often requires you to stop your picking hand’s momentum by passing over the string you are going to play and completely reversing your picking motion to hit the next string. This obviously wastes lots of time and energy which hurts your ability to play guitar efficiently. Instead, implement directional picking so you can take full advantage of the picking hand’s momentum when switching between strings. This will help you greatly improve your 2 hand synchronization. Learn why directional picking is the best picking technique for fast guitar playing and how learning it can help you increase your guitar speed quickly.

2. Work on making your picking motions much smoother by focusing on making your picking motions more fluid. This will fix the imbalance most guitarists have between the skill levels of their picking and fretting hands (typically, the fretting hand is much more advanced). One example of how to do this is to make only ONE motion with your picking hand when switching between strings while playing a 3-note-per-string pattern.

Watch this free video to learn how to improve your picking motions and start playing guitar faster and cleaner.

You Aren’t Tracking Your Guitar Playing Progress The RIGHT Way

One of the biggest things you can do to improve your guitar playing is to start effectively tracking the progress you make. Most guitarists have no idea how to do this. However, those who do reach virtuosic levels in their technique much faster (and have more fun doing it!). Once you start to track your guitar playing progress, you will immediately see big results in your guitar playing.

Understanding the 3 main reasons why guitarists struggle to improve their 2 hand synchronization is a great first step, but to see truly massive results in your playing you need to learn all the OTHER elements that enable you to become a virtuoso guitarist. Stop struggling to increase your guitar speed. Learn how to literally double your guitar speed while practicing only half the time.




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