Guitarzzz

I’m the kind of guy that does not enjoy notes being played at the speed of light all the time. I love slow, melodic and meaningful guitar licks from time to time. So you have to switch it up. Almost anyone can play slow. But do you have what it takes to have a mach 1 guitar solo?

It’s important to be able to play smoothe when you’re playing fast. Accuracy is very important. Here’s a nice exercise tool to help you build up your speed and accuracy.

This tool is called a Metronome. I’m going to show you where you can download one for free to use at your desk:

1. Download the free metronome software
2. When it finishes downloading, right click the .zip file and extract it. If you can’t do that, then double click the zip file and look over to the left of the window and click “extract all files”. When it’s extracted, double click the .exe file to start the installation process.
3. All done!

Here’s a simple exercise that you need to do while using the software you just downloaded. Set the speed on the metronome low to start out. (about 40 or 50 beats per minute). Now follow the below tablature and use upstrokes and downstrokes on each note. Hit the “1″ fret with a downstroke, then hit the “2″ fret with an upstroke, “3″ with a downstroke, and so on. Set the time signature on the metronome to “none”.

and so on up and down the neck..

Let’s say set your metronome to 50. You need to pluck 4 notes in between each beat. Pluck the very first note at the same time as the first beat. Then lightly pluck the other 3 notes before the next beat comes.. and so on with the rest of the strings! I hope I’m not making this more complicated than it actually is. It’s quite simple. I’m just terrible at explaining.

As long as you’re not completely new at guitar, you’ll probably do just fine with the metronome set to 90 or 100 right now. You should to slowly increase the speed as you progress and get faster. Remember that you need to be able to play the scale smoothely too.

You should also change the scale up some so that your fingers do not get so used to playing those same consecutive notes in a row

Example:

Not quite as easy after doing the first tab exercise aye? ; )

Ya don’t have to dive straight into that. Spend time on the simple one. Then move on to another scale and increase the speed of the metronome when you feel you’ve mastered a certain tempo. You can use the pentatonic and other scales too. If you spend massive amounts of time practicing like this, I GUARANTEE that your speed and smoothness will increase day after day. Guitarists like Steve Vai have done similar exercises.