Speed Exercise

[guitarer]

I need some speed exercises to improve my fret hand speed so I can solo over some faster stuff (195 beats per minute). Please Help!

[cyberfret]

There is nothing better for building technique that scale practice, and playing melodic sequences out of those scales.

Here are a couple to start with. Once you understand the idea, you can come up with your own. All of the examples are written for an A major scale, but you should apply them to all scales. The numbers used to describe the scale patterns are just the order that you would play the notes in the scale.




Scale pattern 1231, 2342, 3453 etc...

E:-----------|---------|---------|-----------
B:-----------|---------|---------|-----------
G:-----------|---------|---------|-----------
D:-----------|---------|---------|-----4-----
A:-------4---|---4-5---|-4-5-7-4-|-5-7---5--- ETC....
E:---5-7---5-|-7-----7-|---------|-----------


You could do exactly the same thing coming back down

E:--4-5-7-4--|---4-5---|-----4---|------------
B:-----------|-7-----7-|-5-7---5-|---5-7------
G:-----------|---------|---------|-7-----7---- ETC....
D:-----------|---------|---------|------------
A:-----------|---------|---------|------------
E:-----------|---------|---------|------------




Or you could reverse the direction coming back down

E:--7-5-4-7--|--5-4---5-|--4-----4-|------------
B:-----------|------7---|----7-5---|-7-5---7----
G:-----------|----------|----------|-----7------ ETC....
D:-----------|----------|----------|------------
A:-----------|----------|----------|------------
E:-----------|----------|----------|------------



Here are some other patterns that you might try. If there are 2 or 4 notes in the sequence, play using 8th notes (2 times per beat) or 16th notes (4 times per beat). If there are 3 notes in the sequence, use 8th triplets (3 times per beat) , or 16th note triplets (6 times per beat).


Scale Patterns

1321, 2432, 3543.....
1234, 2345, 3456......
13, 24, 35.......


123, 234, 345.....
135, 246, 357....
121, 232, 343....
212, 323, 434...

--Shawn