How To Guitar Tune - Learn with FREE Guitar Tips!

Fast-picking guitarists have all sorts of little adjustments and things that they make to their technique in order to refine a very personalized way of picking on the guitar. Similarly, to achieve a picking speed of a professional, it's your job to be just as meticulous and to decide what's best for you.

After you've done experimentation with finger and hand placement, then you'll be ready to maximize your picking speed. Check out these simple tips to help develop some better picking strategies to ultimately go faster on the guitar.

1. Practice one hand at a time.

A good way to increase your learning speed of a difficult riff is to take it one hand at a time. Take your fret hand out of the equation and just hash out the fast picking section on the guitar first before you move on with both hands.

2. Decide between the open or closed grip on the guitar pick.

I actually don't know if these are real terms, and if not, I'm coining them right now. But to me, open grip is holding the pick with your thumb and index finger and letting your other fingers spread out as if you're giving the "OK" sign.

Closed grip would be holding your pick with the thumb and index again but with your fingers curled in almost into a fist-like position. Both of these grips have a different feel, but one might suit you better for faster picking on the guitar than the other.

3. Remember that each string feels different.

As much as it sounds weird, but each string on the guitar is in a different place causing very minimal, but noticeable variations between how well they can be picked on the guitar. The low 'E' string might be easier for you to pick fast as opposed to the high 'b' string only because of where they are located and the strings adjacent to them.

That's why it's important to practice on each string evenly in order to balance your skill of fast picking guitar on all of the strings on the neck.

4. Adjust where your hand rests on the guitar body.

Where your picking hand is stationed in order to produce the most flexible motions is very important for getting faster movement on the guitar. Try a few different places on the guitar body and see where you can get the easiest amount of motion out of your hand without it feeling forced or awkward to do.

Experimentation is the name of the game when you're trying to develop a faster picking style. Practice and hard work are just as important, but be sure to explore all of your options as to HOW you set up your hands before you settle on a brutal practicing schedule.