Building speed on the guitar can really be an uphill battle. It’s high maintenance, and sometimes hand tension seems to creep in long before your speed goals do. Perhaps you don’t like playing fast, but need to learn a faster tune for a gig quickly. There are right ways and wrong ways to develop speed on the guitar, so learning how to be relaxed while building speed in your fingertips is crucial.
My Story
When I was a young guitarist, I aspired to be the fastest guitarist in the land. I would spend hours a day practicing my favorite exercise and my metronome hardly got a rest. My hands were tense and my shoulders raised, yet the speed didn’t seem to come fast enough. My guitar would fall silent only when someone asked me that dreaded question:
“Hey! Do you know any songs?”
I finally got sick of not being able to answer this question, so I abandoned this practice to learn some real music. It was a great choice, both for my musical sanity and the safety of my hands. This didn’t mean I was able to abandon my practice of speed. I am always finding that I have to learn things where the speed of a passage is out of my reach, so it was crucial to develop an efficient routine.
Speed Bursts
Practicing scales and exercises at lightning fast speeds for extended periods of time will cause excess tension in both hands. The only way to be a truly efficient player at higher speeds is to be relaxed. Tension will tire your hands out quickly and it will make it close to impossible to stay in time.
The secret to building speed while reducing left and right hand tension? Speed Bursts!
(If you are already familiar with speed bursts, don’t give up on me just yet. My goal is to provide you with some insightful new information about speed bursts and how to get the most use out of them.)
So what are speed bursts? The name is pretty self explanatory. Speed bursts are short groups of notes followed by a short rest. They allow the right hand wrist and left hand fingers to get accustomed to the tempo without excess strain. With regular practice of speed bursts, it will become much easier to play the guitar with virtuosity. By developing this routine, difficult passages will be easier to master.
Developing a Speed Burst Routine
Let’s explore some speed burst variations with the A minor pentatonic scale as our example. The goal is to effortlessly play the scale at a fast tempo. This means the right and left hands are both relaxed the entire time. In order to play this correctly, please be sure to follow each step.
For more information about developing a practice routine on the guitar, please read Strategies for Increasing your Skills on the Guitar.
1. Learn to play the passage flawlessly at a very slow speed.
(If you’re interested in building your speed on the guitar, chances are you don’t need to spend any time getting the A minor pentatonic scale under your fingers. Regardless, this step is easily the most important, so pretend you’ve never played the scale before.) Whether you’re working on a new scale, a transcription of a John Coltrane solo, Yngwie Malmsteen style arpeggios, or a Bach fugue, there is absolutely no point in trying to build up speed if you don’t know have an intimate understanding of what you’re playing. If the passage is very long or particularly difficult, it is best to break it up into small segments (2/4/8 measures). When I say slow I mean obnoxiously slow. To practice this, play through the A minor pentatonic scale, half notes at 60 BPM. I have another post that talks more about the benefits of slow practice.
2. Practice bursts in groups of two.
Now we will start to break up the passage to really test how well you know it. This will also make problem areas more apparent. Sometimes, there are only one or two tricky maneuvers that will make it difficult to progress at something that is otherwise very simple. Set the metronome on 60 BPM (even if you know you can go a lot faster) and play the A minor pentatonic scale ascending and descending with a short-long-short-long pattern. Be very careful to make sure you are playing the rhythm correctly: 1 e & a 2 e & a 
Now try to play the opposite: long-short-long-short. 1 e & a 2 e & a. 
Now, shorten the space between the notes: 1 e & a 2 e & a and 1 e & a 2 e & a. Remember to make sure your hands are nice and relaxed. If they are not, you will need to lower the tempo
3. Practice bursts in Groups of three.
Now we will continue extending the length of the bursts. The pattern for this is 3 short, 3 long. 1 e & a 2 e & a 3, and the opposite, 1 e & a 2 e & a 3. 
4. Practice bursts in Groups of Four.
Repeat the same process with number three, just with four notes: 1 e & a 2 e & a 3 e &, and the opposite: 1 e & a 2 e & a 3 e & a.
5. Extend the length of the bursts until you can play the whole passage at speed.
After doing the groups of four, you should be able to double the length of the groups. If this is not possible, continue to practice the groups of four until you have truly mastered them. If this is still not possible, consider slowing down the tempo. The A minor pentatonic shape is 12 notes in either direction. A modest goal is to be able to play ascending, break, descending at tempo. The ultimate goal is to play the whole scale ascending and descending at full speed.
Increasing Speed
The next step is to start pushing the metronome, which is very much a skill on its own. If 60 BPM is too much of a challenge for you, consider lowering the speed of the metronome. (If your metronome has a 16th note setting, turn that on for tempos below 60 BPM) It is very important to practice playing cleanly with a relaxed left and right hand, so do not set the metronome higher than you can do.
In order to speed up your playing, you need to find your “edge.” Play #2 (bursts in group of 2) and begin to increase the speed on your metronome until you have reached the fastest speed you can play (while staying relaxed). Your first goal at this tempo should be to get up to #4 (groups of four). If you cannot make this happen, lower the tempo until you can play the groups of four well.
Keep Track of your Tempos
Keep these tempos in a notebook, or write them on your sheet music. If you’re trying to get a passage up to the speed of a recording or a metronome marking, this is your “goal tempo.” You should keep this tempo in mind at all times. The tempo you are currently working on is your “current tempo.” In order to be able to play the goal tempo cleanly with a relaxed left and right hands, you have to be realistic about your current tempo. Increase the tempo a few clicks at the end of your practice to see what you can do, just be careful to not get too ambitious too quickly.
If you reach your goal tempo (congratulations!) it wouldn’t hurt to increase the speed of the metronome a little more. This will ensure that you will be very comfortable at your goal tempo, especially if you are bringing this performance to the stage. Just be sure that you know what your goal tempo sounds like so you don’t get into a habit of starting the song too fast.
Stay Consistent
Most of all, the only way to be successful at building up your speed is to keep at it. If you are inconsistent with your practice, it will be difficult to train your fine motor skills. Be consistent with the exercises you practice as well, I cannot emphasize this enough. Starting an exercise and abandoning it the next day is a waste of your time. If you decide to play an exercise, also be sure to practice it well for at least one or two weeks before you move on.