In my post “Thoughts on Practice from a Wise, Old Guitarist,” I asked Bill, a well-aged retired, professional guitar player how to increase my guitar speed after hearing how fast he played on his old recordings. He just told me to “practice, practice, and practice.” But how do we practice when we want to learn how to play guitar fast?

1. Start slow, Speedy

This couldn’t be more important. Practice playing guitar scales slow at first with proper fingering, posture, and technique. Set a metronome at a slow speed then practice at faster speeds. It’s really boring at first (I won’t lie to you), but it’ll be harder to play guitar faster if you don’t have good technique. You must walk before you run.

2. Alternate Picking

As you pluck the individual strings with your pick, pluck each string alternately with a down pluck and an up pluck with the pick. When you play a guitar scale or [...]