Exercises to increase picking accuracy and speed

[jgibb]

Hi everyone,

My playing has been extremely sloppy and lazy lately. I just got back from a sixth month trip and haven't touched a guitar in half a year. I'm going to try to reteach myself again and focus on areas that I missed learning the guitar years ago. My picking is extremely inaccurate and real slow. Does anyone have any practice exercises they find helpful to them? Much appreciated!

-John

[Hans Moleman]

Play to a metronome. Always. When you're practicing, record yourself (on anything, doesn't have to be fancy). Play for a couple minutes and then listen back to it carefully. Time is everything - you can play any note and make it sound right if your time is good.

The whole metronome/recording thing is advice from Wayne Krantz, greatest guitar player I've ever seen.

Another thing he preaches, that would be helpful for you is to always make music with your practice time. If you feel your picking is slow, don't just run scales - it's a waste of time. Use those scales to play music. All you need is a metronome.

His book is challenging but mind blowing:
http://www.abstractlogix.com/xcart/product.php?productid=24532&cat=0&page=1

[Stecks]

Play to a metronome. Always. When you're practicing, record yourself (on anything, doesn't have to be fancy). Play for a couple minutes and then listen back to it carefully. Time is everything - you can play any note and make it sound right if your time is good.

The whole metronome/recording thing is advice from Wayne Krantz, greatest guitar player I've ever seen.

Another thing he preaches, that would be helpful for you is to always make music with your practice time. If you feel your picking is slow, don't just run scales - it's a waste of time. Use those scales to play music. All you need is a metronome.

His book is challenging but mind blowing:
http://www.abstractlogix.com/xcart/product.php?productid=24532&cat=0&page=1

HOLY CRAP is Wayne Krantz the man..  his time/tempo changes are probably the most flawless and sharpest I've ever heard.  He's mind blowing.

Yeah, Playing to a metronome is key.   My friend who has an MFA in jazz guitar from a prominent jazz program on the east coast shared this exercise with me, he's been doing it every morning for the past 10+ years:

Set your metronome.
Play each interval of a scale (whole note) on each beat.. not necessarily ascending/descending (as the mole said)... then increase (2/beat, 3/beat...)  Once you get to 5 it gets pretty tricky.  Try to play the scale out of normal "patterny" positions.. try skipping strings... try all upstrokes... etc etc etc

THE TRICK is to not sacrifice ACCURACY for SPEED...  I have found, for me anyway, the most important thing to build speed is to GO SLOW... somewhat paradoxical.  For years I tried to play fast - but then by making a conscious effort to SLOW DOWN, I was actually able to play a lot faster.  Go figure!

I think one of the big things that is incredibly overlooked by guitarists is NOT KNOWING ALL THE NOTES on EACH STRING on the guitar...  probably the majority of guitar  players I've talked to/played with, etc don't know them - they know patterns but not the notes.  This is essential and often overlooked.

[TheSeeker]

Play to a metronome. Always. When you're practicing, record yourself (on anything, doesn't have to be fancy). Play for a couple minutes and then listen back to it carefully. Time is everything - you can play any note and make it sound right if your time is good.

The whole metronome/recording thing is advice from Wayne Krantz, greatest guitar player I've ever seen.

Another thing he preaches, that would be helpful for you is to always make music with your practice time. If you feel your picking is slow, don't just run scales - it's a waste of time. Use those scales to play music. All you need is a metronome.

His book is challenging but mind blowing:
http://www.abstractlogix.com/xcart/product.php?productid=24532&cat=0&page=1

I totally agree with above statement.  Learn the scales, but don't just go up and down them.  Another thing I find very helpful and useful is to learn arpeggios!  Not only do they have notes from the scales, but it helps with up and down picking, skipping strings, and some hard to reach notes.  If you have videos of your favorite guitar players, try watching their picking hand to see what kind of technique they have.  Watching Frank Zappa is where I learned to pick..haha.  Ultimateguitar.com has some basic picking exercises also!

[fulltone1989]

I always try to do scales in intervals as well. Scale degrees I guess. 1,3,2,4,3,5,4,6,5,7,6,8 (octave)

Not try to get into a discussion as to what an interval is. It just makes you think about each note. I had brain tumors removed back in 2009 so my right hand is finicky so I do lots of scale work and finger crawls to a metronome to make sure the right and left work together.

[Stecks]

I always try to do scales in intervals as well. Scale degrees I guess. 1,3,2,4,3,5,4,6,5,7,6,8 (octave)

Not try to get into a discussion as to what an interval is. It just makes you think about each note. I had brain tumors removed back in 2009 so my right hand is finicky so I do lots of scale work and finger crawls to a metronome to make sure the right and left work together.

I feel ya bro.  I had a stroke in 2006 from blood clots after I broke my leg, hand was paralyzed for a few months.  I think guitar was actually better than any of the rehab!  More fun anyway!

But to your point of cohesion between L&R hands:  I think a common pitfall (in my case anyway) is blaming my fretting hand when the problem is with my picking hand...