Guitar technique : Fretboard Speed
Left hand speed and dexterity
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Developing speed and dexterity is really not all that difficult. You’ve actually started to do it with the warm up exercises and the lessons we’ve done so far. Position, relaxation and attack all have to be taken into consideration and have to be trained in order to achieve your desired speed but there are other techniques that help as well. I've put a few tab exercises for you all to work on here and in the linked pages. They focus primarily on slurs and legatos. Slurs and legatos are particularly affective in speeding up the delivery of your riffs. But there are so many other techniques you can use to help increase your speed or at least the apparent speed that you have. Will Landrum has developed a really good CD series that shows you all of these. I urge you to check it out. Also the use of a metronome is invaluable to your training. That really goes without saying. Using a metronome could possibly be one of THE most helpful steps you can take in improving your sense of timing, which in turn will help with you increase your speed with accuracy. John Coursey in his program Jamorama, among a TON of other things, includes a metronome to go along with all the other stuff he teaches you guitar with. But to begin with, let me give you a couple of rules that I go by and then a few guidelines that help too.
Rule 1: You won’t play fast with your thumb
over the neck. You’ve got to stay in the light touch
position as much as possible.
Rule 2: You won’t play fast with your wrist contorted.
Guideline 1: Place your notes well and use dynamics. Short bursts of speed well delivered sound as good if not better than long shredding solos.
Guideline 2: Speed is relative. There’s always faster players. Don’t obsess over it.
Guideline 3: Use a metronome as much as possible. Not only will it help your speed. It will help immeasurably with rhythm, timing, and clean technique.