Read Every Word, Don’t Skip Ahead. Then You Will Learn EXACTLY How To Double Your Guitar Speed While Literally Cutting Your Guitar Practice Time In Half!
So you want to DOUBLE your guitar speed, huh? No problem... All you have to do is improve 5 different elements of your guitar technique by a mere 15%. “What?!?! I said I want to DOUBLE my guitar speed, not simply become 15% faster!!!” Yes, I understand you want to double your guitar speed and I’m going to show you how right now. When you improve 5 areas of your guitar technique by a mere 15%, the total result is 101.13% MORE guitar speed! Each improvement compounds (multiplies) the result of the next improvement. I’ll explain in just a moment… How Improving 5 Areas Of Your Guitar Technique By Only 15% Each WILL DOUBLE YOUR GUITAR SPEED! How can a 15% improvement in 5 areas equal a 100% improvement? Remember, we are not “adding” 15% 5 times. We are multiplying our 15% progress 5 times (like compound interest). When you improve 5 areas of your guitar technique by a mere 15%, the total result is 101.13% MORE guitar speed! Each improvement compounds (multiplies) the result of the next improvement. 15% x 15% x 15% x 15% x 15% = 101.13% ©Tom Hess Music Corporation
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Here’s how the math actually works: imagine you are able to play something at 100 beats per minute and you then improve 5 guitar speed elements by 15%, your speed will grow like this: Your starting point is 100 beats per minute. You improve speed element #1 by 15%, then your new speed is 115 beats per minute (100 x 1.15 = 115). Next, you improve speed element #2 by 15%, now your new speed is 132.25 beats per minute (115 x 1.15 = 132.25). Next, you improve speed element #3 by 15%, now your new speed is 152.09 beats per minute (132.25 x 1.15 = 152.09). Next, you improve speed element #4 by 15%, now your new speed is 174.90 beats per minute (152.09 x 1.15 = 174.90). Finally, you improve speed element #5 by 15%, now your new speed is 201.13 beats per minute (174.90 x 1.15 = 201.13). … So, what ARE those 5 guitar speed areas that you need to improve on by 15%? 1. One-Hand Dexterity - Developing your one-hand dexterity simply means you practice one hand at a time (fretting hand only or picking hand only). Strangely, most guitar players completely overlook this and don’t practice it. Let’s talk about the fretting hand first: Practicing your fretting hand only does NOT mean you only practice your legato playing (although practicing your legato playing will help improve your fretting hand’s dexterity, power and speed). There are many ways you can (and should) practice your fretting hand dexterity. One of those ways is to practice playing your normal (non legato) licks, phrases, techniques, etc. without the ©Tom Hess Music Corporation
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pick (but also without using legato) in order to focus on the raw speed and coordination development of the fretting hand when it is isolated from the picking hand. For example, play a scale or a scale sequence without using the picking hand and without using hammer ons and pull offs either. Yes the notes will be heard only at a very soft volume. This is perfectly ok and normal when practicing this way. You only need to focus on 3 things when developing your picking hand dexterity: 1. Playing as fast as you can 2. Moving your fingers as efficiently as you can 3. Avoiding excessive tension in your hand, arm, etc. To develop the picking hand dexterity you use the same idea. You simply play whatever you would normally play but without the left hand. This means that to develop your picking hand dexterity, you are going to do a lot more than simply playing tremolo picking. You can practice scales for example with the fretting hand only to focus again on: 1. Playing as fast as you can 2. Moving your pick as efficiently as you can 3. Avoiding excessive tension in your hand, arm, elbow etc. Your goal is to improve your one-hand dexterity (speed) by 15%. 2. Two-Hand Coordination – This is the main area that most guitar players think they are working on simply by practicing in general. It is true that normal practicing will help you develop better Two-Hand Coordination. However, much of what we practice helps our coordination in only an indirect way. Just like anything else you want to improve, to make faster progress with your Two-Hand Coordination, you need to isolate ©Tom Hess Music Corporation
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the specific coordination problems and challenges you have. A good way to do this is to identify the most challenging part of a lick and double it. For example, let’s say you are trying to improve your string skipping coordination and you have a lick that contains 8 notes in it, but only 2 of those notes are involved in the string skipping. It’s better to repeat the string skipping part of the lick 2 or 3 times within the lick itself. Here is a typical string skipping lick.
Below you see I have taken the 2 notes involved in the string skipping part and repeated them when practicing the lick in order to improve the Two-Hand Coordination faster.
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In the next example you will see I have now repeated the string skipping movement an additional time in order to focus on improving the coordination even further.
Your goal is to improve your Two-Hand Coordination by 15%. 3. Two-Hand Synchronization – Coordination and Synchronization are closely related, but are not the same thing. Coordination is the ability to play something. Synchronization is larger than coordination alone and includes the precise accuracy of playing something perfectly and controlling the rest of the guitar through muting so that there are no excess string noises sounding while you are playing. Many guitar players can play cool licks, but keeping those licks accurate and clean is the greater challenge. This video and this article will help you get a very clear understanding of how to avoid the excess string noises through important muting so that you can play faster and faster while keeping everything precise and clean! Your goal is to improve your two-hand synchronization (speed) by 15%.
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4. Consistency – We’ll talk about consistency below. Your goal is improve your general consistency by 15%. 5. Integration – We’ll talk about integrating your skills together below. Your goal is improve your ability to integrate your skills by 15%. “Wait a minute Tom, if I improve each of these areas by 15%, then isn’t my overall speed progress improved by only 15%?” I’ve been asked that question many times by students over the years before we start online guitar lessons together. Their logic goes like this: If I can play at 100 beats per minute and I improve my one-hand dexterity by 15%, then my speed increases to 115... but my twohand coordination speed is still stuck at 100… so if I improve that by 15%, then my overall speed increases to 115. But because I have not yet improved my 2 hand synchronization, consistency and integration, then my overall speed is still stuck back at 100 beats per minute… therefore I have not increased my speed at all until and unless I improve in all areas. And if I improve in all areas by 15% then my overall speed has still only moved from 100 to 115. Here is why that logic above is wrong and how things really are for you: Imagine you want to play the following guitar lick at 200 beats per minute:
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Now let’s look at your REAL guitar speed on each of the 5 levels for this example: 1. One-Hand Dexterity 2. Two-Hand Coordination 3. Two-Hand Synchronization 4. Consistency 5. Integration One-Hand Dexterity: imagine that you can play the lick using one hand only (without picking and without legato, just playing the notes with your left hand as described in the section above on “one-hand dexterity”) at 175 beats per minute. Two-Hand Coordination: Now imagine playing the lick with both hands. You certainly will not be able to play the lick as fast as you could when using only one hand. So maybe your guitar speed on this level (using both hands) is at the lower speed of 150 beats per minute. Two-Hand Synchronization: Now imagine playing the same lick above but this time you are playing it PERFECTLY and CLEANLY with perfect synchronization between the two hands, perfect string muting so that we hear no excess string noise, buzzing and all the notes are articulated correctly. This is obviously harder to play fast than the previous two levels, so you are able to play the lick at a slower speed – maybe 135 beats per minute.
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Consistency: The next level is to play the lick perfectly and cleanly not just once, but 9 times out of 10 – perfectly! Your guitar speed on this level will be lower for sure - maybe as low as 115 beats per minute. Integration: The final level of skill is to be able to not only play the lick perfectly, cleanly and consistently, but now you need to be able to fluently, smoothly and creatively integrate this lick with all the other licks, techniques and ideas you may ever use in a real song. Your speed for this level is again slower than higher levels. (Maybe 100 beats per minute for example). The final level is the only level that matters because this is your REAL maximum guitar speed (100 beats per minute in this example) So to double your real maximum guitar speed, you need to get double your speed at the integration level. “Wait a minute Tom, you said I only have to improve integration by 15%, not 100%”. No, I said you need to improve by 15% in EACH area, not only 15% on the integration level. The critical point you need to understand is this: As you improve in any of the higher levels, you naturally increase the potential to play faster at the lower levels. Think about it this way. You probably have never specifically practiced “Integration” in your entire life, yet you are much better at integration than you were 1 year ago, 2 years ago, or on the day you started playing guitar, right? This is because some of the progress you have made thus far has translated into increased potential (and increased skills) in the lower levels. …And the same thing happens in reverse. When you improve your consistency, you are also indirectly improving your one-hand dexterity, 2-hand coordination and 2-hand synchronization. If your one-hand dexterity speed is currently at 175 beats per minute and you practice to improve that speed to 200+ beats per ©Tom Hess Music Corporation
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minute, you are increasing the potential and indirectly increasing the speed for everything on the lower level. So now your 2-hand coordination will no longer stay at 150 beats per minute (as in the example above), it will have naturally increased too as an indirect result of your improvements in onehand dexterity speeds. So now, your 2-hand coordination speed is ALREADY somewhat higher and the “potential” to increase this speed goes way up too (and it becomes easier to improve your speed at this level now). As you work to improve your 2-hand coordination speed an additional 15%, you are getting three simultaneous benefits: 1. You are increasing your guitar speed on this level. 2. You are indirectly increasing your guitar speed on the higher level (one-hand Dexterity). 3. You are indirectly increasing your guitar speed on all the lower levels (two-hand synchronization, consistency and integration). Obviously, all of this applies to all the other levels you are working to improve by 15%. The final result is you will DOUBLE your guitar speed by making 15% improvements in all 5 levels because in reality, the lower levels will increase a lot more than 15% in actual speed. This is how you get your REAL guitar speed (at the Integration level) from 100 beats per minute to 201 beats per minute. Yes, it’s badass and it really works.
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How To Go From “Understanding” The Process For Doubling Your Guitar Speed, To MAKING IT HAPPEN In Your Playing So now you know WHAT to do to double your guitar speed…but that’s NOT enough. To actually “make it happen”, you need to avoid the crippling mistakes that stop guitarists from reaching their speed goals and learn how to practice guitar to get massive results FAST. I'm going to teach you how to do this right now… … But first, let me ask you a very important question…
What Do You REALLY Want…?
Do you want to play guitar fast but only: when you are alone in your home where nobody will ever really see or hear you, and… when you are practicing the same lick over and over again, but cannot freely use that speed in real songs, and… when you are able to play a lick 50 times in a row and hope that finally ONE of those times you will play it perfectly, and… when you don’t have to play the lick in combination with other licks, techniques and phrases, and… when it’s acceptable for you to play kind of fast, but your playing is also kind of sloppy… ???
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No!… That sucks! This is not what you want at all! … Sure, playing guitar fast is very fun, but what you really want is to be able to: Play guitar fast, and… Play guitar cleanly (without buzzing, string noise, etc.), and… Play guitar flawlessly at high speeds without mistakes... the FIRST TIME you play something! And… Play guitar fast among all of the various guitar techniques (not just play “some things fast”, but other things slow), and… Integrate your guitar speed fluently from one lick or technique to another seamlessly and effortlessly, and… Play guitar fast in real music so you can actually USE all of your new guitar speed in real music… not just exercises, and… Play guitar fast with total confidence, accuracy and conviction when playing in front of an audience of listeners, and… Good! Now that we are both on the same page, let’s get started doubling your guitar speed…
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The very first thing you need to do in order to play guitar very fast is to learn what kills guitar speed. The next step is to transform all of the speed killing problems into speed building super strengths! The good news is, it’s not hard to do this. The main speed development killers: o Not setting unique, clear and specific micro goals for each practice session. The vast majority of guitar players never set unique, clear and specific micro goals for each practice session. Instead, they just pick up the guitar and say, “Now I will practice my 3 string arpeggios”, or “Now I practice this string skipping technique”. The Solution: Always make very unique, clear and specific micro goals during each practice session. Here are some good examples: Example 1: For the next 30 minutes, I will practice all arpeggios that have a finger roll (2 notes on the same fret, but on adjacent strings that are played with the same finger). I will make sure that there is no fret buzzing, no excess string noise and that the 2 notes of the finger roll never are sounding together. My goal is to increase my speed today by 1 beat per minute on the metronome compared to what I achieved the last time I practiced this. Example 2: For the next 15 minutes, I will practice a series of string skipping licks, but I will focus on keeping the accuracy and articulation consistent and clean by repeating the two notes at the point of the string skipping so that the hardest part of the lick (the actual string skipping) gets practiced more and I become faster and cleaner. My goal is to not only keep everything clean and consistent but to focus on staying as relaxed as I can while I practice building my speed. ©Tom Hess Music Corporation
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Example 3: For the next 22 minutes, I will practice my legato technique by focusing specifically on the clarity and articulation of pull offs I do with my 4th finger. My goal is to make sure the articulation is just as strong when pulling off with my fourth finger as it is with all other fingers. In each example the micro goal is unique, clear and specific. When you practice with these types of micro goals for every session, you will get a greater result and you will get it in less time. Doing this one thing can make a big difference in how fast you improve your guitar playing. To establish your own micro goals, follow this formula: 1. Choose ONE specific lick, technique, or phrase, etc. to practice next. 2. Identify all the specific things that make whatever you are practicing hard to play fast and accurate. For example: a. a difficult string-skipping move for your picking hand, b. an awkward fingering c. a large stretch for the fretting hand d. a challenging position shift e. muting the strings you are not playing to eliminate excess string noise f. keeping the notes from sounding together when shouldn’t be sounding together g. keeping your picking articulation consistent h. keeping your fretting hand legato parts consistent, i. etc. Then write down any and all specific things, problems or challenges that you have to deal with for the specific thing you are going to practice. ©Tom Hess Music Corporation
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3. Choose just ONE thing (from the list you create in step 2) at a time to focus on, practice and improve. 4. Do not worry about the other items on your list (from step 2) for this practice session. You will focus on those other things in another practice session. 5. Once you are done practicing your one specific challenge for item number 1, begin the process over again by going back to step 1 (choose a new lick, phrase or technique, etc. to practice). (Note: we will talk about how you will know how long to practice each item when we talk about your practice schedule below.) Setting and focusing on specific micro goals for each practice item and practice session is one of the important things I do with my online guitar lesson students and one of the reasons why my students improve their guitar playing much more rapidly than other guitar players and students do. o Taking too long to fully warm up before practicing your guitar speed – or worse, working on speed building techniques before you are fully warmed up. There are two guitar speed killing problems here that plague most (almost all) guitar players. The first problem is you probably are never FULLY warmed up before you begin working on your guitar speed. Not only is this dangerous (you can permanently injure your hands!), but you are wasting much of your practice time since you have NO CHANCE to improve your guitar speed until and unless you are FULLY warmed up (and that takes a lot longer than 10-minutes).
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Your second problem (if you are like 99.9% of all other guitar players) is that it takes you way too long to fully warm up. For most people it takes 30 minutes to fully warm up in summer months and up to an hour or more in winter months! If you practice for an hour every day in winter months, it is possible that you may practice every day for an hour and NEVER see any improvements in your guitar speed!!! … UNLESS, you do what I’m going to show you below… The Solution: In order to solve both problems at the same time, I have developed a simple but extremely effective 5step solution for you. Step 1: Warm up your hands BEFORE your guitar practice time begins. If you know you will practice guitar from 6:007:30 PM, begin moving your fingers, stretching and generally warm up your hands and fingers before 6:00. You can do this virtually anywhere away from the guitar. Step 2: Soak your fingers, hands, wrists and arms in VERY warm (but not hot) water for 3-5 minutes right before your 6:00 PM practice session. However, do NOT put your “fingertips” into the water - they need to stay dry at all times so that the fingertips are not soft when you begin practicing. Be sure to completely dry your fingers, hands, wrists and arms, otherwise the wet skin will cool you down again. Step 3: Get into a peak state of mind. Don’t just pick up your guitar and start practicing. Do what top athletes, public speakers, chess masters and professional musicians do. Psych yourself up!! Your mental state of mind is critical to the productivity of your practice sessions. This does not mean you should not practice if you are not feeling excited or motivated today… it means you need to practice putting your emotions into a highly motivated state of mind!
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Step 4: Slightly elevate your heart rate. One of the big reasons why warm up is necessary is because in order to play faster, your blood needs to carry the lactic acid (waste) away from your fingers as fast as possible (this is why we want your hands to be very, very warm so that your blood is very thin in your hands and the lactic acid (waste) can be removed and new fresh oxygen can get into your muscles faster! In addition to staying warm, you want your heart rate to be slightly elevated (as it would be if you were slowly walking), so stand up, walk a few steps and then sit back down again every minute or two. Step 5: Keep heat near you by using a space heater or a heating pad (especially in winter months) so that you can quickly apply heat to your fingers, hands and arms when necessary to keep them very warm at all times. o Not focusing on EXACTLY the right things during your practice time. Most guitar players waste much of their practice time by not focusing on the exact things that are right for them to be practicing right now. If you want to become a great player, build massive amounts of guitar speed (and many other musical skills) then you need to focus your practice time on exactly the right things and not waste time on other things… this is absolutely critical to your success. There are two categories of “right things” that you need to learn about, understand and focus on. The first category is made up of general things that apply to everyone. The second category contains very personal and unique things that are very specific to you, your individual goals, your current guitar playing level, your problems, challenges ©Tom Hess Music Corporation
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and frustrations. While I will share the details about the first category in a moment, it's impossible to do the same for the second category here and now without getting to know more about you. This is something I will do if and when you and I work together via online guitar lessons. Here are the things (from the first category only) you absolutely must focus on and use during your practice sessions in order to maximize, optimize and revolutionize the results you are getting from the time you are investing into practicing your guitar: 1. Every guitar player has strengths and weaknesses. However, some guitar players waste their limited practice time on things that are not really relevant to their goals. What you need to do is practice to eliminate ONLY your guitar playing weaknesses that are truly relevant to your specific musical goals. If you are not sure what types of things are relevant and what things are not, here is a good (and free) tool to get you started. 2. Guitar players typically most enjoy practicing the things that they are already good at. While it is a smart idea to improve your existing strengths, the problem is many guitar players confuse “playing” their strengths on the guitar with “truly practicing” in order to improve and advance those strengths... They often don’t even realize that they are not truly practicing to advance these skills… do you? 3. On days when you have less than 40 minutes to practice your guitar, your approach to practicing needs to change. On these days, you should not simply do the first 30 or 40 minutes of your normal guitar practice routine, instead your focus should be to practice items that have a high level of transferability. Watch this (free) video about ©Tom Hess Music Corporation
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guitar practice transferability. 4. The order in which you practice things on your guitar practice routine can make a significant difference in how much more speed (and other skills) you will develop during your practice sessions. Here’s the exact general formula to use when you practice: Practice the most mentally demanding items FIRST. Practice the most physically demanding items LAST. (see the section about warming up above for more on this.) 5. The vast majority of guitar players (99% or more) allow their minds to wander when practicing. You will improve your guitar speed (and every other musical skill) much faster when your brain is fully engaged and focused like a laser on what you are doing… at all times. This can be very challenging to do because it requires a lot of mental effort and discipline to always stay focused mentally at all times. However, this is another BIG secret to improving your guitar playing faster. Fact: playing guitar fast has more to do with your brain than it does with your fingers! Practice with a timer that will make a beeping sound every 90 seconds. When you hear the beeping sound, this is your reminder to focus your mind completely, totally and only on what you are practicing! 6. Much of what you are practicing on the guitar, can be practiced away from the guitar – this includes some of the physical guitar playing you are currently practicing! This means you are wasting your guitar practice time when you are focusing on all of the things that can and should be practiced away from the guitar. Click here to learn how to practice away from your guitar.
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o Wasting 75% of your practice time by repeatedly practicing parts of licks, phrases or techniques that do not need to be practiced right now (but will need to be practiced eventually). Most guitar players practice like this: They have a guitar lick they want to improve on and they practice that same lick over and over again. This is usually a bad way to practice. Why? Because every lick has parts that are easier and parts that are harder to play. Imagine that you can practice the lick 500 times in a 30-minute practice session. This means you have practiced the easy parts of the lick 500 times and the hard part 500 times. You have just wasted about half of your practice time! The Solution: You don’t need to practice the easy part right now, you need to practice the hard part of the lick now. So imagine that the hard part is only 25% of the whole lick. If you mostly focus on the hard part, you will be able to practice what you need to practice (the hard part) up to 4 times more in the same 30-minute period! Think about how much less practice time you will need to invest in order to massively improve your guitar speed on this lick now just by making this small change! You can clearly see now that when you change your approach to practicing and avoid just ONE of the “speed development killers” mentioned above, your guitar speed will improve and your practice time can be reduced at the same time… Now imagine how much better things are going to be for you when you do everything I suggest above. All of these things can have a HUGE impact on your guitar speed (and many other music skills you are working to improve) and you’ll be able to cut your practice time down because you are now practicing in a very efficient and effective way… In other words, everything you do ©Tom Hess Music Corporation
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will work better and faster!
(More) Guitar Speed Building Secrets o Focus Rotation: When you practice to increase your guitar speed, there are many things you obviously need to work on in order to play something at faster speeds. Once you have mastered your technique, your brain and hands can do what you want them to do effortlessly and automatically. The problem is, while you are still trying to master the technique you are working on, your brain can only consciously focus on a very small number of things at one time. Here is one of the strategies I use to train my guitar students to develop fast guitar speed in a short period of time: Focus Rotation As you play the specific lick, phrase or technique that you are practicing, focus on only one small detail at a time for one minute before shifting your focus to the next small detail for one minute. You continue to rotate your focus from one small detail to another every minute. Here are a few typical examples of small details to focus on: 1. Your picking articulation: - is it strong enough? - is it consistent? 2. Your hammer ons, pull offs and slides (if applicable): ©Tom Hess Music Corporation
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- are they clean? - is the articulation consistent? - does it sound strong or weak? 3. Your fretting hand fingers: - focus only on the notes your first finger plays: Is each note played perfectly? Is your finger moving efficiently or not? Is that finger too tense? - focus only on the notes your second finger plays: Is each note played perfectly? Is your finger moving efficiently or not? Is that finger too tense? - focus only on the notes your third finger plays: Is each note played perfectly? Is your finger moving efficiently or not? Is that finger too tense? - focus only on the notes your fourth finger plays: Is each note played perfectly? Is your finger moving efficiently or not? Is that finger too tense? 4. Picking Efficiency: - Are you using directional picking in order to play faster? Or are you using alternate picking? - Is your pick moving more than it needs to? 5. 2-Hand Synchronization: - is your pick and your fretting hand in perfect sync so that they both arrive on each note at the exact same time in order to play it with 100% accuracy??
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o Consistency… How fast you play something perfectly once is unimportant. In other words, if you are able to play something at 200 beats per minute one time out of 10, then your top speed is not really 200 beats per minute. Your REAL top speed is how fast you can play something perfectly 9 times out of 10. So if you play something perfectly only one time out of 10 at 200 beats per minute, then you can probably only play that same thing perfectly 9 times out of 10 at 180 (or less) beats per minute. Therefore, your REAL top speed is only 180 beats per minute. The good news is, if you specifically focus just on improving your consistency, then you will be able to increase your top speed without actually playing any faster. How do you practice to improve your consistency? Well, the first thing you need to understand is WHY you are not able to play something perfectly 9 times out of 10 when you can already play something perfectly at least one time out of 10. The main reason why you are not consistently accurate at high speeds is simply because your brain (not your fingers!) needs more training. In other words, you don’t need your fingers to move faster, you need the neural pathways in your brain to improve. This can (at least partly) be developed away from the guitar. There are two main ways to improve the neural pathways in your mind. The first way is to use mental visualization away from the guitar. The reason why mental visualization is so effective is because your conscious mind is completely and totally focused only on strengthening the neural pathways which are required to play what you want to play at very high ©Tom Hess Music Corporation
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speeds. When this happens, not only will you be able to play faster, but you will find that it also becomes much easier to play fast because your brain and hands are playing the notes on auto-pilot. Once you reach this point, all you really need to think about is making that great big smile on your face when you feel the thrill and excitement of shredding all over the guitar with ease! The second way to develop your neural pathways is to practice at a variety of different speeds that are all lower than your top speed. Typically like this: 50% 70% 60% 80% 65% 75% 80% 50%
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The best thing to do is to use BOTH methods in order to build your consistency and speed much faster. o Integrate All The Guitar Techniques You Know In Order To Develop Super Speed: Playing fast is great… playing fast consistently is greater, but being able to integrate your guitar techniques together allows your true guitar speed to become even faster! Let me explain… Let’s imagine that you have developed both very good sweep picking and string skipping techniques. You have developed good consistency with each of them. Sounds ©Tom Hess Music Corporation
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good, right? Well, now imagine that when you try to smoothly and seamlessly connect, change, integrate or combine these two techniques, you struggle. Your playing becomes slower, less accurate or downright sloppy. Over the years of teaching hundreds of guitar players to improve their guitar technique (as well as other musical skills), I have found that most guitarists spend very little time applying and integrating their musical skills and guitar techniques in particular. This results in a lack of musical freedom to express yourself completely and fully in any musical context. When it comes to increasing your guitar speed, most guitarists typically focus on becoming faster with only one technique at a time. For example, you may practice your sweep picking for 15 minutes, then move on to 15 minutes of legato, followed by 15 minutes of 2-hand tapping. Although this approach will help you to improve at these techniques in isolation, you also need to specifically practice using all of these techniques 'together' in the same way that you will find these techniques used in real guitar solos. Neglecting to do this will make your guitar playing sound unnatural and rather 'robotic' as you will struggle to play consistently well with using a variety of guitar techniques at once. o The Order Matters… Everyone knows that you need to learn the right things in the right way to improve your guitar playing quickly. What most people do not know is that the ORDER in which you learn and practice things is also a big factor in how fast you ©Tom Hess Music Corporation
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will improve your guitar skills. One of the main reasons why my online guitar students progress so quickly is that the specific order of things they learn and master enables them to improve faster than they would have improved if they had learned and practiced things in some other order. This is something I’ve proven thousands of times. … So what should you do to ensure that you are not only learning, practicing and mastering the right things in the right way, but also doing so in the right order that will put you on the fastest track to improving your guitar playing? The answer is: it depends completely on you, who you are, what level your current guitar playing level is, what your strengths and weaknesses are, what your goals are and other factors. There is no cookie cutter or one-size fits all solution. The exact order you need to learn, practice and master things must be customized specifically to you. In other words, you need personalized, customized and optimized guitar lessons. Click here to get started right now. How Long You Should Practice Each Item On Your Practice Schedule: Guitar players often ask me what the best practice routine is and how to know how much time they should practice each item in that routine. There is only ONE person on Earth who is at the exact same place as you are on the guitar, has the exact same combination of goals, skills, challenges, strengths, weaknesses, potential and interests as you do. No two guitar players are alike. ©Tom Hess Music Corporation
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The best guitar practice routines are the ones created specifically, uniquely and only for you. You can get your own customized, personalized and optimized guitar practice schedule at http://practicegenerator.com/ There you will not only have the best guitar routines possible created just for you, but you will never again need to ask, “how much should I practice X before moving onto the next item in my practice schedule”. The Final Step To Ensuring Rapid Improvement: The most overlooked, misunderstood and underappreciated secret to making rapid progress in all aspects of your guitar playing (and specifically with building your guitar speed) requires zero practice time at all… You must measure, track and manage your progress not only for each individual item you want to learn and master, but also for how each of these items relate to your overall guitar playing mastery. The absolute best way (and really the only true way) to do this is by using the Guitar Playing Accelerator. Here’s What You Should Do Next: Let me help you learn and master your guitar playing faster, easier and better. I will create guitar lessons that are personalized, customized and optimized specifically to you in order to ensure you become the great guitar player you want to be… and I know that with my help, you can be! http://tomhess.net/CorrespondenceGuitarLessons.aspx
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