How to Play a Metal Guitar Fast - Easy Guitar Secrets Learning to play a metal guitar fast requires hours of dedication and practice. Known colloquially as "shredding," playing quick-fire, metal-style guitar involves a number of techniques which, when all put together, make for a menacing and impressive sound. Developing your shredding can be a frustrating process, as it requires great perseverance and effort. Rest assured, your hard work will be worth it as you wow friends, family and even fans with your rampaging technique.
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1 Develop your "picking" technique. This is where you use either a plectrum or your fingers to play a rapid-fire succession of different notes; a technique often used to play speedy solos. Practice moving up and down the length of the fretboard for the richest and most varied solos. Increase the pace of your play as you develop a quicker technique, but always ensure you are producing a clean sound. The tone of the note is paramount and you are better served playing accurately at 50-percent speed rather than inaccurately at full speed.
• 2 Learn "tapping." This requires an amplified electric guitar for the best possible sound and involves using both hands to tap on the fretboard to generate a very quick sound of the full note. Tapping along the different notes of the fretboard is the quickest way you can play a metal guitar, and is a commonly used technique when shredding. Again, accuracy is more valuable than pace at first, so develop a ruthlessly clean technique and incorporate more speed over time.
• 3 Practice "sweep picking." Similar to picking, sweep picking involves playing a collection of fretted strings in quick succession using a strumming technique. Adjust the notes you fret as you pass the plectrum or your fingers along the strings to produce different riffs and licks. Combine sweep picking and regular picking to produce an expert-level performance. Watch videos of the guitar greats such as Stevie Ray Vaughn and Albert King to see how good sweep picking is done.
How to Play a Metal Guitar Fast - Easy Guitar Secrets Click here Acoustic Guitar Picking Acoustic Guitar Picking Patterns
• 4 Use "hammer-ons," "pull-offs" and string bending to move quickly around the fretboard. These could both be described as micro-techniques, and they are used in all types of guitar playing -- including acoustic, electro-acoustic, electric, bass, etc. A hammer-on is where you play a note then quickly hammer a fret further up on the same string without plucking the string again with your pick hand. A pull-off is where you play a note then rapidly pull your finger off the fret to open the string or sound a lower note -- again, only picking the string once. Bend your strings up as you play to save time during a solo so that, for example, you make the seventh fret sound like the eighth without having to actually use the eighth fret.