Is playing really fast easy once you get good at it?

No. It's a skill that requires constant maintenance. I've been playing over 20 years now too and I'm definitely not as fast as I was when I was younger, when I had more time to practice my shred skills.

Plus my tastes have changed so I'm just less into the shred stuff so have less incentive to keep those chops up.

I find it all comes down to practice, start slow with a metronome or drum machine and work your way up with a shape or something your learning. Another trick I like is once iv learnt something up to speed I frequently repeat it about 20 bpm faster then 20 bpm slower. It gets to the point where you muscle memory things like nothing.

It's like any other skill and it's relative. The more you practice, the faster and easier things get. Pushing your boundaries is always challenging, but your boundaries get wider as you progress in learning.

One thing that is hard to tell, because one usually doesn't see it, but those professional shredders practice a shitload. Like, I'm talking, 4 or more hours per day, for decades. And the ones who are old and can still shred? They still practice hours and hours per day.

I can play just fine. If I practice a lot, for a month, say, I notice myself getting better in real time. I can see it, and feel it, in my playing.

In order to stay at shred peak like a Steve Vai, you have to practice like a Steve Vai.

For example:

https://fromthewoodshed.com/2007/11/06/attempting-steve-vais-30-hour-guitar-workout-day-one/

https://rockandrollgarage.com/joe-satriani-reveals-guitar-practice-regimen-days/

https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/news/general_music_news/dream_theaters_john_petrucci_details_his_practicing_routine_explains_how_he_deals_with_judgmental_fans.html

for an interesting counterpoint, Marty Friedman doesn't seem to practice quite as much:

https://www.modernguitarhub.com/lee-anderton-marty-friedman-interview-summary/

Depends on how fast you definitely have to practice constantly to maintain dexterity for a 1980s level of speed. All the music I play is very fast death metal or shreddy when I take a hiatus my speed diminishes about 30%.

You can think of Tarregas answer to a student who asked him when guitar playing gets easy. Tarrega said it gets easy as soon as you don’t care what you sound like.

As someone who’s been playing for a whole 2 months it’s quite intimidating seeing people 20 years deep asking how to improve lol

Trust when I say, most of it is picking hand. You always think it’s fretting but picking and legato will get you places

It's not as hard to improve as you think. About February I started working on my speed picking, I started about 95bpm for 16th notes. I am up to about 165bpm now.

I found a good pattern and worked on it, one test moved from high e to the b strong and consisted of 8 notes, hit it twice during the measure and eventually worked to moving it up frets and strings. Now I hit 160bpm moving it around up and down frets and strings. I also worked on Triplets at the same time but since you can do them wya faster than 16th notes it got annoying hearing a metronome at 190-200bpm.

I've always been fast...but definitely not clean or even good in the beginning!

No, it's not. As an example, "Life In the Fast Lane" was built using a speed drill Joe Walsh had created for himself that he would play over and over every day. It's like a sport in that way. You build muscular strength and speed and you must exercise and work out to maintain that level of fitness.

EVH once said he has to warm up for nearly an hour before he is up to his own speed. Playing fast is not easy even for legends. Then you have legends like Gilmour who never felt the need to play fast. I’ve never been god at it, and to get even close, it took a lot of practice and warm ups.

It really isn't. Cause playing fast is like a paradox of talent. You have to maintain practice for that but also you have to learn how to keep your wrists relaxed enough to play that quickly.

You need to be so good that it's literally effortless to do.

40+ years. Played in several bar bands. For some its a natural ability but it still requires an atheletic regimine of drills and practice. I’ve tried working with several guitarists over the decades that could “wow” a party showing off their chops on Eruption, etc…yet couldnt hit the 1 or end a song together. To me personally, rythm and playing well with and listening to others in the band is the most critical skill. You may already be there so do not read this as a judgement! Its just that speed is fine as long as there is accuracy with timing, tone and volume of the band and the song rules over everything else. If yoy are just doing drills and playing in a bedroom, most of these successful guys actually get up at 5 am and treat their craft like a runner or athlete. Hope that helps! Enjoy the journey!

Check out Troy Grady cracking the code.

It's definitely something you need to keep practicing or else you will lose it. If you want to get on the path to shred glory start working on exercises with a metronome.

I use and give this Steve Vai 30 hour guitar work out to students. It has all sorts of exercises. Alternate picking, economy picking, sweep picking, legato, tapping.

https://pdfcoffee.com/qdownload/guitar-book-steve-vai-30-hours-workoutpdf-5-pdf-free.html

The most important thing is to work on these with a metronome. Start slow. Slow enough you can nail the exercise perfectly over and over again with no mistakes. When you're comfortable at a given tempo then bump it up 5-10bpm at a time. It's also ok to try and push yourself sometimes. Like bump it up 20-30bpm and it will be tough, then come back down a bit and it will feel easier. Just don't do that thing all guitarists do and keep trying something over and over that you can't play. You will just get good at playing sloppy and develop bad habits and bad technique. Focus on economy of motion, press the string only as much as you have to. Pluck the string only as much as you have to. Move your fingers only as much as you have to. Also when a finger is done with a note make sure to lift that finger so it's already up and ready for the next note.

Exercises like these are how so many of the great players developed their speed. But you don't have to want to be like the next Yngwie or Petrucci. Exercises will help you in any style of playing you like.

John Petrucci's Rock Discipline also has some great exercises.

https://jimibanez.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/john-petrucci-rock-discipline1.pdf

You can find the video on Youtube.

My old teacher once said something that stuck with me. The old saying practice makes perfect isn't true. Only PERFECT practice makes perfect. In other words you can practice all you want but if you're practicing sloppy and poorly then you're just getting good at playing sloppy and poorly.

Use a metronome for everything. Working on exercises or scales or new riffs and solos you're learning.

It’s all relative. When it’s not quite ur level yet, it will feel hard.

So to answer your question: once ur at that level, it won’t feel hard to play fast, but playing fast a n d tasteful, that is another thing

Hi there, I have a classical guitar performance degree and teach music at a local university. I play a combination of piano, electric bass and electric guitar in 2-5 groups in my region. I’ll humbly offer my thoughts on the subject. The folks in this thread are offering generally good advice, but I’d like to add two more things to consider. The first is your technique and the second is your ear.

Playing fast requires economical movement. There just isn’t two ways about it. If you want to play fast, you must fix your technique in both your left and right hands. It’s a long process, but it’s worth it. At first it’s a snore, but when you work past those initial feelings, it is so fulfilling and gratifying.

Most of us guitarists do not learn formally and as such use whatever technique seems to work best for our application. Our technique’s efficacy is determined by how well we can play whatever solo/riff we’re working on. When players move to playing more technically advanced material, the flaws in their technique come out and they hit a roadblock. This is often because we can no longer solve these technical problems with our intuition alone and require some outside guidance. For the kind of information you’re looking for, I would investigate resources outside of Reddit. The guidance you need usually takes the form of lessons with a highly skilled teacher. This is not a luxury we all have, so you may have to do some legwork there.

This stage is usually hard for us because it can require a tremendous amount of adjustment. This adjustment requires considerable patience and persistence. I’ve found that as we grow as musicians sometimes we don’t like to/don’t have the time to work as hard as we did when we were a beginner. Sometimes we can also lose touch with the real learning process (which can/should create some mental discomfort at times.) While I’m not saying this is you, I’m inviting you to ask yourself if it is.

The other piece of advice I will offer is with regards to your “ear”. This one might seem a little unusual, as it almost has nothing to do with your guitar playing, but you must internally hear every single note you’re playing. A good test is to verbally reproduce the lick/riff/run you’re working on with two syllables. I do Ta-ka, but I think most folks do ti-ki. If you can’t do it, you probably can’t play it either. If this is new to you, give it a couple weeks before evaluating whether or not you see progress.

Something that really helped me with this was buying a pair of drum sticks and a practice pad and practicing rhythms. An exercise I did to get acquainted with this setting is playing subdivisions 1-8 with the quarter note around 50bpm. That in itself was a huge hurdle to overcome and I learned plenty. The 5s and 7s are optional but the others are a must. Really just depends on what you’re working on. Zappa uses quintuplets sometimes as does Eric Johnson, but I don’t know enough Satriani/Vai to comment on their vocabulary. Sometimes I practice guitar licks with just a practice pad to check if I’m really hearing them, or if I’m faking parts of it.

I hope some of this helps you or someone else reading. Nothing will replace a good teacher with your best interests in mind.

tl;dr: Playing fast (cleanly/precisely) requires you to have economical LH and RH technique, and to hear every single note you’re trying to reproduce. The value of a good teacher can not be overstated.

Anything you practice is going to get easier to do the more you practice it

I accidentally learned to play fast by starting a thrash band with guys who are all way better musicians than me and who like to play really fast.

I think the biggest thing for me was just learning to play to the drums. When you use the drums to guide you, and they're fast, you'll find yourself being able to play fast without even realizing it.

If you don't have a band available, play to some fast songs that you really enjoy. Honestly, I basically learned to play guitar by playing along with tabs to my favorite songs. It's a legit thing.

Yes, it becomes much easier, but you can lose it if you don't use it.

I've always found it easy, however I much prefer a stellar pure wonderful tone thru my custom built tube amps and the "less is more" approach. I'll take David Gilmore any day over any of the "fast" guys. Combine the two though of course, and you have what I've always strove for!

Hi yes I play +15 Years. Sure there are parts that you need to practice but your "standard reportoire" stays with you forever once you learned it.

The short answer is yes, but if you ask a world-class sprinter if running fast is easy they’d say the same thing, but thats from thousands of hours running and eating properly and conditioning, etc. Whereas in a musical context its the hours using a metronome and learning to read music and play the lightning fast jazz melodies or piano pieces transposed to the guitar. Metronome is your friend if you want to get faster.

Not if you think about it you have to literally need it to be engraved in your muscle memory and even then it's still challenging playing fast

I’m 48 and just started REALLY playing 5 years ago. The more I practice, the faster I get.

I think it depends on which techniques you are referring to. I find that it is fairly easy to keep up your alternate picking once you get the hang of it but legato and sweep picking, I think, would require more practice maintenance to maintain good speed and accuracy. Accuracy is one of the biggest parts of it. I can alternate pick pretty well but I am not nearly as accurate with it as someone like John Petrucci.

No. It needs practice and an aptitude for fast playing. And frankly- I can’t play really fast on the guitar. Never have been able to. So I focus on expression. Funnily enough I can play pretty fast on mandolin.

I would not say easy, and I do not play super fast, but I have found that playing fast is more forgiving. I find when I play slow, that you really need to be on each note and any little bit of unintentional muting or buzz is clearly evident, but when I play fast, as long as you have the pitch right, the little nuances you have to worry about when you let a note ring our go away to some extent. You can not be 100% sloppy but if you make an occasional sloppy mistake no one nut you seems to notice it.

Yes. Once you get practiced enough, it’s like second nature. But there will always be practiced required if you want to push the pace. You also won’t be able to get off the couch after 15 years and shred like you did then without mistakes, but it’ll mostly be there and you’ll pick it back up within a week or so.

I can think of someone like Thomas McRocklin, who was a child prodigy and then didn’t play for like 15 years. He can shred his ass off now after he’s gotten back on the saddle.

Yes and no.

The reality is guitarists often plan phrases to be specifically easier to play, especially when improvising. Whether it's the fingering you use to be able to move to the next phrase quickly, or planning your picking motion, or executing legato runs to squeeze a few more easy notes. So when you see Vai shredding something, it's easy for him because he specifically wrote it for his play style and he's practiced it all day, every day.

Playing fast for long periods of time is like any skill. Once you practice, it becomes easier. Even then, the whole idea of preplanning applies which is why shredders tend to have their goto scales and arpeggios. People who shred pentatonics are already many licks ahead.

Learning new fast phrases takes less work once you're already used to playing fast cleanly in time. But it still won't come as naturally as the person's goto licks.

It becomes easy. Lots of practice is needed.

You have to do speed and dexterity exercises often. Like every day often or at least 20 hours a week often. When I was 22 and playing guitar 4-12 hours a day for 7 years straight I was a lot faster and more comfortable than I am at 35 after taking a long break due to joining the air force

it gets easier the more you do it yes (from a fiddle context which I think is translatable) -- key is metronome

It’s definitely the first of things that takes a hit when I don’t maintain it!

You have to practice. You could play for fifty years and still be ass if your not putting in the work

For some stuff it is- it depends on how close to the edge of your ability you're playing and how much you've practiced particular things. For instance, I can play certain easy scalar things that work well with my picking style, like ascending groups of six notes per string, in 16th notes at at well over 200 bpm without even really having to think about it- I could carry on a conversation while doing it. On the other hand, there's some stuff I'm working on right now that involves quickly going back and forth between short sweeps and some alternate picking with tricky string changes that I have to really concentrate on to play at 75% of that speed. So it depends.

lol if you’re good at it then yea

Yeah it’s definitely easier once you get that muscle memory down

punk bands are fast too. it is all picking hand technique

The maintenance is exhausting. To keep my picking speeds up or improving, I need to be practicing 2 plus hours a day. I do it, but I also get nauseous sometimes when I’m thinking about practicing.

Practicing slow is how you play fast.

One of my guitar dads is John Browne from Monuments. The dude doesn't traditionally 'shred' but he also doesn't notshred. What I can say is muscle memory is very very powerful. At a certain point it's almost better to close your eyes and ignore trying to stare at the points on the fretboard you are trying to hit, but almost exclusively focusing on how/when your fingers are moving. Obviously you build up to the speed, but take a week off and you'll start butchering the notes again.

I have to disagree with a lot of people here a bit and say that once you have a picking technique down, playing fast lines that align with the technique is very easy and also does not require much upkeep practice. In fact, my single-escape picking fast stuff does not require any specialised upkeep practice. OTOH my double escape stuff does require some upkeep to be performance ready.

If you are not familiar with the concepts of single- and double-escape picking motions, Troy Grady explains them well and is probably the first person who has given a pretty thorough account of them (although of course lots of people have been playing that way before him).

Confirmed, if you dont practice to play fast, you cant play fast.

No matter how many years, it doesn't just arise from playing a lot.

LESSON LEARNED: DONT WAIT, PRACTICE FAST EARLY

Yes, it's easy in the sense that little effort is required, but it does diminish over time if you don't practice it. But I also think some people will just play faster than others for whatever reason.

It's complicated, once you have proper technique it does make it easier to speed things up, but even a lot of the guys who play fast are very dependent on scalar run or very specific picking patterns per string. Ask them to do something they're unfamiliar with and it puts them in jail very quickly. Not that I'm knocking them developing high speeds that sound good and clean is a tall task regardless of what you're tackling and I would argue that most of the great rock guitarists are talented with a hyper specific focus on certain techniques, and many of them just do a great job of diversifying their specific skill sets. It does make you really appreciate guys like Guthrie Govan and Martin Miller who seem to be able to incorporate unique picking patterns into their playing with a relatively small effort.

I remember hearing Jake Workman (very well respected and accomplished Bluegrass Guitar player) talk about his ability to play in the 125-140 BPM range. He described soloing at that speed to not be that fun, almost like a relief when he got to the end of a break. Also remember him saying that playing at that pace usually forced him to play very familiar/comfortable licks/phrases instead of being more creative.

So I imagine, yes eventually it gets easier to play really high speeds, but that doesn’t mean it’s enjoyable or inspiring for even the most skilled.

It's not that they're playing fast, it's what they're playing that makes it so complex. And it's also about their timing and rhythm.

To some degree. You'll get rough if you don't practice. But if you've been fast before, you can regain that speed a lot quicker than the first time when you learned to play fast.

Playing fast can be very subjective, I find some of the solos and riffs that I viewed as fast aren't as quick once you're able to deconstruct the piece.

It's not exactly hard, but requires a lot of maintenance as other people mentioned. Lots of warm up time, and if you don't practice constantly you quickly fall away from your peak.

I’ve been playing fast for more than 30 years, I mean Dave Mustaine fast for instance. It requires training at first but when you’re used to it for such a long time, it never really goes away and even if I don’t practice during a few weeks, it comes back quite quickly. With age the issue is more physical, you can have pains that have several causes (arthritis, tendinitis, lack of training)

It's interesting the variety of answers in this thread. The thing is - you don't know if anyone commenting can actually play fast and clean :)

Here's my opinions on a few of the things in this thread. First of all, yes playing fast should be easy when you can do it. The problem is that only a small fraction of people actually break down their technique in a way that they are making consistent movements for everything. It's not that the pros have some inherent natural talent that you don't have. Yes they practiced a lot, but it's WHAT they practiced that sets them apart.

And the comments saying that even EVH has to warm up to play fast or that it requires maintenance - there's truth to that but I think it misses the point. You're always going to be better when you're warmed up, but it's not going to change your underlying technique you've practiced.

Someone in the thread mentioned that it's all about the left hand. To be honest - at the highest levels, the left hand is much easier than the right hand. I'm talking about pure alternate picking here. There's not as much coordination to it relative to the right hand. Now, someone shared a Paul Gilbert video and used that as an example of how it's all in the left hand. The thing is, if you're talking about sweep picking then yes that takes a lot of the coordination out of the picking hand. Or if you're doing hammer-on/pull-off legato then yes the left hand is more important. But to me, perfect alternate picking is the holy grail of technique and should be the "default". A lot of the best guitarists added hammer-ons or sweeps to their picking patterns, not just because it was a stylistic choice, but because they don't actually know how to play that fast using their right hand to switch strings.

Synchronization is super important, but you have to have both the left and right hands down for that. If either technique isn't consistent, then your synchronization won't be consistent.

On a single string it's much easier to play fast with the right hand alternate picking (not saying it's easy, but much easier than crossing strings). The biggest hurdle is crossing strings. You have to be able to switch strings using inside picking and outside picking. By inside picking, I mean when you go from an upstroke on a string and then downstroke on a higher string. Or when you play a downstroke on a higher string and then upstroke on a lower string. These are both inside picking. Then for outside picking, you have to be able to downstroke a lower string and then upstroke a higher string, and be able to upstroke a higher string then downstroke a lower string. If someone isn't aware of all these possibilities of switching strings and just "wings it", they will likely be deficient in certain situations.

Yes but accuracy usually requires consistent practice

Yes, sort of. Playing at the edge of your capability is always tough and playing at 75% of that is usually easier. So if you improve 10x in the next few years then half of that will feel easy relative to how it feels today.

But there will always be tough stuff for you.

And keep in mind that all speed isn’t one skill. Shredders practice patterns that stress pick positioning and you can get very fast at some and not improve on others.

Speed is something you have to work on specifically. I’ve been playing for decades as well and I’m not a fast player. I wish I was sometimes but I don’t actually try to be lol. It takes a lot of practice. You’ll be able to do things faster just as a part of playing more and more but very fast accurate playing is definitely a skill of its own. I’m not even talking about DragonForce or something like that even like Tony Iommi or Jimmy Page doing those fast licks doesn’t come overnight.

No. It’s still hard. Of course as you get faster what were once fast tempos feels easier, but playing at the edge of your ability is always hard.

I can play pretty fuggin fast. It’s easy to do if you warm up, but I find it’s hard to write much material without repeating a ton of notes. I don’t like when part of a song uses the same scale over and over in different progressions in rapid succession, so I don’t really incorporate shred into my writing or listen to many songs with a ton of shredding. Maybe a couple measures here and there. Lol

But yeah. Shredding from a technique standpoint is fun. Especially when you reach that “turn off your brain” point of playing. You learn to batch movements together mindlessly.

Everything is relatively easy once you’re good at it. Getting good is the hard part

For me it is. I was one of those bedroom shredder kids who skipped school to spend all day practicing. I’m 41 now and play for about an hour a day. I would say that at this point playing the guitar is second nature. I don’t consciously have to think about it.

I think it was Django Rhinehardt that said something along the lines of “Don’t worry about speed. Once you get the right phrasing, speed will follow.” Or something like that, anyway.

I'm kinda lucky, I like playing more melodic tones and a BPM between 60 and 72

I don't think it's ever easy. First you have to develop the technique and mechanics, then you have to maintain it. Bad habits can creep in, even for seasoned players with virtuoso level picking.

Just set a slap back delay with a single 16th note response and play eighth notes. the I

Yeah, but like others have said the constant maintenance and practice can be a turn off.

I'm in my mid 50s and I'm the fastest I've ever been (I amaze myself sometimes). This is 3 months after hardly playing for 7 years. I'm playing things I never thought I would ever be able to play. It's like listening to someone else.

I believe it has a lot to do with how often you play and how much you push yourself when you do play. You start to build neural connections that are much easier to tap into the more you play. I've been playing daily recently even if only for 20 mins. But sometimes 3+ hours and when I'm hot I play til my hand cramps up. I just can't stop.

Some of it might be what you believe you can play like running a 4 minute mile. Everytime I played something over my head I started to believe I could play it so I kept doing it always raising the bar even if only a Iittle.

Also, I'm way faster after warming up for an hour or so and I start to fade after about 2-3 hours.

Will it fade if I play less? Most likely yes but I think I could find my way back there much more easily now when it does.

Depends what you are trying to do. I take a lot of breaks from guitar and every time I ramp back up it starts with slowly going over basic scales, but before long I’m pretty close to (but not quite at) my previous best in terms of technique. But getting the last 5% or improving takes a lot longer.

It can also be very pattern specific. There are certain hand shapes that just always take long to recalibrate and others that feel natural very quickly even on day 1 of a restart.

When I was in high school I could play most of the slayer and metallica catalog minus solos close to or at the album speed. I bought a new rig last year at 46 after a solid 20 years of VERY sporadic playing with a few years at a time not owning a guitar. Can't play worth a fuck compared to late teenage me.

EDIT: The most dumb part of this is I spent over $3k on a line6 helix and a higher end Schecter thinking having much better gear would make me practice more lol.

I’ve slowed down. Older I get, fast stuff is just like a slop of sound to my ears

I’ve been playing for 50 years.

Seriously, I was 14 when I started getting serious ( playing since I was 10) and it took forever to get fast. I’m 65 now and I’ve been playing regularly, practicing my entire adult life.

I wouldn’t say I’m particularly fast now because I haven’t exclusively worked on speed that much but when I was 14 the gold standard for speed was Alvin Lee playing “I’m Going Home” with 10 Years After at Woodstock. I figured if I could execute that accurately I would have arrived.

Well I’ve been playing that opening solo part to that song since then.

Yes I can play it now and have been able to for maybe 8 years but he was 25 when he played it! It doesn’t sound particularly natural when I do it even now and he blazed through it non stop and singing like a motherfucker at the same time.

I can’t imagine how much guys like Satriani, Vai, Govan practice. It’s beyond me but I suspect there’s something more to that kind of ability that is more natural to certain people.

Playing fast is easy. Playing fast well, is another story. Your best bet is to do lots of double picking exercises and scales. Start slow, bit by bit increasing your speed. Nothing worse then someone who can pick fast or play fast but miss notes, notes slurring together or just outright bad notes.

Legatos, alternate picking, sweep picking arpeggios, hammer ons and pull offs, skipping strings, etc. These are the techniques I have to re-learn or just sharpen a bit every time I decide to learn a new song.

It's not every year I learn a new song and in the 15-18 years I've been playing on and off, I notice that if I stop practicing them for a while, my performance gets really messy and noisy. Good thing is it always comes back easy with a few days of practice. It's like playing a videogame competitively. If you're not consistent in practice, you begin to suck.

I think where I struggle the most is at remembering chord patterns. I can never remember songs I used to play 10 years ago that required special chords but some songs I haven't played in 10+ years I can still remember the tabs somewhat decently.

Don't think so? I'm definitely on the newer end so I could be wrong. (4 years-ish) But while I can pick fast, it feels like a whole different technique to do some other fast songs. For an example, I don't find something like the solo from Jeff Williams - I Burn to be too bad or the solo from Gypsy Caravan by Wolfmother. They're fast, but not too hard.

It's when you include, sweep picking, harmonics, unusual chords, Sudden muted notes, jumping from one end of the neck to the other, specific patterns, and slides, all those feel like separate techniques I need to learn. Like a fast solo from a j-pop song (like Hysteric Night Girl) is a very different kind of difficult than Through the Fire and Flames. But after learning the songs I mentioned earlier, it doesn't feel like a crazy stretch to learn a Masayoshi Takanaka song since it's basically fast scales lol.

Like going to the gym, if you don't keep your chops up you lose them. I don't keep my chops up. Takes me a month or two to get in shape.

I worked on speed skills years ago to play Dimeola type fusion stuff I was i to. I practiced a lot and did get pretty fast but my accuracy was not as clean as guitarists I tried to emulate. Fast forward many years, I think my lead playing is more interesting and although I think I used to play faster when I wanted to I still have maintained decent speed but I only play as fast as I can cleanly execute any lead line. But the few times I tried to get my speed up, there comes a point where it seems to flow better and faster if you are willing to practice many hours. It is not worth it to me as I’m much more of a songwriter these days but to answer your question, I think some of your technique is maintained but to keep it near maximum requires a lot of time and practice

It's a matter of technique. Thumb on the back of the neck, legato hammer/pulloffs using the fingertips instead of the pads. It requires specific muscle training, hand stretching, hand muscle building and most importantly muscle memory. I played the first 35ish years the same as you and slowly my shred skills keep improving the past couple of years after dedicating to learning and practicing proper techniques

Nope. I'll occasionally get a quick burst out that surprises me but I really struggle with speed.

I've been playing since the 80s and I have been pushing it that whole time and still can't play as fast as a lot of players. Like Malmsteen, Batio, Loomis, even a lot of stuff Vai and satch play is well beyond my max speed. And now that I'm getting older my construction worker's hands are getting a bit sluggish.

I just work my way around it, skip notes or come up with my own arrangement for the really fast parts.

I’ve never properly been like a “shredder” because that very athletic approach to the instrument kinda kills the fun.

I do like dramatic playing though, so throwing the occasional legato spazzy speedy line in there (more like Zappa than Vai) is part of it for me.

I find it’s all about what my fingers are used to… if it’s a familiar pattern then playing zippy can be pretty effortless.

I'm learning that its so much more musical and satisfying to nail things properly (at least, to me), say what you mean to say and keep the urges to burst forth with speed to a minimum and stay in my lane, so to speak.

I can play stuff fast, but beyond a certain speed, it becomes a slurry of missed notes and ones I'm choosing to play as just part of a scale run, as I don't have enough time to think about what I would have otherwise chosen to play if I wasn't blowing through a scale instead.

I don't think I am making a lot of sense.

It just takes regular, consistent, and good practice. More often than not we aren’t really practicing but just sticking ourselves in boxed in patterns that were already mastered without really stepping outside that comfort zone. It’s all about perfect practice, stick to a routine that’s always going to work on mastery then learning something new. Learning music theory also really helps.

Not at all lol

It’s a building process, start slow, then a little more tempo, a little more than that the next time, so on.

Gotta keep the same quality of play all throughout. You can probably do this much quicker with 20+ years of experience.

In 20+ years of playing guitar I've never been able to play extremely fast like Satriani, vai, etc.

I have no clue as to your skill level, but you can't play like Satriani because you're not Satriani. Second, 'playing fast' is something you have to devote a lot of time to. You see guitarists on stage jamming out playing sick leads, interacting with the crowd, and make it all look easy. The ancient Chinese secret is practice. It's 90% muscle memory. Honest.

Of course, there are artists like Knophler, who said that he was always a slow guitar player and most of his work is done in such a way that it accommodates his slowness. I can barely beat out 'Sultans Of Swing' on the guitar so that you could recognize it vaguely. It's not a slow song.

I've been playing the guitar and other stringed instruments for about 65 years now. If I take a month off, it's like trying to play on a galloping horse and all thumbs.

Cheers:

'Hood Poet

Yes

Speed in particular for most instruments needs to be maintained. You lose it if you go a long time without focusing on it. That said, it does come back more quickly if you’ve already been there before.

Speed also isn’t as difficult as people tend to think. It’s just a matter of muscles and muscle memory. It’s more of a mechanical thing than anything. You keep working on it with good technique, and you’ll get faster.

Yes although everything is easy once you get good at it

Picking coordination goes down fast. Even if I miss one day, it's noticeable. However, legato passages, in my experience, are much more forgiving, to the point that it's good to have those ready as well if your picking coordination isn't up to snuff.

I was at my fastest around 2021 and then my band broke up and I sort of gave up on music, I’m still building back my speed now. It is sort of easy because I remember patterns I used to do fast, I just need to build up the stamina and the agility again. It doesn’t stay easy it requires constant practice and not giving up lmao, keep at it lad

It's like anything, once you're there it's a matter of muscle memory. That said, the faster you get the more maintenance it requires.

I think it definitely gets easier after it clicks but you still need practice to maintain it and you need to warm up

It’s like athletics, gotta practice high speed regularly and then yea it’s fine once you’re there. But if you don’t use it you lose it

Yeah it just happens after a few years of playing. Few=32 years lol

Once you get there is it easy like anything else or still really hard?

For reference, i've been playing 40 years (48 years old) and can play just about anything I want. I don't see playing guitar as a race, or having a beginning and end, so to use your own phrase, I don't think you ever get "there". Playing fast can mean different things. You can finger tap a 3 note pattern really fast without much effort.

I think I know what you're getting at though. Personally, I didn't learn to "play fast", but I learned how to play songs that had "fast playing" in them. Is it easy at 48 years old? If it's something i've already learned, yes, and likewise, if it's something I haven't learned, but it has similar patterns to things i've already learned, then yes.

Some guitarists are unorthodox and those are the ones who make music that I consider hard. Jeff Beck for example. Jeff Beck is darn near impossible to replicate imo. Allan Holdsworth. They're unique and very hard to copy. After 40 years of playing, I watch Shawn Lane videos on Youtube and have no clue what he's doing. I see it...I hear it..I have an excellent grasp of music theory..., but really wtf?

If you learn Yngwie's music, you'll be able to learn music from other guitarists that were influenced by him or have a similar approach to guitar. Vinnie Moore is an example. Both of them are great...i'm not knocking either. I'm a fan of both. But, after you learn enough from any guitarist, you notice repeating patterns and motifs, which allow you more easily learn other songs of theirs and to learn from other guitarists that were maybe influenced by them.

The one thing about playing that I don't see many mention is dexterity and that is what requires so much practice - at least for me. If I don't play often, I can still play the same things, but I can't play them all at once. I can choose a hard section of a song and play it, but playing up to it and then playing it requires dexterity, which does require regular practicing. "Frenzy" by Racer X is an example - after the band stops and the solo guitar starts...I can play up to the part after the sweep with no problems, but I literally burn my hard out doing it and that's as far as I can go cleanly.

Give me a few weeks and i'm back up and ready to go, but if I haven't been playing, I can bust out super fast licks...for a little bit, and then my hands will cramp and just refuse to move the way I want them to move, so I have to rest them for a few hours. Paul Gilbert has an ungodly amount of hand dexterity. I have no clue how he can play a whole show and still manage to do a solo section where he shreds out thousands of notes. I'd like to know what it takes to make his forearms burn out!

I don't play in a band and only record music for myself, so playing in short bursts is okay for me. The more inspired I am to make music, the more I will play, the more stamina I have - but if I haven't played in awhile, i'm only good for short bursts of really fast technical playing.

Note that for a lot of performers, guitar or otherwise, making it look easy is an essential part of the show.

It absolutely is. I promise you that when they recorded those parts, they weren't putting on a show. They were biting the bullet to get it just right. You learn it, get it down, and then embellish in the areas where it's safe to do so, and that's the key - they embellish in the areas where it is safe to do it - if you watch Vai do "For The Love Of God", during the fast palm muted part towards the end, he's not doing anything but concentrating, and even then, if you've learned it, you can see where he changes a couple of things to make it a little easier on himself, and rightfully so because he no doubt could play it note for note (he already did to record it), but he has the rest of the show to play on top of that and doesn't want to burn his hand out.

Sorry for the rambling.

Easy is relative. I've been playing "fast" music for 25 years, and practice is the constant. Don't focus on speed, focus on the accuracy of the notes and consistency of pick attack, THEN try to do it faster and faster.

When I first started, I immediately wanted to play a million miles an hour but it sounded like sloppy garbage. I had to discipline myself and essentially learn how to play again the so-called proper way.

An example would be something like this part from a Petrucci solo:

e--10-11-10-8------------------

b---------------------11-8-9-8---

If you go straight at it without slowing it down first, you'll see that the scales aren't diatonic. If you don't play the notes in the right order - even though these are 32nd notes - it sounds wrong.

Don’t play too fast, or else you might accidentally forget to let a little music into your playing.

I never had any interest in playing fast Like Vai but am now trying to learn to play fast for some of the blazing country stuff I’d like to do. 🥴

Fast like a virtuoso, no. Fast enough to sound impressive to people who are not technical guitar nerds, yes.

You gotta constantly work it. Recently “fast guitarist” here. I’m getting close to what I consider speed. Repetition is important, but most people forget your fingers are muscles and they need to be worked out. If you want to sprint 100 m, try sprinting 10 first. Do a few three note patterns fast. Build up to it. Perfect at first, always try to push the hand muscles hurting. Sacrifice accuracy here and there for the feeling of SPEED. Eventually, you’ll figure out how to not sacrifice accuracy and maintain soeed

Actually a bit confused at some of these comments. I would say (in my experience) once you are used to doing it readily, it's stupidly easy to do on command, even if you haven't touched a guitar in months. I'm an avid player and I've been playing for like 23 years, but I've gone a few stretches of time in my life when I just wasn't ... Playing.

Even in those times, I never like lost the ability to just do it. Of course I had to scrape some rust off before I sounded anywhere near as good or expressive as when I'm in practice. But the speed was the easiest part. Endurance and accuracy took the most time to build back up, and even then we're talking about like 3 or 4 short playing sessions, nothing crazy

I think speed is one of the easiest things to train, and I'm usually a lot more impressed by guitarists who can really express a lot, both through the way they actually play and interesting note choice / writing. That's the stuff that takes real focus and not everyone becomes great in those ways. David Gilmore vs Yngwie Malmsteen, to use 2 extremely well-known players. I think Gilmore is the rarer talent.

John Petrucci himself has said that there are songs he cannot play unless he rehearses a bit.

It depends on what you’re playing. In my personal experience (yours may vary), once you get up to a certain speed on, let’s say, sweep-picking a harmonic minor scale, you’ll probably keep that speed without too much trouble, since it’s the kind of thing you can commit to muscle memory and use again. Obviously, once you move beyond set pieces like a particular lick or scale shape, it gets a little trickier.

This won’t surprise you, but the key to everything is practice. I’ve been playing a long time, and I can improvise a straightforward solo in most styles at high speed without too much trouble. If it’s something a little weird, I still have to learn it slow and practice it until it’s up to speed. I wish I could reach a point where I could immediately play anything at the speed I want, but I don’t know if that will happen. I still have to teach that articulation to my fingers if it’s something unconventional.

Not only that, but I find that if I skimp on practicing, I will lose speed fairly quickly. I wound up in the hospital a few years ago, and was there a little over a week. When I got out, it was probably another week before I felt that I was as fast as I’d been before. Or to put it another way, my fingers would physically move that fast, and they knew where they needed to go, but the notes didn’t stop sounding like sloppy trash until I’d been back for about a week.

Keep practicing, and you’ll see results.

Every time I think I'm pretty fast I end up listening to Tommy Emmanuel. Then, I put my guitar away and watch him instead.

If you're consistent with it, it's really not something you think about.

Put the guitar down for a few weeks/months? It's the first thing you notice.

You know that solo Zakk Wylde does in Miracle man with the triplets at the beginning? I had that down to speed cleanly at one point years ago. Played it again the other day sounded like dogshit. Been on the metronome at 50% to 75% speed going down-down-up for hours to 100% fucking it up then going back down to 50 again.

Does that answer your question?

Virtuosos like Satriani, Vai, Dimebag, etc do an insane amount of practice. Funny enough, if you investigate lessons from them, you'll see that they practice the foundations of their play style rather than hit the flamboyant stuff. I guess the flamboyant stuff sorta wings out from there.

Satriani is into the books and knows all sorts of scales to get him where he is.
Satriani taught Vai who pretty much did his own crazy thing.
Dimebag, while not related to the other two, pretty much didn't learn crazy scales and just played with heart from what he was exposed to.

But through my research, it seems that they focus on their foundations and let that bloom into their own style. This is a reason why I try not to play like other artists with my 20 years of experience. They got that in their blood, I feel.

To answer your question, yes. The reason being is when i think of playing lets say 16th notes at 100bpm, it is almost a completely different thing/technique as doing 16th notes at 200bpm for botht he right and left hand. Think of the difference between like tremolo picking and just a quick 16th note passage, thats how it feels for the right hand. And for the left, i almost think of different common patterns as one thing, for example a minor run might start on frets 5, then 7, then 8, and in my head i dont think of each of those three notes i jist think of that pattern when im playing, and that pattern along with many others show up a lot in solos and shredding. Once you can do one pattern, a lot of them become much easier and playing that way in general get much easier as well.

It is neither easy nor necessary to be a good guitar player.

Fast is cool but has less emotion. Think 80s/90s GN’R Slash versus everything he has recorded since.

i would like to suggest a series called cracking the code on youtube by troy grady. that series answered pretty much all of my questions like this and got me to switch to jazzIII picks.

i would like to suggest a series called cracking the code on youtube by troy grady. that series answered pretty much all of my questions like this and got me to switch to jazzIII picks.

It is as long as you keep playing and practicing. It took me a long, long time to be able to play fast (think both solos from black label society's farewell ballad for what I mean by fast.)

I was playing for 5 years before I really decided that I wanted to be able to play that kind of stuff, Zakk Wylde is one of the 2 players that made me want to learn how to play that kind of stuff. Probably took me almost another 5 years to be able to play Zakk Wylds stuff up to speed, and it's definitely harder to get into it if I stop playing for awhile.

The time it takes to learn though is worth it, nailing a crazy fast solo for the first time is so fucking fun.

It’s like maintaining your body when working out or keeping a pet (or plant) alive and healthy. People who are really great have the luxury of free time… And they have an excellent work ethic.

Use it/care for it… Or lose it.

One thing that is challenging to develop but fairly easy to maintain is sweep picking. Anything that involves “economy” requires less muscle contractions.

If you look at players like Frank Gambale and Eric Johnson, you see the possibilities of sweep/economy picking

It’s the alternate picking that takes the most work, but if you’re actually making music… How often are you shredding alternate picking lines?

Once you‘ve practiced enough and gotten the fast parts down to muscle memory, especially to the point where you “chunk” big runs together, it IS actually easy to play like a maniac.

The HARD part comes from constantly maintaining the skills needed to play like that. A week or two of ignoring technique will make playing those fast runs a bit harder. A week or two more will have you unable to sniff them without a day or two of dedicated practice.

playing slow can be harder sometimes. this is especially true on the drums.

The trick is to shred hard but still be tasteful. Kinda like be as heavy as possible but still be radio playable. Its a tightrope and you want to push it to the limit but still be melodic and accessible to the masses.

Just like any skill, it requires practice and maintenance to aquire and to keep. I started learning to play later in life and know thst I will never be able to play Scuttlebuttin at the same pace as SRV, but that’s OK I Get a little better and a little faster all the time

The getting good part is very hard. It's sorta like gaining muscle. Putting on that muscle takes a lot of work, then you gotta consistently work out to keep the muscle that you've put in or you slowly lose it

I've been playing for 13 years since I was 16 years old, I play only acoustic but I can straight up shred fingerstyle it just takes consistency and practice and it just kinda comes naturally for me but for real speed you need to slow down and use a metronome so you stay on time, my style isn't so robotic and precise but the notes ring out clear and I can play extremely fast, I write my own music I never was one to learn a buncha songs by other artists but I have built insane speed over time, it just depends what you're playing I have plenty of songs that I wrote that even I have a hard time playing, even after years and years I still make mistakes playing my own music so I guess it takes a certain amount of dedication and practice to get it perfect. I've played every single day for 13 years which is why I have the speed though, it takes a lot of consistency

it is all about muscle memory. you need to maintain your muscle strength and memory constantly. no different then doing sports or being an athlete. no workouts you’d go back. The thing is playing a guitar is not all about playing fast but more about playing clear notes and being unique and creative

This isn’t the exact quote but I saw Paul Gilbert say something on the lines of “use your ears and avoid playing sloppy and out-of-sync, and don’t worry if you like playing sloppy - that’s easy even after all the practice”.

Shredding (well) is hard. You have to have excellent rhythm and control to be able to accent the right notes when playing 16th notes at 170bpm+.

Once you’ve reached that point, you still have to practice it and pay attention to your playing to maintain it.

Does it get easier? Absolutely, but for most people it’s never going to be effortless. You just need to make it look effortless.

After 6 years i can confirm if you dont keep it up you will lose it and its hard

Unlock it, practice it and it can become another form of vocabulary within the concept of your lead playing. It isn’t the be all and end all, just cool to have it in the bag when you want to use it. Happy playing! <3

Everything gets easier the more time and effort you put into it. I remember when I thought sweep picking was the hardest thing you could do. Now it's just another thing I can do without thinking too much about it. I've found things that aren't as "hard" as sweep picking, but they're more difficult for me because I haven't put as much time into it.

I feel my fret hand is fast but I struggle to play fast with my picking hand. (Originally a bassist)

Like everyone is saying, you have to put time in. I have played 30+ years and have maintained my speed overall only by playing a lot. Plus I’ve never lost interest in speed.

As a mature player, I have greater understanding of the mechanics and can apply theory to it. I never approached it this way when I was younger.

If you’re not interested enough to really get into it, you may not reach your true potential. It’s like running a couple miles for exercise or training for a marathon. One is casual, the other serious.

When you are good at something, it is always easy to execute.

Getting good enough and maintaining that is the hard part.

I have been playing forever and never got to the shredding speed because I never tried and was never really into it. Now I prefer something melodic and unique rather than super fast scale sounding leads. I do wish I could play faster than I can though but that requires time I don't seem to have.

Like it's already been said, it's something that needs maintenance and our tastes take us to different places throughout our lives.

For instance, I used to play fingerstyle stuff quite a bit up until like 4 years ago and I honestly lost interest in that way of playing then. I currently retain the very, very basics. I would have to relearn a lot of stuff if I wanted to play those arrangements again. I honestly feet more like playing electric guitar stuff and that's where I'm at.

If deep down inside you're not really interested in something, you won't care much for maintaining it even if you manage to attain the skills without having an honest passion for them and what they let you express. This is just my opinion of course, but I believe that if you have that interest and passion, at one point you'll definitely start making hard stuff look easy without even realizing (:

No it takes an insane amount of work. 4 years ago, I was playing rhythm guitar only my whole life for 23 years, and I found a teacher who fixed my ability to play lead guitar and Ive been working my ass off 3-5 hours every single day practicing and I’m just now hitting like rock and roll speed. And I’m still kinda sloppy, I can play AC/DC no problem and some easier randy rhoads stuff but I still struggle with many solos from RATT or Van Halen. Forget Steve vai or yngwie, that is never happening for me.

If you want to shred, you must see Troy Grad on YouTube. His videos made me do things I just thought I could do with long hours of training. I don’t think you get “slower” as you grow old, (unless you have some problem in your hands). But as I became more “mature” I found more interest in good melodies than in shredding.

I started serious alternate picking after about 15 years of playing. I'd say with the experience I had, fast playing was easy to pick up.

I think fast lead stuff is at times a skill that some people just have or are wired to play. Obviously anybody can learn and shred, but I personally learned the joy of precision and speed in rhythm metal guitar. Playing songs like Strike of the Beast, or whatever, is very enjoyable on rhythm, and demandingwhen done well. Keep up the practice and shred.