Reasons Why You May Be Slow - First Drafts (Patreon)

A few months ago I posted a list of reasons why someone may be slow on guitar. I have FINALLY finished the first drafts for each topic. If you're ready for typos and bad grammar, you can check out how things are shaping for the upcoming video series now!

1. You don't push yourself.

Far too often people will continue to play at slow, comfortable speeds thinking they will suddenly be able to play things quickly without ever practicing at fast tempos.

You don't become faster at sprinting by walking all the time.

If you want to play 16th note patterns at 200 bpm, but you always play at a comfortable 100 bpm, you'll never get to that 200 bpm!

If you want to play at 200 bpm, you HAVE to play at that tempo.

Are you currently unable to hit that speed? Then you'll need to start pushing yourself to go past your current limitations.

Using the metronome in a simple, specific way, I have been able to reach speeds of 300 bpm. 

Just like bodybuilders, I use progressive overload to push my limitations more and more so I can push myself to new levels. This means I use the metronome to slowly, progressively, push my speed higher and higher.

Basically, I take a piece of music that's about 4 to 8 bars long, start the metronome at 60 bpm, play the piece of music correctly just one time, then I increase the metronome by 5 bpm. I continue this process until I can't go any faster.

A FREE eBook is available that details everything you need to know about using the metronome to unlock your speed potential.

2. You lack awareness.

Often times people THINK they are playing things correctly when they are not. If you don't know you are playing things incorrectly then you can't fix the mistakes!

The big problem with this, is if you keep playing with mistakes then you keep reinforcing those mistakes. Remember, practice does NOT make perfect. Practice makes permanent, so only PERFECT practice makes perfect!

Many times I've had students demonstrate material they've been working on, and what they play is riddled with mistakes. When I ask them if they noticed those mistakes, they usually have no idea it happened!

How can we generate awareness to ensure we are playing things properly?

One way is to get a guitar teacher who can monitor your progress and point out when things are done correctly or not. I feel this is one of the more important aspects of my job – listening to students and giving them feedback on when they are playing with or without mistakes, and to continue reinforcing the good habits that lead to better, accurate playing more often.

Of course, not everyone can afford one on one lessons. For those who can't, if you can record yourself and then watch or listen to your performance, this can give you great insight as to whether or not you're playing things correctly. In fact, this is something I've asked some students to do in between lessons because they kept going back to playing things wrong when I couldn't watch them throughout the week. Most of the time this method gives the student brand new awareness and fixes the problem!

Now, if you follow my Metronome Method, there's something else you can do to help give yourself the best chance of success.

When you are working up a piece of music, exercise, whatever, and you have ANY doubt whatsoever if you are playing things correctly, assume you are NOT and try again. When your goal is to play accurately, you NEED to be confident in what you're playing. You need to feel that what you are playing is good enough to be on your album. Always practice like you're recording, and make sure you feel confident that what you're playing sounds dead on before you push that speed any higher.

3. You can't follow the rhythm/hear the beat properly.

This is related to “being unaware”, but I feel there's more to this one.

Some people are absolutely aware they can't hear the metronome clicking away nor can they follow the rhythm they're attempting. And, being unable to properly hear a fast clicking metronome or drum beat can really hold you back from playing as fast as you can.

One benefit of following my Metronome Method is that it has you pushing the metronome to speeds beyond 200 bpm to make sure your ear gets trained to follow extremely fast tempos. And, when you can follow an 8th note pattern well past 200 bpm, I believe you'll have a far easier time playing 16th note patterns because you've trained your ears to comprehend fast music.

After working with SEVERAL students over the course of ten plus years, I noticed they just couldn't maintain accuracy once the metronome kept going faster and faster. This is because they just couldn't hear it anymore! They couldn't concentrate on the click after a certain speed, and therefore could no longer push their speeds.

This led to me pushing the importance of learning rhythm, along with being able count and play a large variety of various rhythmic patterns. My belief is that the better your rhythm skills are the better your chances of hearing things properly at crazy fast speeds.

So, make sure you learn how to play all kinds of different rhythmic patterns to give yourself best chance of handling crazy fast speeds!

4. You take too many shortcuts.

Far too often, when I start working with students, I learn that they try cutting corners because of how eager they are to achieve their goals. Well, unfortunately, when you take shortcuts, you actually make things take far longer than they need to.

For example, sometimes students will try doing their metronome work in 20 bpm increments, and only go up in smaller increments when things get difficult. Well, this so called “time save” actually prevents you from going as fast as you can!

One student of mine who came to me to get faster was doing just that – he would go up in 20s until things go difficult in order to avoid his arm from getting tired. He didn't make much progress at all during the week. So, I had him go up in 5 bpm increments during his class, and he GREATLY surpassed his top speed!

The way I like to look at the work needed to build things up is this – Let's say you want to use a step ladder to get to the top of a really tall building. If you use a ladder that only has twenty rungs, and that building is 100 stories tall, good luck getting to the top! Now, if that ladder has 1,000 rungs, you've got a MUCH better chance of getting to the top!

Fewer steps do not always equal greater success. Many times having more steps makes the path to success much easier.

Just like weight lifting, we get our best results by SLOWLY adding just a little bit of weight to get progressively stronger. If you want a 500 lb squat, you're going to be hard pressed to get there by going from 100 lbs to 250 lbs, straight to 500. You'll have far greater success by only adding 5 or 10 lbs. to the bar VS huge jumps in weight.

Avoiding the work that needs to be done will never result in sped up progress. Do NOT take shortcuts!

If you want more details in how to use a metronome to push your speeds as fast as you can, you can always get the Metronome Method eBook for free at MileHighShred.com

5. You take too long to increase the speed/repeat slow stuff too much.

This is kind of the opposite to the previous point. Sometimes people spend a LOT of time working on something before increasing the metronome speed. In fact, some people spend TOO much time on one speed before going faster and never get anywhere.

I've had several tell me how they'll stay at a slow speed for the ENTIRE DAY and then increase the speed a few beats the NEXT DAY. This will NEVER result in speed because you are spending far too much time playing slow. 

The other thing people have told me they do is play a crazy amount of repetitions of something before increasing the speed. Something like ten perfect repeats or more before moving the metronome up.

That method is fine for drilling mechanics and memorizing a new piece of music, but it's terrible for increasing speed.

If you want to be fast, you HAVE to practice PLAYING FAST!

Yes, we still work things up slowly and we start slow as well. However, we need to keep pushing the speed over and over again, MANY times in the same session.

Nobody ever improved at sprinting by walking everywhere. If you want to be good at sprinting you have to run as fast as you can! If you want to play fast guitar, you have to play fast!

6. You never experiment with different mechanics.

How you pick will NEED to change as you progress from slow to medium to fast tempos. Forcing oneself to always keep the slow moving mechanics is a fairly common mistake that will leave tons of speed on the table.

I often hear people saying things like, “well this one guy said you have to pick from your wrist and never use your arm”. Then I show them how I pick from my elbow for the fastest I can play so they can see it's not only a fine thing to do, but also necessary.

No, this does not mean I recommend always using an elbow style of picking. For slow speeds it doesn't make much sense. However...

When you are trying to reach faster and faster speeds regardless of what piece of music you are trying to play, if you refuse to just try different things like using elbow VS wrist motions, hand position, shoulder position, the angle of your guitar neck, etc. then there is a tremendous chance you are preventing yourself from making progress.

Often times, when I'm stuck getting something up to a speed I'd like to reach, not only will I try different fret positions, but I will also change where my pick is striking the strings (such as closer to the neck or the bridge), changing how far or close my picking elbow is in relation to my body (yes, this absolutely can change things), even how I'm positioning my forearm in a supinated VS pronated position.

One of the benefits to working things up with a metronome is you get experience playing in several different speeds so you can polish up your mechanics at those varying speeds. This gives you the best chance of handling anything you attempt to play.

Remember, it's perfectly okay, and sometimes necessary to experiment with different picking motions and hand positions!

7. You're afraid to hit adjacent strings.

When I'm playing my absolute fastest, there is no way I'm not hitting adjacent strings when I'm continually changing strings. As long as my muting technique is on point, nobody is going to notice. Same thing goes for you – as long as you are muting properly, you can absolutely get away with striking adjacent strings and nobody will hear unwanted noise.

At slow speeds, yes, I do recommend not hitting strings if possible. What you play absolutely will sound better and cleaner if you don't hit adjacent strings at slower speeds. However...

As you reach faster and faster speeds, missing adjacent strings becomes increasingly difficult, eventually becoming downright impossible! If you are properly muting the strings you are not intending to play, as you reach speeds where missing adjacent strings is no longer possible, then you are good to go!

8. You use the wrong escape motion for certain riffs/licks.

I learned about pick slanting, now referred to as string escape motion, from Troy Grady's Cracking the Code. This picking mechanic is something I developed through countless hours of metronome practice, slow building things up as fast as I could get them, all while making sure everything sounded good. Only after Troy filmed me and showed me what I was doing did I see I was actually changing how my picking was slanted in order to escape from being stuck in between the guitar strings.

Basically, if you are going to change strings after performing a down stroke, having a downward escape motion will help prevent you from being stuck between the strings. 

(demonstrate)

If you are going to change strings after an up stroke, having an upward escape motion will help prevent you from being stuck between strings.

(demonstrate)

Being able to go between these two escape motions can make playing intricate, difficult pieces of music much easier to play and sound better. 

(demonstrate)

Now, when you are going as fast as you possibly can, you will most likely be stuck in one motion or the other, and you'll have to rely on muting unwanted noise as you'll have no choice but to blast through adjacent strings. My fastest picking relies on downward escape motions. (demonstrate)

I find that the easiest way to achieve upward escape motion is to get into a palm-muting position where you can see the inside of your picking hand.

(demonstrate)

To get into the downward escape motion, I find that seeing the back of your picking hand is a great way to get into position.

(demonstrate)

Working on both motions, I feel, is the best way to get the most out of your playing. Here are two exercises that will involve the use of upward and downward string escape motions:

(demonstrate)

9. The action on your guitar is too high.

The closer your strings are to your fretboard, the less distance you have to push the strings down to the frets. The further away the strings are, the great the distance you'll have to move the strings down to the frets.

I use to have crazy high action back when I was taking lessons. My guitar teacher had a good laugh when he saw how high up I had my action! He told me I was losing a ton of speed due to how far away the strings were from the fretboard.

Thankfully, this tends to be an easy fix! 

(show where you change the action on three different guitars)

If you did not see your type of bridge here, doing a search online should be fairly easy if you look up the guitar you are using, and how to raise its action.

10. You have too much of your guitar pick going into the strings (pick depth is too great).

Having 1 mm worth of guitar pick to move through and across your strings is going to allow for speed much easier than a full cm. The more pick you have sticking into the strings equals more work in order to play fast.

I like to think of having the very tip of my pick brushing the outside of the string I'm playing on. I do find that using a beveled pick can greatly help with this (demonstrate) but it isn't necessary (demonstrate with flat pick).

If it feels like you always have too much pick going through the strings, you can try choking up on the pick (demonstrate), use a smaller pick like a jazz 3 to give yourself less room for error (demonstrate), or try giving something like my favorite pick a try, this beveled guitar pick with a grip hole to improve grip accuracy from Bog Street (demonstrate).

I get no money at all from Bog Street if you go to them. I just really like their stuff, so I want to promote them!

11. Your gear isn't set up for playing fast – e.g. poor compression.

Yes, your amp, pedals, perhaps even your guitar can absolutely impact just how fast you can play. This video will be covering some basic ideas that may be hindering your ability to get as fast as possible, not going into crazy detail though.

High gain is quite popular among us metal heads, and it certainly can make playing fast a bit easier. The high gain allows us to play with a very light touch. That light touch is necessary to go crazy fast! True, too much gain can sound sound bad in a mix, sound too distorted, etc. Trying to find a good balance between your gain and tone is worth some time.

Compression is common with high gain, high distortion setups. However, I've played some tube amps that could not pick up fast playing worth a damn, and a compressor pedal could have made a world of difference! 

I really don't know a lot about tube amps, but from my experience I can hear notes being played fast on an acoustic better than a tube amp with no compression. Combo amps have never given me a problem when choosing a setting with lots of distortion, which typically comes with really good compression.

I find that using a compressor pedal helps with my recording direct into an audio interface. This way my fastest playing, which involves quiet notes due to the light touch needed to go insanely fast, can be adequately picked up while recording.

(demonstrate different amp sounds with and without compression while recording in Studio One to show how compression can greatly affect the sound of playing fast)

I've used a couple different compressor pedals from Keeley, and I find them both very easy to use and they really help make a big difference.

If you don't like a lot of distortion, but you want to play crazy fast, I highly recommend trying some compression pedals to bring up all those quiet notes so they can be heard.

12. You're trying to play too fast too soon (e.g. trying to play 6 notes per beat when you should be playing 3 notes per beat instead).

A very common mistake aspiring shred guitar players make is trying to cram too many notes into each beat when they're not ready for it.

Quite often, people will try sextuplets or 16th note triplets at 120 bpm or higher, and they can't even get past 90 bpm. Some of them even tell me, “I followed your metronome method of starting at 60 and going up in fives”. 

If this is you, then you are trying to play too many notes per click, and you need to change the subdivision to something more manageable.

My Metronome Method eBook, which you can get FOR FREE, covers this topic in detail. It talks about how many notes per click to use, and when to increase the amount of notes you play.

Basically, if you want to play six notes per click, I recommend being able to play three notes per click AT LEAST at 240 bpm first. If you can't do that, then you're not ready for six notes per beat.

If you want to play fast 16th notes at 200 bpm, but you can't get something to 120 bpm, then you are not ready for 16th notes, which are four notes per beat. If you can't get something up to 120 bpm your first practice session with 16th notes, then I believe the best thing to do is work up 8th notes, that's two notes per beat, and get them to AT LEAST 240 bpm before you even consider messing with those four notes per click again.

I know you want to play fast, and you want it now. But, trying too much before you're ready won't help anything. In fact, it can and most likely will make your progress slower!

Not only is muscle memory a big reason we build things up slowly, but we are also training our ears to hear everything we want to play at crazy fast tempos. There is NOTHING WRONG with slowing things down in order to build them up.

There was a riff I wrote to demonstrate the half-whole diminished scale, and this tapping part that was written for 16th notes was soooooo hard to play that I not only broke things down into five note chunks, but I went down to QUARTER NOTES. That's only one note per beat! I worked up the tapping part using quarter notes until I got past 240 bpm, then switched to 8th notes and got those past 240 bpm before finally getting into the 16th notes.

I'm telling you, sometimes the best bet to get fast is to go WAY slower than you want, put in the work, and earn that speed by building things up and pushing yourself continually to get better and better!

13. You don't correct mistakes when they occur – you end up playing like slop and think the notes will magically start sounding better all on their own.

This is a BIG one! Quite often I have to tell my students to fix their mistakes IMMEDIATELY when they occur. Too many people fail to realize the importance of correcting mistakes when they happen. Practice does NOT make perfect. Practice makes permanent, which means only perfect practice makes perfect!

Mistakes are going to happen. That's inevitable. It's part of learning, maintaining what you have, AND growing. Part of becoming the best guitar player you can be is also about knowing how to practice, and one of the aspects of great practice is knowing how to address mistakes.

Let's get an exception to this out of the way first, so we can focus on how I feel most practice sessions should go.

One of the ONLY times I feel it's okay to let a mistake go and continue playing is in a a band practice situation. When you're in a band, or playing on stage, you can't stop in the middle of the song and fix your mistake or start over. You need to know the material well enough that you can make a mistake and keep going. Now, with that idea said and out of the way...

When you are learning something new, working to get some faster, trying to improve your technique, when a mistake occurs address it right away. Fix it! For example... (demonstrate a few ideas)

When we don't correct those mistakes, we are basically practicing to make mistakes. It's like we are telling our brains that it's okay to mess up when we just continue on as if things will magically improve. 

The ONLY way you're going to reduce the amount of mistakes in your playing is to address them as soon as they happen. Remember, only perfect practice makes perfect!

14. You actually practice for TOO long!

Practice effectively, and you won't need to spend hours and hours per day with practice. If you push yourself mentally and physically, you can't go for several hours anyway. You can work hard, or you can work long, but you can't do both!

When it comes to REALLY pushing yourself, about 45 minutes on average is all you can really ask of yourself. This means working with that metronome and pushing your limits to get faster and more accurate. I feel this is quite different than simply playing for fun, like running through riffs and songs you already know very well.

CAN you play for several hours and day and be okay? Absolutely! But, to me, playing what you're familiar with and just having fun without pushing yourself to your max is not what I consider practice.

To me, practice means pushing yourself to become better. You can only push yourself so much before your brain becomes exhausted, and your guitar playing muscles can't keep up anymore.

When you push yourself for too long, and too often, you absolutely run the risk of repetitive strain injuries. I've experienced these myself, and I'm telling you, these are injuries you do not want! 

If you'd like some guidance on how to practice efficiently and effectively, you can learn all about it in my Metronome Method eBook, which you CAN get for FREE, over at MileHighShred.com

15. The strings on your guitar are too thick.

The thicker your strings, the harder it is to press them down to the fretboard. The more difficult it is to press the strings down, the more speed you will lose in the process.

After playing for over 20 years, for standard tune guitar, I tend to use 9 gauge strings for the high E, and 46 for the low E. Basically, 9 gauge strings. I used to use 12 gauge!

What I've learned over the years of trying different gauge strings is that I don't like having to work that hard when I play. The heavier or thicker the string gauge, the more tiring it is to play.

If you've tried shredding on an acoustic, you probably understand what I'm talking about! Acoustic strings tend to be VERY thick, and holy crap are they hard to shred on compared to an electric guitar.

If you're currently using some heavy gauge strings, and feel like your fretting hand and arms keeps getting tired really quick, you may want to try some lighter strings and see if that helps you.

Yes, there is such a thing as TOO light. I've noticed this especially when playing in tunings lower than standard, such as D standard, or baritone. So, instead of dropping to the lowest possible gauge you can find, I feel it's best to just go down by one gauge and see how that feels.

Yes, this will require some experimentation on your part, and will cost a bit of time and money. The only way you're going to find out what string gauge works best for you is to keep trying different ones.

16. Your practice is unfocused – you're always jumping around from one thing to another.

Although it's important, and quite necessary to learn a lot of things in order to be the best you can be, if you try practicing too many different things then you greatly limit your chances of improving.

Often times people come to me for lessons saying they don't know what to work on. They say how they try something one day, it doesn't go well for them, so they try something else the next day, they don't know if it's good, so then they try another thing the next day, and so on and so on.

The thing is, if something is challenging for you, and it takes effort to play that piece of music, it's a safe bet you'll benefit from practicing that and trying to get as much out of it as you can. And, if it's a piece of music you really like the sound of, all the more reason to work at it!

True, sometimes you can pick something to practice that is too difficult, and it may be useful to break it down to make it easier. This is something I've done with a few licks and riffs at the Mile High Shred patreon group. Those videos show how I recommend breaking them down to make things easier so you can keep making progress.

Besides jumping from one thing to another too soon, you may be trying too many different things at once! For example, if you're working on a few different rhythms, a finger-tapping lick, a sweep picking pattern, some speed picking drills, all in the same session, I feel that's WAY too much!

When it comes to good quality practice, practice that is highly effective, you can't push yourself for too long. About 45 minutes of pushing yourself mentally and/or physically is pretty average amount of time for most people, including me. Spending about 10 – 15 minutes per exercise is really all you need too. This means three things per practice session will get you about 30 – 45 minutes worth of work. That's PLENTY!

Yes, you can certainly play for longer periods of time, but that should just be for fun, or to maintain things you've already learned. This is not the same pushing yourself to the max.

In order to maximize progress, you'll have to focus on just a few things at a time. We can't learn everything all at once. Getting a few things down at a time will absolutely yield better results VS trying to cram in as much as possible all the time.

17. You have genetic limitations.

This may be a tough pill to swallow for some people, and it's certainly one I do NOT like giving out. But, the truth is, genetics DO play a part in how fast you can get, and unfortunately, some of you are doomed with genetics that will never allow you to hit shred level speeds. 

As much of a downer hearing that may be, I do feel it's important to have a healthy perspective on what can be done so you can focus more on improving from where you are currently at as a guitar player instead of always comparing yourself to guitarists who are the equivalent of top tier athletes.

Average shred guitar speeds are about 180 – 200 bpm picking 16th notes. Now, that's average SHRED speed, not the average speed of all guitar players. From my experience teaching people, I'd say the average overall speed is a bit slower. And the speeds will vary greatly when it comes to picking one note on one string VS going up and down various scale patterns full of intricacies. 

Yes, most people can certainly move their picking hand fairly quick, and they can drum their fingers quickly as well. But, put a guitar pick to the strings and suddenly everything comes to a screeching halt for some people.

My guess is there's some kind of psychological barrier preventing some people from going fast once they feel those guitar strings. I honestly have no clue how to overcome something like this. I wish I did!

Some people have just been dealt a bad hand when it comes to complex motor skills. Ever notice how some people are just terrible at sports, no matter how hard they try? Same thing with playing an instrument. Some people are simply born NOT to play. It sucks, but it's true.

I do believe that even if you're one of the unlucky few who have the cards stacked against you with genetics that prevent you from playing quickly that you can still improve and get better with persistent effort. You may not become one of the fastest out there, but you can still be better than you were the day before.

One of the most important things in this music journey is to have fun. Hopefully, even if you find yourself struggling, you can still have fun. After all, if you're not having fun playing guitar, then what's the point?

18. You're impatient.

Nobody ever makes progress as fast as they want, including me. To reach your maximum potential, you have to accept that it's going to take time – possibly way more time than you'd like, or would expect.

One of the more common things I hear students say is, “this shouldn't be so hard” or “I should already be able to do this”. My response is almost always, “why?”

Seriously, WHY should something BRAND NEW be easy for you? I've been playing for over twenty years, and when I try learning something brand new I still have periods of struggle. It's completely unreasonable to expect yourself to just nail new things right away.

Besides expecting oneself to almost instantly get things down and up to speed, many people try rushing the process of pushing oneself and end up sacrificing accuracy just to hit higher numbers. Well, if you played something inaccurately at a given speed then you did NOT play at that speed.

The closer you get to your max speed the more difficult it becomes to go any faster. You can NOT rush this process. 

When it comes to metronome work, and following the start slow and always increasing the speed NO MORE than 5 bpm, I've worked with several students who ignored this advice, did 10 or 20 bpm increases instead, and continued to make poor progress. When I had them do the 5 bpm increments in front of me, they suddenly made MORE progress in that one session than what they did all week while being impatient and trying to jump the metronome speed to fast too soon.

If you truly want to be the best player you can be, and continue to get faster and more accurate, you HAVE to be patient, and be ready for a long journey of consistent improvement. 

19. You keep trying to mimic the same movements of your different guitar heroes.

We are all built different. Just because a specific movement works well for one person doesn't mean it will work the same for everybody else.

When it comes to performing squats, various stances can occur because of how long someone's legs may be, how their hips developed, etc. For one person a wide stance will be best, while a more stance would work better for someone else. Why wouldn't this same idea apply to playing guitar?

True, the basic movement patterns are fairly universal. However, just like squat mechanics are pretty much universal, small variations are going to happen from person to person.

Finding out what movements work best for you is important. This will require some experimentation at various speeds. Using the Metronome Method can help with this because you'll be playing at SEVERAL different speeds so you can figure out how to best move for any given circumstance.

Marty Friedman is regarded as one of the best metal guitarists out there. In no way would I ever try picking like he does, nor would I advise anyone try to emulate his picking mechanics. But, he made it work for him! If Marty tried picking like I do, most likely he wouldn't have too good of a time, just like I wouldn't if I tried playing like him.

Every now and then I'll have someone say they want to play exactly like their guitar hero. It's understandable that they'd want to emulate the person they look up to most. However, if you're able to produce the desired notes in a slightly different approach, wouldn't that be enough?

Instead of tormenting yourself trying to move EXACTLY like someone else, or even multiple people, why not figure out what works best for you so you can produce the best results in your playing?

20. You're actually being TOO strict by trying to be midi perfect (you can't be a machine).

Only perfect practice makes perfect. This is something I preach all the time! However, a few people out there take this way too literally. They think that they need to play so perfectly that if you slow down what they play and look at everything in the tiniest details that even that stuff needs to be perfect. That's just silly!

Look, NOBODY can be midi perfect. If you hear a song and it sounds like the guitars are basically played by a computer, there's a good chance they were! Or, at least, heavily edited to a point that no person could EVER play it.

The human aspect has to be present in what you play. You're human, so you're going to sound like one.

When you play something, the most important thing to ask is, “did you like how that sounded?”. If the answer is yes, perfect! If the answer is no, then try again.

When you record something, and you play it back, does it sound good to you? Just like before, if the answer is yes, your job is done!

Nobody sounds 100% perfect when you take a super fast clip and then slow it down to 50% or 25% of the originally speed. You can always find tiny little errors when you slow things down really slow and start purposely picking things apart.

So, when you are practicing, if what you just played sounds good enough to be on your album, then you have achieved the level of “perfection” we are trying to accomplish!

21. You're afraid to let loose and just go for it! 

I feel it's not only important, but also necessary to just have fun and play whatever you want! After you put in the disciplined work to get fast while remaining accurate, why not mess around by improvising some high speeds riffs or licks? Just go nuts!

This is something I do quite often. There's no regimented practice, it's just allowing the subconscious to take over, and you just let the movements flow. For example... (demonstrate)

All of that is a result of taking countless hours of metronome work where I have pushed myself to my mental and physical limitations, and then just allowed my brain and hands to basically barf everything back up! Just bleahhhhhh!!!!!

If you don't take time to just mess around and play at fast speeds then you'll never get good at maintaining fast playing. Even though I continually preach to work things up slowly and push yourself to go faster and faster, you can't ALWAYS just work things up. Eventually, you DO just have to go for it and put to use all your hard work.

22. You never have fun with your practice/training.

If you always dread practicing then what's the point of even playing? Yes, sometimes we may be required to learn things and play things we're not fans of. Many things I give students can be quite frustrating because of how challenging the material may be. But, it's always done with a purpose – to push the student to be the best player I believe they can be.

Now, if you ALWAYS hate what you're playing, and you can't get any positive feelings from it, then you won't be committed to getting the most out of what you're doing.

Basically, if you want to be as fast as you possibly can, you pretty much HAVE to enjoy the process of pushing yourself and playing things that are challenging to you.

Some of us enjoy this kind of practice where we push ourselves mentally and physically. A lot of people don't. If you're one of those people who don't enjoy it, you MIGHT start to like the struggle some day, but there's no guarantee. 

I used to hate weight training. But, as someone who was born skinny and wanted to get bigger, I had no choice BUT to keep training. Eventually, I DID learn to love it! Now, it's one of my favorite things to do. In other words, I wanted something bad enough so I embraced the suck and eventually it no longer sucked, and I now enjoy it! My enjoyment leads to better progress in the gym now.

If you want to be the best guitar player you can be, and be as fast as possible, but you don't like drilling the metronome and pushing yourself, you're going to have to embrace the suck! Hopefully, you will one day start to enjoy the process.

I'm lucky, and enjoyed metronome work from the start. Seeing myself making progress made metronome work a lot of fun for me! I understand a lot of people dread metronome work, and even try avoiding it at all costs. But, those people are leaving speed and progress on the table and will never reach their full potential.

The more you enjoy metronome work, and pushing yourself to the max, the greater chances of you becoming absurdly fast.

23. You don't track your progress.

Writing down how fast you get something after each practice session can be a very useful tool. If you question if you're making progress or not, tracking the results of each practice session may reveal some pretty insightful things!

Many times, when working on very difficult pieces of music, progress may be very slow. Instead of wondering if progress is being made, write down how fast you get at the end of each practice session so you can SEE if progress is being made or not. This is something I like to do when I need to work something up to make sure I'm actually making progress instead of just guessing.

When in the gym, if you wish to make the best progress, you NEED to keep track of the weights and reps you perform so you know what to do from workout to workout. The same idea is very helpful for shred guitar.

If you want to make sure you are making progress in your speed training, I strongly feel you would be doing yourself a favor by tracking your progress.

24. After correcting improper/poor technique, you don't keep at it. You stop paying attention and go back to your old, inefficient ways. 

Bad habits can be VERY hard to break. Once you become aware of any bad technique issues you may have, you MUST be very diligent to stay on top of your new improved technique or you will never improve.

Unfortunately, this is something I see happen time and time again with a handful of students I've worked with. We go over how to fix something, like a muting issue, or pull-off problem, they begin sounding good during the lesson, and then next week it's as if nothing changed.

Sometimes they will make the changes necessary to sound better, then a few weeks go by and they're right back where they started. That's because they stopped paying attention. NOT good!

It is SO IMPORTANT that in order to be the best player you can be, you NEED to pay very close attention to how things sound when you are playing. Once you've got the technique down, or at least the idea of how to perform what you're working on, make damn sure you continue to be aware of what you are doing until it becomes subconscious.

Practice does NOT make perfect. Practice makes permanent, so if you continue to practice bad technique you will make it nearly impossible to fix things. Only PERFECT practice makes perfect.