Speed Guitar:
Speed Vs. Speed

In my experience, most guitarists tend to fight against the difficulty of practicing new chops, phrases, licks, riffs, etc. for a simple reason - they want to play them as fast, and as soon as possible (often immediately after they read or learn them for the first time).

The problem with this approach is, if you don’t understand how those phrases exist in context, you’ll be losing the starting point to develop speed on those phrases.

Why? Because sometimes the writer of those phrases is thinking of several different things at the same time that will affect the speed at which he or she plays their music.

Like what?

• The value of the notes
• The tone of a certain string
• The facility to play certain notes
• The harmony
• The tempo
• The picking hand
• The effects
• Etc.

So now you'll have to understand how to separate these points in the chops, phrases, licks, etc. as: necessary “obstacles” or as unnecessary matter of expression. After doing this you’ll reach a better visualization of your desired speed, and your speed will develop at a much faster rate, because those obstacles could be played in a different way while also maintaining the expression or feeling .

Here are some points to bear in mind:

The value of the notes

The tone of a certain string

The facility to play certain notes

So this is why writers choose certain strings to play certain notes, and you must understand that if you are going to play the same notes on different strings that you'll be changing the feeling. The change might be subtle, but many people can hear that subtlety.

Ok, now I’ve given you a very basic introduction to knowing why a chop, lick, phrase, riff, etc. is written in certain manner. With this knowledge you can start learning new chops faster, because now you know some important points to keep in mind. You’ll also be able to reach your goal with confidence by simply changing what is not important.

...And remember to always begin learning something new slowly!