4 Easy Guitar Shredding Tips

Teaching yourself how to play electric guitar can be difficult and time consuming for most people. Actually learning to shred on your electric guitar is even harder. There are some very simple things you can do though, to make the art of shredding easier to master

Tip # 1 - Repetition

The single most important way to increase your speed is to use a drum machine or metronome. Start by playing the lick, solo or lead slowly and clean. Slowly increase the tempo using the metronome or drum machine. Be patient. This process could take days or even weeks to master the piece of music you are learning. Remember, this is repetition. It is tedious and it could take hundreds of attempts for you to play it perfectly at full tempo.

Tip # 2 - Fingering

When playing guitar, fingering is important at any speed. But, it is absolutely crucial when shredding. You can actually get by with sloppy or bizarre fingering when playing slowly. If you attempt to increase the speed of the phrase though playing with that same sloppy fingering, you will definitely encounter problems. You will generally reach your top speed very quickly.

This is when it becomes time to study your fingering choices and make some changes. To truly shred, you have to be efficient with your fingering choices. You will usually have to relearn the lick or phrase using these new changes, because it changes how your subconscious performs the lick.

Tip # 3 - Picking Technique

To truly shred, the piece of music you are learning needs to be analyzed for the most effecient way to pick the notes. This can include alternate picking, hammers and pulls, sweep arpeggios and many other techniques. The key is effeciency. Minimize the movement of the pick as much as is possible.

Avoid flicking the pick when attempting to shred. Shredding requires a very effecient machine like motion,. When shredding, the emotion is conveyed through the choice of notes, not the way the note is played. It is very different from playing the blues or jazz.

Tip # 4 - Teach the Subconscious

This is a vital part of shredding. You must be able to play a lick, lead or phrase without consciously thinking about the choice of notes. One way to achieve this to distract your conscious mind by watching TV or anything else while repeating the lick with a metronome or drum machine. An even better test is if you can read and comprehend what you're reading while playing along with a metronome. This will be difficult until you get the lick firmly established in your subconscious. But, the dividends will be well worth it.

Use all of these techniques and see how quickly your ability to shred will improve.