I lack it, what are some good exercises to gain speed in both picking and fretting?

Concentrate on your up/downstroking, and play something like the main riff from Black Sabbath's Paranoid as fast as you can. In general, just start playing stuff slowly (something like Megadeth's Tornado of Souls is good) and then gradually build your speed up.

Hell of a drug.

Kwartin wrote:

I lack it, what are some good exercises to gain speed in both picking and fretting?

You're gonna hate this response: scales.

Build it up slowly. If you just go at it all hell-bent for speed at the start it'll end up sounding dreadful, so use a metronome. The exercise I made up for myself is a basic 5-7-8 form, starting on the D string. Then go down onto the G, backwards again up onto the D and then onto the A, back all the way down to the B, and so on.

A better representation perhaps:

E -----------------11----------------21
A -----4--------10--12------------20
D -1-3--5-----9-------13--------19
G --2-----6--8----------14-----18
B ----------7--------------15-17
e ---------------------------16

The numbers represent the order they are played. Do that once without any cock ups, and then each week up the speed a bit. Fuck up? Start over.

Nautilus wrote:

Hell of a drug.

A film in which Keanu Reeves sucked ass

Rosalind wrote:

Kwartin wrote:

I lack it, what are some good exercises to gain speed in both picking and fretting?

You're gonna hate this response: scales.

Build it up slowly. If you just go at it all hell-bent for speed at the start it'll end up sounding dreadful, so use a metronome. The exercise I made up for myself is a basic 5-7-8 form, starting on the D string. Then go down onto the G, backwards again up onto the D and then onto the A, back all the way down to the B, and so on.

A better representation perhaps:

E -----------------11----------------21
A -----4--------10--12------------20
D -1-3--5-----9-------13--------19
G --2-----6--8----------14-----18
B ----------7--------------15-17
e ---------------------------16

The numbers represent the order they are played. Do that once without any cock ups, and then each week up the speed a bit. Fuck up? Start over.

No offense Bawdy, but that tab is disgusting. It's kinda... backwards.

Matty: Chromatic scales up and down the neck.

e---1-2-3-4-2-3-4-5-3-4-5-6-4-5-6-7
B---1-2-3-4-2-3-4-5-3-4-5-6-4-5-6-7
G---1-2-3-4-2-3-4-5-3-4-5-6-4-5-6-7
D---1-2-3-4-2-3-4-5-3-4-5-6-4-5-6-7
A---1-2-3-4-2-3-4-5-3-4-5-6-4-5-6-7
E---1-2-3-4-2-3-4-5-3-4-5-6-4-5-6-7

Not at the same time, but work on patterns like those.

Not a tab Ricard. I couldn't be fucked to type out all the individual frets once i'd explained the basic form.

Its good to move up and down erratically, rather than just one direction. I find your tab pretty nasty - who plays 1-2-3-4? :/

It helps to build strength and consistency in the fingers as well as a faster picking speed. you do 1-2-3-4 and then 4-3-2-1 and then 1-3-2-4 and then 1-4-2-3 and so on. Moving erratically is bad because then you learn only how to move in that pattern but with chromatics it gives you a framework to work fast in. Going as fast as you can with 1-2-3-4 helps your ability to play scales, for example, or to play multiple notes on the same string. It helps even out your alternate picking and sync up your fretting and playing hands.

Nautilus wrote:

It helps to build strength and consistency in the fingers as well as a faster picking speed. you do 1-2-3-4 and then 4-3-2-1 and then 1-3-2-4 and then 1-4-2-3 and so on. Moving erratically is bad because then you learn only how to move in that pattern but with chromatics it gives you a framework to work fast in. Going as fast as you can with 1-2-3-4 helps your ability to play scales, for example, or to play multiple notes on the same string. It helps even out your alternate picking and sync up your fretting and playing hands.

I've never gone 1-2-3-4. Always been either 1-3-4 or 1-2-4, which would make better exercises imo, and do all the rest you described.

Why not combine them? 1-2-3-4 can be expanded to go 1-2-4, 1-3-4, or 1-2-3.

Ease and efficiency is the key. This is THE most widely used technique in the world, across a number of instruments.

Practice.