- 1). Pick up your guitar and hold it in playing position. Fret a chord that you are comfortable fretting, and grab your guitar pick. Grip the pick between the thumb and forefinger of your dominant hand. Angle the pick and your fingers so that the point of the pick angles back toward you. Move your arm over the body of the guitar and rotate your elbow outwards; this will allow your wrist to move quickly over the strings.
- 2). Brush the angled pick down over the strings in a light but firm motion. Reverse the angle of the pick and draw the pick up the strings with the same speed and motion. Make sure that every note rings true. Adjust your fretting and try again if any notes do not sound. Practice strumming up and down with a chosen chord, or series of chords, for several minutes. Experiment with picks of different thicknesses and see which picks allow you to strum the fastest.
- 3). Experiment with different strumming patterns and play them at increasingly rapid speeds. Try strumming with your forearm locked and only your wrist moving, then try strumming with your whole arm moving, and take note of which one produces a faster strum. Practice strumming without your pick to get a feel of the responsiveness of the strings. Continue to experiment with the guitar until you can strum chords accurately to a metronome set at various speeds. Increase the BPM of the metronome over time; this will increase your long-term strumming speed.
- 4). Grip the pick firmly between your thumb and forefinger and play a scale, melody, or other succession of individual notes. Dull as many of the other unsounded notes as you can with the flat of your fretting hand. Pick the strings with an alternating up and down pattern in order to maximize picking speed. Play the notes along with a metronome set at an unchallenging speed, and gradually increase the speed of the metronome. Make sure that you can play the notes accurately and rhythmically before adjusting the metronome upwards. Continue to practice until you can both strum and pick individual notes quickly and effortlessly.
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