How to improve finger speed and accuracy for finger picking

Hey all,

I know the quick answer here is "practice" and I know thats the key, but I was wondering about any particular drills or exercises I can do to increase my speed in finger picking. The strange part is I'm a righty, and just doing random things like waggling my index and middle finger up and down my left fingers move way quicker than my right.

If anyone has any recommendations for drills or something like that, even if its without a uke, like something I can do at work or school, that would be fantastic. I've heard of the spider drills for guitar, but those seem more for left hand dexterity, and I also havent seen one for uke yet.

Thanks in advance!

I'd never been a great one for seemingly "pointless" scales and the like. I'd always found a (relatively simple) tune I'd wanted to play and used that as an exercise in it's own right, hacking away at it hour after tedious hour until I got to something that vaguely resembled what I'd hoped to play some days previously.

Eventually I realised I was mostly using all the same notes, but just in a different order, basically because I was playing in the same two or three keys.

So I practiced playing scales just in the keys I mostly used ... and suddenly it all made sense and my fingers "found" the note they were looking for almost magically without me really having to think about it

So yes, it's practice, but only practicing the bits I'm likely to need ... I don't anticipate playing in four flats or four sharps any time soon ... C D F and G will keep me going for a good while yet !

Hope this helps

Art, are you Master of Your Domain. I still watch Seinfeld re-runs!

kypfer said:

I'd never been a great one for seemingly "pointless" scales and the like. I'd always found a (relatively simple) tune I'd wanted to play and used that as an exercise in it's own right, hacking away at it hour after tedious hour until I got to something that vaguely resembled what I'd hoped to play some days previously.

Eventually I realised I was mostly using all the same notes, but just in a different order, basically because I was playing in the same two or three keys.

So I practiced playing scales just in the keys I mostly used ... and suddenly it all made sense and my fingers "found" the note they were looking for almost magically without me really having to think about it

So yes, it's practice, but only practicing the bits I'm likely to need ... I don't anticipate playing in four flats or four sharps any time soon ... C D F and G will keep me going for a good while yet !

Hope this helps

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Thank you for the tips! I'll check out playing scales. Dumb question, but thats basically just doing the "do ray me.." thing? Come to think of it I think I have done that for the C-scale.

But is that necessarily helpful for speeding up and getting better accuracy out of my picking fingers? Because don't you play scales just with your thumb typically?

Art.Vandelay said:

Dumb question, but thats basically just doing the "do ray me.." thing? Come to think of it I think I have done that for the C-scale.

But is that necessarily helpful for speeding up and getting better accuracy out of my picking fingers? Because don't you play scales just with your thumb typically?

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Exactly, it's the "do ray me thing", but you do it with your fingers instead ... one finger, one string, so the thumb gets little or no use in this context, at first

Learning from classical guitar I found two major keys to speed or complicated parts

Isolate the problem bars and work on them carefully until your hands know what to do.

Once your fingers know what they need to do play the fast parts very slow and slowly speed it up using a metronome.
Playing fast won't necessarily make you improve but playing at a speed where it is correct until it feels like an old worn shirt the speed will come.

One other recommendation is to develop finger independence on both hands. Pumping nylon is a great book and video for this. But it takes a while. It's best to do a few exercises every practice session for 10-15 min.

I may not play too well but I feel comfortable playing from a classical guitar down to Sopranino Uke and soon a nano uke when it arrives.

Just be patient and build a good foundation. It will pay off in the long run.

Art.Vandelay said:

I know the quick answer here is "practice"

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It may be a quick answer, but it's anything but "quick".

Olarte said:

Learning from classical guitar I found two major keys to speed or complicated parts

Isolate the problem bars and work on them carefully until your hands know what to do.

Once your fingers know what they need to do play the fast parts very slow and slowly speed it up using a metronome.
Playing fast won't necessarily make you improve but playing at a speed where it is correct until it feels like an old worn shirt the speed will come.

One other recommendation is to develop finger independence on both hands. Pumping nylon is a great book and video for this. But it takes a while. It's best to do a few exercises every practice session for 10-15 min.

I may not play too well but I feel comfortable playing from a classical guitar down to Sopranino Uke and soon a nano uke when it arrives.

Just be patient and build a good foundation. It will pay off in the long run.

Click to expand...

So basically, do normal practicing slowly and then hopefully it engrains itself enough in muscle memory and then the speed kinda will come with time on its own? I know time and patience are the bulk of it but I just wanna make sure there's not any drills or specific things I can do to focus on speed. It just seems crazy that my fingers will develop a natural quickness. In the meanwhile, I'm practicing the pattern in this video daily (http://youtu.be/wCLJ-RhZaGs)

It depends what you mean by normal practice, is your practice focused and isolated, separate from just playing music?

Check out two short essays I wrote on practicing a while ago.


http://ivanolarte.com/2010/06/22/the-zen-of-practicing/

http://ivanolarte.com/2010/03/07/practiceroutine/

I did also mention the development of Finger Independence, and the use of the Pumping Nylon drills.

There is a story about a classical musician that had to play a very fast complicated solo as a sub that he had not seen before, other musicians heard very slow, incredibly slow playing from the practice room for a few hours before the concert.... they were thinking he was doomed to fail. Well when it was his turn to play the solo, he did it at full speed and flawlessly. It may sound like an urban legend but my brother in law is a professional musician in NYC, and subs a lot has told me similar stories. But then again, professional musicians, are on a whole other level\galaxy from us...

By the way, I although my playing is far from what I would like on classical guitar, I did use these techniques of slow methodical practice with metronome, to eventually play Tremolo in some of the hardest pieces on Classical guitar including Asturias and Recuerdos de Alhambra. Unfortunately I have not played guitar in a while and never got satisfied enough with the overall pieces to record but the tremoly and finger speed got pretty good.

Art.Vandelay said:

So basically, do normal practicing slowly and then hopefully it engrains itself enough in muscle memory and then the speed kinda will come with time on its own? I know time and patience are the bulk of it but I just wanna make sure there's not any drills or specific things I can do to focus on speed. It just seems crazy that my fingers will develop a natural quickness. In the meanwhile, I'm practicing the pattern in this video daily (http://youtu.be/wCLJ-RhZaGs)

Click to expand...

Olarte said:

It depends what you mean by normal practice, is your practice focused and isolated, separate from just playing music?

Check out two short essays I wrote on practicing a while ago.


http://ivanolarte.com/2010/06/22/the-zen-of-practicing/

http://ivanolarte.com/2010/03/07/practiceroutine/

I did also mention the development of Finger Independence, and the use of the Pumping Nylon drills

Click to expand...

That's a good point. I guess technically my "practicing" is trying to play new songs or pieces, and then I will have sort of separate time to play/sing the songs I already know well. But I guess all my practicing is basically learning pieces. This is the first instrument I've ever seriously tried to learn so I don't exactly have much of a grasp on what should constitute "practice". I'll check out your writing!

Ivan,

Both articles were great! I really enjoyed the mindset of the zen of practicing. I guess basically what I have to work on is finding my set of drills and exercises to work into parts one and two. I'll check out scales for sure, and hopefully I can find something for right hand picking speed. It seems most drills focus on left hand instead of right. Spider drills seem cool so I'll work that in for left hand and try to keep finding stuff for right hand speed and dexterity. Thats the struggle hahah

Glad you liked the essays.
Keep in mind this was written with classical guitar and other "serious/stuffy" kind of music.

The uke is so much fun that while all this applies it all depends how much fun vs serious study you want to do. Unfortunately the classical guitar this kind of discipline is a requirement even for an amateur like me. Which is why after six years of it I now focus on uke a lot more. And reap the benefits of my CG Study but no longer take lessons or play much of it.

Art.Vandelay said:

Ivan,

Both articles were great! I really enjoyed the mindset of the zen of practicing. I guess basically what I have to work on is finding my set of drills and exercises to work into parts one and two. I'll check out scales for sure, and hopefully I can find something for right hand picking speed. It seems most drills focus on left hand instead of right. Spider drills seem cool so I'll work that in for left hand and try to keep finding stuff for right hand speed and dexterity. Thats the struggle hahah

Click to expand...

Olarte said:

Glad you liked the essays.
Keep in mind this was written with classical guitar and other "serious/stuffy" kind of music.

The uke is so much fun that while all this applies it all depends how much fun vs serious study you want to do. Unfortunately the classical guitar this kind of discipline is a requirement even for an amateur like me. Which is why after six years of it I now focus on uke a lot more. And reap the benefits of my CG Study but no longer take lessons or play much of it.

Click to expand...

I can definitely see how it would take a more serious mind to improve. Guitar is something I definitely see myself venturing into, probably sooner rather than later actually, but not CG. I definitely want to have fun with the uke and guitar when I get there, but I just hate being mediocre at anything I pursue hahah so I want to do anything I can to get better

SUre, the best way to improve is to build a solid foundation.

Even if it's for only 6 months, try to find a good teacher, some great teachers like Sarah Maisel and Craig Chee are available for online lessons.

and try to have some daily practicing discipline.. you'll be amazed how much those two things will help. specially on the Uke. since it's not as complicated or stuffy. ;-)

I am one with the mantra of practice, practice, practice, but there is more to it than that. The other side of that is knowing where you are going and how you are going to get there. First of all, scales aren't just do, ray, me. There are lots of different scales, like blues scales, chromatic scales, pentatonic scales, harmonic scales. And each scale can be played in different keys. Each one is different, and the better you are at putting them together, the faster you are going to be.

Then there are chords and variations of chords that you use to facilitate your picking with different voices that you can use at different times to make it faster and easier to move from one note to another. And then there is what finger to pick what string, which doesn't have to always be the same finger on the same string. If you are picking with just your thumb, you are handicapping yourself right there.

Then there are hammer ons, and pull offs. Short cuts, walking the fretting fingers over the frets on the way from one chord to the next. Just a ton of things that all add up to speed. I'm always working on those short cuts. Got me going there, didn't you? That is because I am always working on faster and smoother. I don't care what I'm playing, whether I'm practicing or noodling, I'm constantly learning to stay as many steps ahead of myself as I can.

Art.Vandelay said:

I've heard of the spider drills for guitar, but those seem more for left hand dexterity, and I also havent seen one for uke yet.

Thanks in advance!

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Here's a couple:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XvADMO01cI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KmRBBM9jLI

Unfortunately, you don't see the right hand in these but it would not surprise me if he uses classical technique with thumb and three fingers, one assigned to each string. But like Corey says, it is up to you to decide. If you want to use thumb and one finger or thumb and two fingers, you can. Are you matching Corey's picking speed yet?

geetee said:

Here's a couple:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XvADMO01cI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KmRBBM9jLI

Unfortunately, you don't see the right hand in these but it would not surprise me if he uses classical technique with thumb and three fingers, one assigned to each string. But like Corey says, it is up to you to decide. If you want to use thumb and one finger or thumb and two fingers, you can. Are you matching Corey's picking speed yet?

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Awesome! thank you! Oh yeah, totally up to Corey's speed! hahaha. I wonder if thats actually achievable in a moderate amount of time..

I use the Uncle Rod Higuchi chord sheets and after warming up strumming I go through them quite a few times with a picking exercise I got off Jake on Youtube where you pick the top 2 strings and then alternate your thumb between the bottom 2 so your're picking the A (middle finger) E (index Finger) C (thumb) A (mid) E (indx) G (thumb) and just go through the 16 chord changes. I do other patterns with them as well but that's helped immensely (hope it makes sense )