Shred Guitar

Ultimate Shred Guitar Tools...

Shred Guitar

Essentially mastering the art of shred guitar boils down to just 3 basics...

1) The Picks...

To be effective as a shred guitarist, you must use a thick pick. Thin guitar picks have way too much play in them to effectively obtain the speed required for shred guitar.

Now with that said, many of the really thick heavy picks do not have a smooth finish, so it's VERY important that you use a pick with a VERY glossy finish that will flow smoothly accross the strings with minimal friction.

There are two picks that are a absolute must for mastering the art of shred guitar.The Big Stubby, and The Stylus training pick. Using these two picks can literally shave years off your efforts, and not using these guitar picks can have you practicing and creating bad habits that can take years to break if ever.

1) The Big Stubby Pick...

This is the Big Stubby pick by Dunlop. What makes the Big Stubby so Affective for Shred Guitar, is for starters, it's THICK, and I mean thick. It feels almost like a Bass pick, but many Shred Guitarists use them including myself. The Big Stubby will have an amazing affect on your Guitar Speed. The main feature that makes the Big Stubby Guitar pick affective for Shred Guitar is it's TEXTURE. You see the majority of thick Guitar picks have a mildly rough or grainy texture, this slows the Guitar Pick motion down substantially. The Big Stubby has a glossy smooth texture that tends to just glide right over the strings with lightning fast speed. For some reason, most of the guitar stores can't seem to keep enough of these in stock, so I learned to just order them online, plus I get them a whole lot cheaper.

If you can't get these at your local music store, you can get the Big Stubby here, I would get at least 2.0mm.

2) The Stylus Training Pick...

One of the biggest mistakes people make early while learning Speed Guitar or shred guitar, is that they tend to dip the Guitar Pick to deep into the strings. this habit substantially slows down a shred guitarists alternate picking, and can almost be an impossible habit to break without the use of the right tool. The idea when a shred Guitarist is utilizing the Alternate Picking method, is that they should only use the first 1/8" tip of a pick. In other words, you do not want to dig your pick more than 1/8" into the strings.

Now here's what I refer to as the Magic Pick. This pick is for Guitar Speed Alternate picking TRAINING only. This will not be a regular pick that you use all the time. Although it is very nerve racking, and feels like it slows your Guitar Speed down initially, you get used to it within about the first hour. I forced myself to use this pick for alternate picking practice every day for about a month.

The concept is that the tip is shaped like a diamond, and essentially keeps you from using anymore than the first 1/8" of the pick. Learn More about and purchase the Stylus Pick This is the only place you can buy these...

2) The Metronome...
An effective metronome will have the ability for you the user to set it up to where you can tell the metronome to gradually speed up it's beats per minute every X amount of bars.

For example, you can say every twelve bars speed up the beats per minute by four. I can't express how important using the right metronome is when you practice shred guitar. The main thing is that you definetly do not want to have to stop practicing a scale or pattern even for a few seconds to have to change the settings on a metronome.

Mastering shred guitar absolutely requres using the right metronome. Theres an saying, the magic is in the metronome. This is definitely a truthful statement. Using the wrong metronome can cost you big time.

I have been using the Speed Trainer Metronome (Free instant download) for years with all my students to gain maximum speed. You can quickly go from a fretboard jog to a fretboard run,and very quickly your Guitar Speed will pick up to a full fretboard sprint.

3) Training References
Their are literally a ton of different DVD's available out their teaching you tons of different Shred Guitar tricks, tips, and techniques. My absolute favorite for years that even today I still come back to to learn new riffs is the Intense Rock Complete 1 & 2 by Paul Gilbert. Beyond buying two or three off the shelf training DVD's there is YouTube. Just search Shred guitar on YouTube, and there are a ton of guys on their giving great little patterns, and tips on sweep picking.

Beyond these few tips, shred guitar really boils down to commited practice. The upside is really anyone can do it. Shred Guitar really does not take any great talent, but if you don't start off on the right path with the right tools, you can actually develop terrible habits that you may never break, or bad habits that can take years to break.

Not having the right tools can just lead you through years of frustration, constantly getting to certain pinnacles and points and barriers you just can't seem to break through, getting somewhat fast, but not shred.

Conclusion...
So to re-cap, to master shred guitar, grab your guitar, choose one of the simple shred guitar riffs from one of your DVD's or You Tube, set your metronome too start slow then gradually speed up, and just keep going till your fingers just can't take it anymore, take a break, then start again. Trust me, it's well worth it when you get to that point of being a shred guitar master.

You can take all the lessons you want, watch all the YouTube videos you want, buy all the training books you want, but until you the basic tools in hand, and work with them for a month or two, and gradually build your speed up from a jog, to a run, then into a full blown sprint, you will most likely have a real struggle trying to master shred guitar.

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