 Hi, I'm Freddie DeMarco for Black Star Potential and this lesson is dedicated to intermediate players that are trying to build speed. So to build speed, the first thing is economy emotion, the less you move, the better with your hands. Also proper technique. So with the left hand, keep that thumb behind the neck creating a mouse hole here. Don't clamp like this. You want freedom with your fingers to be able to spread further and get over the fretboard to attack the fretboard properly and just don't lift a whole lot. Stay very controlled and that takes a lot of practice. The tendency will be to lift and in the right hand, same thing. You don't want to be moving this way, that way, pulling out far. Just everything is very economical. With the left hand, we're going to start with learning the D major scale. We're going to be on 10th fret and this scale has a nice fingering pattern where every two strings has identical fingering. So this way, we'll be able to really concentrate in three different sections, playing, especially when you're alternate picking because you actually use a different muscle set for the different strings. So in other words, if I'm on my lower strings here I'm kind of using a little bit different muscle set and angle than I would if I were in the middle. And it's different yet on top. So we're going to practice all three of those areas separately. So here is the scale. Okay, so the first thing that we have to understand is you need to build up the left hand and the right hand and then work them together. So independently, we're going to do some exercises that you really want to do every day. The fast players, they play that way every day. This isn't going to work for you if you're going to miss weeks and out of time practicing fast. So you need to practice fast, also practice to a metronome. The one thing you'll realize as you get more accurate with this, you will actually sound faster playing more accurate than a player that may be playing faster but is sloppy with their phrasing. In other words, the eighth notes, the 16th notes, 32nd notes, triplets aren't exact. They're kind of random and sloppy. If you play exact and articulate, you actually sound faster. So anyways, we're going to start on the top part of this scale right here and we're just going to simply alternate a fourth finger pull-off to a third finger hammer-on pull-off. So it's this and we're just going to work these two fingers and then we're going to also, or actually these three fingers, and we're going to then do that on the next string. So it'll have identical fingering on these top two strings. So this is the pattern. Next string. Now this string, the G and the D strings actually, will be a second finger employed here rather than your third finger to follow the notes of the scale. And then all the way down to the low string, just a stretch right there. So you want to practice that very slowly to a metronome and then work up your speed over time. Now with the right hand, we're simply going to just alternate pick, a tremolo pick. So we're going to go down up on a note. We're not going to even change the note. We're concerned with just the right hand here. So left hand work, then right hand work. The first thing is going to be to get this going from slow to fast without a hiccup. This is what happens very often with a player. There'll be a section where they can't, they can go fast and go slow, but there'll be a snag in there like this. You want to close that gap up. So you want to make it so you're practicing very slow and make it so that it's a smooth transition from slow to fast. So over time you'll practice slow, gradually fighting for speed. And then this doesn't only have to be done to a metronome. This is just to get articulate and fast with the right hand. So this kind of a thing. And just try to avoid that hiccup in there and just keep working to that smooth. Then we need to practice alternate picking with different notes. So then we'll stay still on one string and I'm just going to ascend and descend up the notes of the scale on just one string with a tremolo pick. And try to time the left and the right hand to, you know, stay together. You don't care what you do really. You can go forward 2-1 if you want. Weave them if you want. The idea is that you're timing the left and the right hand. Now the next thing is playing over strings. And when you're alternate picking this can be hard because you'll sometimes have outside picking or where the pick isn't conveniently starting on a downstroke on the next string. You may have an upstroke in an inconvenient spot and we want to work on that. The pattern to work with, and we're going to do it in all three sections of the scale, like I said. We'll start in the middle here, would be index, second finger, fourth finger. Then we're going to pop with an alternate picking, which would be an upstroke, the first finger on the next string, and then come back. So the pattern would be this. Now we're going to add to that. One, two, three, four, five, six. That's a sixth note group. We're going to go up a second time and add to that. So the first phrase is this. The second phrase is this. There's a little backtracking there. Those two together will make up your phrase. And you'll do that in all areas. So combining all this stuff and then improvising over backing tracks would be the way to go. I like the backing tracks offline because you'll have things that are actually in meter and gridded to drum beats that are metronomic and quantized. So you're getting used to your scales. And then you're going to randomly play off of this, you know, using these techniques. But then every now and again, go to these actual symmetrical patterns to wrap it tight. Now, also in speed, a lot of the players that play arpeggios often say it's hard to work the arpeggio and play the arpeggio fast. And more times than not, it's because the first index finger isn't mobile enough. The index finger doesn't really keep up. So we're going to work on that for a second. Here is the top part of an arpeggio. I'm concerned with these notes. That's essentially a B minor arpeggio. And the idea is that this index finger has to come back. And in the sweeping technique, if you're working on sweeping, it's your backstroke that's probably holding you up. So you're going to go ascend this way. So you have a backstroke where I'm actually angling to pick backwards. And people seem to tend to have trouble with this, tend to do a lot of extra movement. So you just simply want this. I'm focusing on that index finger getting back on time. And also my upstroke, actually not just sloughing up that upstroke. I mean very accurate with that. Remember to play fast. You want to practice fast quite often. But before you do that, you want to do some hand exercises. Rub your hands out, stretch them out and play slow at first. So you don't hurt yourself, create tendonitis or carpal tunnel issues like that. You can really help prevent that just by stretching and warming up slowly. And then work the tremolo picking, work the legato. Make sure your left and right hands are individually working. Then start working them together and play fast often. You have to practice this daily, quite frankly, to really develop this. And again, I like the fact that you can practice to a metronome or even to the backing tracks. Because again, the more accurate you are, the faster you'll sound. Hey, thanks for joining me.