While flashy licks only scratch the surface, the fundamental idea of playing fast and clean alternate picking runs is something that will both improve your musicianship and strengthen your chops.

How to Practice These Exercises, thanks to DeftDigits Guitar Lessons:

Use a metronome. Practicing these exercises without a metronome will be as useful to your playing as watching a Jersey Shore marathon. Use a metronome. Start with a click for every note, then move to multiple notes per click, ...

Sometimes, the right attitude can take your guitar playing to new, diverse areas of music, allowing you to separate yourself dynamically from the rest of the musicians around you.

Sweep-picking is a widely used technique that many guitar players have adapted to fit into their own playing styles, whether it’s the blistering hyperspeed sweeps or slower arpeggiated lines with a sheer focus on technical efficiency, sweep picking is a technique that captivates guitarists and no...

The fundamentals of sweep picking should be practiced slowly at first, but once you have the foundation, you'll see just how simple the movement is. These unique exercises will help you conquer sweep picking and incorporate it into your own playing, taking advantage of concepts that help to devel...

There are some solos that get overlooked because they're on an album with so many other great solos. I think think this is definitely the case being that Leper Messiah is on one of what I consider to be the top five metal albums of all time, Master of Puppets. This solo is tricky in that it has a...

Wait, wait, wait... isn't sweep picking only for shredding metal-heads? NO. In fact, you’ll also find a lesson on sweep picking blues in Guitar Super System. It's all about the execution and the attitude, man. Sweeping in a jazz context is not only fun, it's a great way to bolster your jazzy tone...

While playing with a guitar pick is obviously an essential skill, using your fingers is an equally important skill to develop. In my opinion, the best guitar players can pick up any guitar and start playing, even if they don’t have a pick. These five fingerpicking techniques will provide some gre...