Fast picking

I have been playin electric guitar for three years now and over this past couple of weeks i have been wanting to learn how to pick fastly.to be able to do this i have started basically using one note and picking it (downstroke then upstroke repeatedly) and trying to gradually increase the tempo of that note but i have serious bother because whenever i start at a reasonable speed and then try to make it quicker, my upstrokes just hold me back from going any faster becauses the guitar pick keeps on gettin caught in the string on the way up instead of picking it.it seams like i havent got good control on my upstrokes when trying to pick rapidly.any suggestions?

can anyone else smell.....a move coming on?

dude, the best advice I can give you is to sit with a metronome and gradually increase the tempo as you play...slow and painstaking, yes...but it'll improve you speed, and accuracy.

CW14 is probably right, you must be either holding the plectrum incorrectly or have too much of it poking through. Don't grip it too tightly and let no more than 5 mm protrude.
Master one picking technique, it should be exactly the same when played slowly as quickly. Pick one note as fast as you can, look at the way you hold the plectrum etc, now play everything with the exact same hand position etc, no matter what bpm. That's the best piece of advice from Michael Angelo (he of the god-awfull hair, horrible tight leather pants and showboat 4 necked guitar... and more importantly, amazing ability!)

Yeah, you should relax and hold the pick lightly, but hold more than half of it, with only the tip protruding, in that way you will only hit the desired strings and avoid unecessary noises. You can hold it a little tilted for greater speed but make sure to mute the other strings thats not in use.....It requires a lot of practice though. Good luck!

What helped me was training myself to use a smaller pick. This forces you to use less of the pick on the strings or you drop the pick. I learned by doing the Joe Pass thing and cutting a standard pick in half. I did this quite a while until I surrendereed to the Jazz III picks which are basically a standard pick cut in two. Good luck.

Hey there, use your elbow instead of your wrist. You can move a lot faster back and forth from your elbow than you can from your wrist, and you won't get carpal tunnel syndrom later...

I uses 1.0mm-1.5mm picks. That will make it less likely to get cought between strings. Also, try to bend the pick a little downward instead of parallel to the strings. That will make it go smoother. But the more u bend the more surface it make contact with the string thus producing more unwanted noise to it. So find your sweet angle compromising speed and noise. And also try learning to safe the moments of your pickings by learning how to tap some notes with left hand especially playing fast. :)