Building speed in Right hand

Hey, I've got a question about my picking hand. I practice a few hours a day, and so far it's great, except for my right hand. It seems to be at a block. My left is getting faster, and is performing everything with ease, but my right hand just doesn't speed up. It's been months of about 5 hours of practice a day, but no results. Any tips, or recommended lessons?

Check out youtube for lessons my Micahel Angelo Battio, possibly the best advice I have ever seen/heard re picking speed.
Basically, you pick any string as fast as you can up and down (alternate picking), don't bother with the left hand, just the right. You want to go as fast as you can keeping a straight rhythm. You can make it easier when you start out by adding an accent to which ever note you are most comfortable with (I recommend playing groups of 4 with the accent on the first: DOWN up down up DOWN up down up etc.)
What this exercise does is establish your maximum picking speed, at any given time that is the fastest you can possibly pick. Try it to a metronome and you can work out exactly how many notes you can play per bpm.
I used to do that exercise for about a minute before playing anything and I found that I was able to significantly increase the speed of my right hand by taking the left hand out of the equation.
The most difficult part of playing fast comes next and that is synchronising the left and right hand. If you can't play it accurately slowly then don't try to do it any faster. When you get it down at say 150 bpm you can then work on increasing the speed gradually to meet your maximum picking speed eg. 200bpm.
Hope that helps.

I just added a tutorial on downstrokes that might you train that specific motion.

http://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=409

I also have a tutorial on right hand strumming exercises. This one is pretty much an opposite of the the downstrokes. In the downstrokes tutorial, I use a more metal aggressive speed motion, this one is on how to gain speed by relaxing your hand and concentrating on the motion.

http://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=275

There's also my beginner's tutorial on picking. Altho this seems trivial, it forces you to work on being constant in your execution whether you're using downstrokes, upstrokes or alternate picking. The picking principal can be used on with any scales. I created this tutorial because I saw a lot of guitar player lacking good upstrokes and in the end, it had a negative effect on their alternate picking.

http://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=372

Finally you could look at my dexterity tutorial. It has some exercises that uses string skipping which is also something you want to work on if your right hand can't keep up. It important that it can skip easily over string to follow your left hand. It also has quite a few sweep picking so you'll be tackleling a lot of techniques.

http://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=401

So with these 4 tutorials, you're going to work on picking movement, wrist dexterity, being constant when switching to different picking techniques and string skipping. You see, you won't really work on speed, but rather on motion and execution.

For speed drills, check out Christophers speedy ideas :)
http://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=213
http://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=287

Thanks guys, both of those were real helpful. I was also wondering, is alternate picking more in the wrist, or the joints in the thumb/index? I've been doing that alot lately, moving the pick up and down with only my thumb pushing up/down.

Originally Posted by: HaykEsaThanks guys, both of those were real helpful. I was also wondering, is alternate picking more in the wrist, or the joints in the thumb/index? I've been doing that alot lately, moving the pick up and down with only my thumb pushing up/down.

The shorter the movement, the faster you can get. So if you can do alternate picking using the joint closest to your pick, the less movement it's going to take. The less movement you'll make ... the faster you can become.

The trap you have to stay away from is that most people that try to go too fast end up putting a lot of stress on their elbow joint. They cramp up all the way to the elbow. Just watch out for that to avoid injury.

After really paying attention to it for a while, you're right Benoit. It's a much more relaxed, and quicker movement. Thanks.

Yeh.. I never know if I am training myself correctly.. am I holding the pick properly? am I hit the strings correctly? have I got into a bad habit that I am not aware of that is stunting my speed? I play and play and play but I am sort of locked into around the 150bpm mark and cannot go any faster.. The exercises themselves are helpful but there are all these little basic questions not answered. If I am holding the pick incorrectly that could be the problem.. I have watched a lot of YouTube and other tutorials on alternate picking and they seem to hold the pick between thumb and index finger but on an angle. Each instructor uses a slightly different angle of attack. Also, when I do alternate picking, the depth/height of where my plectrum is between string strikes raises slightly, as if I am going to move over the string before striking another string.. but I do this even on the same string.. should the height of the pick stay the same and more of a shredding/rhythm playing style be used?