Originally Posted by: linda pOK so your talking speeds that I'm not even thinking of at this point. What all of you are saying...live ,breath an eat practice? That's what I'm hearing,on average how long do ya'll practice. A ball park length of time. An when you put the guitar down are you still picking it up here an there working on ya'll speed. Thanks guys...lindaP

It's not the quantity of practice, it's the quality of your practice. I spent years mindlessly drilling scales and arpeggios into my brain, trying to play faster and faster. Only once I discovered the proper way to practice, did I have tremendous breakthroughs in speed. I doubled my speed in about 2-3 months once I discovered the secrets. Like Jure said, practice slow and really pay attention to the micro movements of your picking hand and your fretting hand. Find out what is holding you back and eliminate one block at a time.

Wasted motion is a bad habit. I spent a lot of time just getting my picking hand to make small controlled movements. Then I would figure out where my left hand was getting caught up. I'd notice that my index finger wasn't reaching the note on the next string in time and so I was tripping over that note with my pick, so to speak, - I spent some time focusing on getting to that one note faster and suddenly had a breakthrough. Same thing with sweep picking and arpeggios- better to practice them slowly and really figure out what is holding you back and work on that. Forget about everything else. EDIT- I mean forget about everything else going on for that precious time when you are practicing. 20 minutes a day will do wonders for you even if it's every other day, provided you are completely focused on practicing. If you get distracted, or bored, or just start noodling around then you're really not practicing anymore.