the need for speed

hi - i was wondering, could anyone suggest any exercises, techniques, spells or voodoo chants to improve speed of your lead?

the guitarists who i`m inspired by (first and foremost-slash, zep's jimmy page, joe perry etc) are famous for some fast lead work. this is the direction i hope for my playing to take, however no matter how well i know a particular piece of tab i still can`t seem to (re-)create that 'rapid fire' of notes type of sound.

from watching some of the tapes of old gn'r concerts i can see on the close ups that slash has incorporated his little (pinky) finger into most of his lead work. this is something i rarely do in stuff i practice but i have a feeling this is part of the technique. he also seems to finger the frets almost like playing a keyboard! - so i assume his technique involves a lot of 'hammer ons' and 'pull offs'.

if any one has any ideas i`d be grateful to here them. then again if its just a matter of practice i`d be just as pleased to hear someone who has managed to achieve (or get close to) that kind of speed tell me so.

i thank u :)

hi, i'm 15 and have been playing guitar for ten years. i picked up the electric about 1 1\2 years ago so all my technique i do in classical goes through with my electric as well.
speed is useful for solos and riffs but has be used in accordance with playing skill and hand control otherwise notes get skipped and the song sounds cheaply made.

exerices that i use involve hammer ons and pull offs. start with ur hand in 9th position (first finger on 9th fret, 4th on 12th) on the high e string and play this.
-9h10-10h11-11h12-12p11-11p10-10p9-
once thru that then move to the B string and then work to the low E string then back to the high e. then move to 8th position and so on till you've gone over the whole fingerboard.

that should improve speed, and with distortion added you can hammer on the whole pentatonic scale without touching the strings with your other hand.

another good speed increaser is the song 'thunderstruck' by ACDC. sounds cool too

thanx for the advice. i`ll give it a try. i was wondering, do you think that in order to progress in lead guitar its better to learn pieces (solos for example) from other artists? or do you think more is gained by practising scales and other theory?

thanx again man ;)

Learning your scales is very important, but learning solos and licks from other artists can give you insight into how songs sound, and maybe you'll get some inspiration along the way.