the need for speed

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

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 :)

Try searcing the metal section on the main page. There is a lot of good excersices out there. Try out some legato exersises, they are mostly easy becouse they don´t recuire too much picking. And get used to use the pinky - everything gets very much easier when you get used to it. And one more thing: get youreself a metronome!!

By the way, check out my trick. It´s not easy, but when practised with metronome, you will soon arciewe great accuracy AND speed.

http://www.guitartricks.com/2000/trick.php?trick_id=4445

And ONE more thing: Self disipline. Newer give up and start over again if you make a failoure. Make sure you play youre excersice perfect before you increase in speed. Vai used to say that. ;)

Hope that helps a little. =)

Is it too much trouble to look two threads down ?

I have listened to a lot of Slash when I was a young guitarist. And his technique isn't the same as Vai's or Satch's. Practicing scales and things like that to a metronome will make you play cleanly and fast (like VAI or Satch), while Perry, Slash and others have some kind of 'dirty' bluesy feel in everything they play.
So try to play blues lines, and then increase your speed by playing faster. Listen to Stevie Ray Vaughan too, great fast bluesy player there.

thanx...some good advice.