The Shred Standard

This is one of the most common patterns in shred guitar and a good way to get a lot out of a regular scale. It's also an excellent alternate picking exercise!

The idea behind many shred licks is to go back and forth within a certain scale in order to increase the time you can spend playing the scale, even if you're playing many notes per second.

Remember to start slow, and build up your speed gradually. If necessary, start with just the first half of the lick.

In the example here, I play it at around 120bpm. This is one of those licks that sounds quite boring if you play it slow, so take out that metronome and push yourself up to the 110's/120's.