How To Shred On Guitar - Its Not That Hard! 

changing to starting with an upstroke just blew my brain apart

It’s the “ play it faster” part that is the trouble for some of us. We get how the scale goes…

Great point, most don't realize the choices you make in picking direction have such a great effect on the ease of the passage. As a guitar instructor I'll add a bonus tip. Most people try way too hard to play fast and that manifests in tension in the hands. It's impossible to play with tense hands. What you have to do is find the fastest you can play cleanly with relaxed, loose hands and that is your practice speed. You want to maintain that relaxed, loose feeling as you progress in speed. If you push too far and tense up, practicing in that tension level, you're just teaching yourself how to get injured or plateau hitting the wall of what is possible for you in that tense state. Watch Yngwie Malmsteen's hands and you will see the way.

I love it as a great exercise to improve my playing. I'm a very old and slow player with arthritis, part of the index finger on my pick hand missing, and generally . . . pathetic. Yet, by learning these scales slowly and gradually increasing my speed, it improves my playing overall, and for that I am very grateful. Thank you for your talent and expertise!

Fantastic lesson Paul! Would love to see more like this as you explain things very well 👍

You mentioned ‘light bulb moment’ which is exactly what I had while watching your video! The efficiency improvement I got after adjusting my up down or down up stroke made a huge difference! It really opened some doors that I have been missing for a long time! Thanks for sharing and opening some doors of creativity! 🤟😀 This may have been one of the most helpful videos I have seen yet!

Hand synchronization, fretting hand dexterity, picking hand technique. Focus on those 3 things until they blend together and don’t hold each other back. Once this is achieved you have shred 😀

One of the cleanest and tasteful “Shredders” I’ve ever come across. Awesome breakdown Sensei ❤

Great lesson. I’m with Paul. Tasteful note choice is always best but shred in moderation is fun and if you play in a band it goes down a storm as long as it not all night. I’ve found if you work on your technique and fast playing your normal playing becomes much better. I never thought I’d be able to play fast but during lockdown I had the time to practice every day and it started to come together. And with the utmost respect as I’m not an expert but I’ve made all the usual mistakes start slow with a click and build the speed slowly.

I love your picking, it's not super fast but you have a super clear attack and note separation

I was trying to make an etude like this, but here it is all laid out for me. All fingers involved, stretching, moving up the neck, and accuracy. Thanks so much for this. 😀

Don't kid yourself. Paul , You can Shred. Always love your vids!

Great lesson! Loving that PT signature guitar!

Man Paul you rock. I am on my way home and going to work on there as soon as I get in the house. Thank you

This is literally the only video so far that ive watched on YT that i actually could follow, understand and then copy/learn very clear n simple instructions for once, well done m8 thanx🤘🤙

This was the best studio rats video that I’ve seen yet!!

Nice. Gonna work on it this weekend. Thanks from the guys and gals who’ve never had a lesson.

Real world useable lesson (and lovely clean playing), thanks!

Love this. I don't want to play fast... but I kind of totally do! There's just something satisfying about it.

When you play it clean, it actually sounds amazing. I much prefer that over the distortion.

OK, the thumbnail is just priceless.....and the lesson as well.

GOOD lesson man!! i needed this!! everything has kinda clicked now with lead! i had 3 notes per string down really good, but was kinda stuck going up and down with my 3 nps shred licks, and then would kinda blindy try to find new areas on neck to apply other 3nps licks, but now i can see in real time a map of the fret board as i follow these 3 note shapes left and right since it's just another easy little pattern to memorize. the going up and down part was easy for me with 3 nps, the where the hell do i go next was the issue. this video, along with some robert baker evh shred lick videos, are a game changer for me!

That right hand technique is where it's at. Great video!

Great tutorial - bookmarked! Going to practice this for the next couple of weeks to see my progression.

Paul, that’s a lovely thumbnail. One of my teenage daughters thought it was your natural hair. I am follicularly challenged, so they don’t know what an older gent with a full head of hair looks like. 😂

You make it look very easy sir!

Nice! The cool thing about your "shredding scale" is it sounds great slow as well. It would work as a sweet blues lick.

Very helpful!!!👍

hey folks... this is a great lesson... hit the video thumbs up to help this channel get noticed so we can get more videos like this !! cheers !!

This video is best ever on youtube most guys wanna tell ya to much mumble jumble but i dig how ya get right to it no, no boring rambling, i have a old peavy bass amp and the ins rattled loose how do yo fix them so i can plug in, do ya have any fixing vids or can ya send me someone who can show ,..wish i could afford to buy one but still waiting for my bit connect settlement...

Thank you. This is Excellent and a huge help. Appreciate.

This is a brilliant lesson ive been playing for donkeys yrs. This is hopefully giing to crack the code for me to build speed. Gotta put the hours in.

Thank you Paul.. Very cool lesson.. Love this channel!

Awesome! Always good content on your channel and this sparked a few great ideas...thanks Paul!

Excellent Lesson!! Thank You.

Just when I think your left hand economy is amazing, I notice your picking technique and the complete lack of wasted motion. And the faster you play the more efficient you seem to get-

Very nice, will practice that! Though it would be great to hear it played against a backing track, to get a feel for the chord changes.

Love this Paul . Thank you . 🇦🇺🎶

Thanks. It’s a killer lesson. Super fun and just what I need to push me along. Keep ripping !!!!

Paul says : I'm noi a shredder Two minutes later: Shreds like a monster! You are awesome Paul!!!!

Note Mashing a scale on 2 strings and truly ...."SHREDDING" are 2 vastly different things. Like you said, "it's all about note selection.",,,,.I recommend the Pagannini Caprices, Bach Violin Sonata's, Kreutzer Etudes, Paul Gilbert Instructional Video's, and many, many hours of practice. Good luck. (Troy Grady's "Cracking The Code" is INCREDIBLE as well)

I honestly needed this after like 10 years of playing and getting sloppy.

FINALLY...truly valuable lesson, mate. Ta!

As usual Paul, you never cease to amaze me with not only your skills, but you ability to related to guitarist at every level. Thanks for sharing your gift & knowledge!

Awesome lesson and thank you for sharing your tips ❤

Thank you for the lesson! You are a great player!!

Absolutely brilliant 👏🙏

Thanks for the tip! Keep on shedddding!

Great lesson!

I am in love with that particular crunch tone. Can you please describe your tone chain....please? I don't get impressed ofter... but that tone is mighty fine..

Great lesson Paul, thanks!

Awesome! Thanks for the lesson. Killer playing!

Great video, thanks for sharing!

Can't imagine getting it that fast, just can't LOL

Great lesson learned thank you 🙏 😊

Very cool video - thank you sir (L&S)

Hi Paul, actually I don't know if starting with an upstroke is more efficient, cause you have the same problem when you have to jump on the initial string again. Simply you prefer inside string shift, but stilk you have to orient your pick all the time when you shift string. It's what troy grady calls the pickslanting

Brilliant explanation. Thanks

Awesome lesson! thanks!

Excellent video 👌🔥💯

That’s great Paul Thanks

WOW........ THANK YOU, To the woodshed I go ! Philip.

Great lesson 👍Ill be working on this starting now ,and you shred awfully well, and looks like your digging that Suhr Pete Thorn Signature

That was an awesome lesson 👏

Paul! That was what I needed. Shared with a friend. Pick attack! I'm not a shredder but I do need to speed up to play something other than Mary had a little lamb. Funny still!

Thank you for sharing

Cheers Paul! Could you do a couple more videos where you explore your more complex runs like this one? As a long term viewer, your runs are different enough that this would provide us with insight in how small changes to a progression dovetails into creating a varied shredding lick repertoire.

OMG, that solved a lot of problems starting on an upstroke

great

You have a fat awesome tone, do you have a video of how do you accomplish that?

Normally for this sort of stuff I just sorta fake it by plucking the first note on each string and then doing hammer ons for the rest. Definitely gonna try this exercise tonight, and see if I can learn to do it right

This is where I struggle on guitar. Fast lines with alternate picking, lines that contain more than six notes... Those I usually fall apart on. I'm doing a little speed course to see if it will help. The left hand, which is my fretting hand, is doing great, but the right hand (picking hand) is where the problems arise. Staying loose and relaxed works well, but sometimes I think I make larger, longer moves of the pick than I need to, especially when I pick downward, but next need to move to the string above, or I pick upward and need to move to the string below. That jump over the string I just picked doesn't always go cleanly, I often catch it a little when going to the other string. It's hard!

Hey Paul.. Slow down that last lick and show us with those tabs!!!! Killa playing.

Thanks for this awesome lesson Paul. I also like your amp and amp sim recommendations. Bought the katana mk2 100 and the scuffham s gear 3.0 Just using the scuffham amp sim to be honest 😅😬

The video was titled how to shred, but all I saw was a scale pattern using 3 note groups and to use economy picking. How do you actually get quicker?

Dying to master this but that stretch, 3-5-7 is wrecking my wrist.

I play electric guitar fingerstyle (as Knopfler) and this exercise is well suited for fast right hand work, since the sequence is fragmented in double-triplets: I also performed a descending version with inverted right hand fingering. Very cool excercise

I want to learn Michael Romeo Hybrids solo so bad

So c major a minor scale starting on E but why E? Why start on the third/fifth instead of the tonic? I'm sure this can be used in other scales but my question is how? E phrygian? Phrygian mode....

Hell yeah. Thanks

Great info ! Thanks

Killer tone!

If playing lead guitar solo - should you as standard just pick up down throughout? Or is there any other way to approach?

Good lesson :-) At the risk of being controversial, though, you are wrong about starting on an upstroke being more efficient using alternate picking for this pattern. Since the pattern has an even number of notes the last stroke of the pattern will always be the opposite to the one you started on. i.e. start on a down (up) stroke - finish on an up (down) stroke. Starting on a downstoke is more efficient here because the last stroke (up) moves the end of the pick back towards the 4th string where the pattern starts. Beginning on the upstroke does the opposite since, on the last note of the pattern, it moves the pick down (towards the 2nd string) and away from where it needs to be. That said, you may well find that starting with an upstroke works better for you, but logically and mathematically it is slightly more inefficient.

how do you know in each song or a lick if it better to start with an upstroke or a downtroke?

my main prob is my plucking not sync with fretting. i hardly get it in sync.

This is an AWESOME lesson Paul Thanks man!! Similar to the style of Gary Moore ... In fact.... if you could give us a tutorial on the legends runs... THAT would be amazing!! 🤘

Love this little lesson. Keep them coming Paul. Have a go at Hot Wired by Brent Mason and see how you find it. I'd love some tips for that hybrid chicken pickin style :)

Its Not Hard To Shred On Guitar...no but you cannot do anything of that in a spanish or acustic guitar...it´s another world

thank you!!

I’m new and what I’m trying to understand with shredding and scales and stuff is that is the fretting pattern the same or similar ?

I’m not a shredder. But I am a scientist. I intend to practice this once a day for a set amount of time for a week and see if I improve.

Do most guitar shredders use this six note method?

Good video thanks! By the way, Vinnie Moore did the same in the ‘80 with the Pepsi spot..and there are still people that asking how to do this??40 years ago guys..Did you sleep under a rock?😅

What would be a good bpm goal for this on a metronome?

Not that hard? I don't think you remember how much work you put in this.

Learning from the best lml

Are you using some sort of modeller or amp ? Sounds like a modeller of some sort

Paul, I noticed the chair you're sitting in doesnt have arms but appears to resembale a herman miller aeron that you may have removed the arms. Is it an Aeron or something else? Looking everywhere for a comfortable chair where the arms dont get in the way of playing. Thanks and cheers!

Hi Paul. When playing 'cowboy chords' are you still keeping that same thumb position or is it advisable to bring the thumb up when speed isn't the main focus?