Reddit reviews Speed Mechanics for Lead Guitar (Troy Stetina)

In my opinion Troy Stetina's Fretboard Mastery is still the most comprehensive, well thought out and explained, and easy to understand guitar theory book. If you could only get one book, this book would cover all you need to understand the instrument.

Beyond that Troy's Speed Mechanics for Lead Guitar is very good book of technique building exercises, Dave Celentano's Monster Scales and Modes is a short, easy to read, and good book for referencing some of the most commonly used scales and modes, it also has some short but good description of when and where to use certain scales/modes.

For a more reference/appendix use, I like the Guitar Grimoire books as they have very complete information and are laid out in a fairly easy to read and easy to understand fashion.

Troy Stetina's book is a well-respected approach to developing rock lead technique: http://www.amazon.com/Speed-Mechanics-Lead-Guitar-Stetina/dp/0793509629

Probably not your style of music (mine neither) but I would definitely check out the free material on Tom Hess's site too, he has excellent advice in there and his chops are undeniable: http://tomhess.net/

Other than that, if you have a couple of months, I suggest picking one technical thing (e.g. alternate picking) and one vocabulary/learning thing (e.g. a scale) and staying focussed. I've spent too much of my time in the past switching between things that seemed interesting but not persevering with anything long enough to really master it.

I'm others will pitch in with good books / DVDs etc...

Speed Mechanics for Lead Guitar

Among other things yes. Scales, arpeggios, chords and chord changes, mechanical exercises with focus on particular techniques.

The "shredders bible" has a lot of this stuff http://www.amazon.com/Speed-Mechanics-Lead-Guitar-Stetina/dp/0793509629/ref=la_B000APNO26_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1412216463&sr=1-2
(you can read a few pages in the preview and get an idea of what it's like)

Again though, this stuff requires a lot of discipline. You need to play with a metronome always. You need to record your playing and listen with a critical ear from time to time. You have to consider every motion and how efficient it is. This only really matters if you want to "shred" though. You can still play music for people without any of this, and rocksmith is a way more fun way to learn and requires less motivation. I own the shredders bible but I really don't use it much lately as I'm more interested in enjoying playing than I am on becoming the next steve vai. But I can say that I made more progress with it faster than I ever will with rocksmith.

FWIW, most of the minigames in rocksmith are useless because they're too gamified. Scale racer doesn't have a steady tempo and changes direction randomly, you're far better off practicing on a constant tempo with a metronome. Dux redux however is decent and string skip saloon can be good for developing good skipping skill. Castle chordead is also a fun way to learn chords and common chord changes in a specific key.

Speed Mechanics for Lead Guitar by Troy Stetina

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0793509629/

• Ralph Denyer - The Guitar Handbook
  
  
• Mick Goodrick - The Advancing Guitarist
  
  
• Jon Finn - Advanced Modern Rock Guitar Improvisation
  
  
• Troy Stetina - Speed Mechanics for Lead Guitar
  
  
• John Heussenstamm - Guitar Workout - Speed Picking, Sweeps, Arpeggios & Harmony For The Modern Guitarist
  
  
• Frank Gambale - The Frank Gambale Technique,
  
  Book 1 and Book 2
  
  
• Mark Levine - The Jazz Theory Book

Minimum movement would be one thing: http://justinguitar.com/en/TE-004-MinimumMovement.php

And there's alternate picking.

http://www.insaneguitar.com/mc/alternate.html

http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/lessons/guitar_techniques/alternate_picking_technique.html

You could check out Troy Stetina's Speed Mechanics for Lead Guitar: http://www.amazon.com/Speed-Mechanics-Lead-Guitar-Stetina/dp/0793509629

Right. Okay so this is one of the books that I used...Speed Mechanics for Lead Guitar and it talks about learning 'phrases.' So like...break the song down into different pieces/parts...whether that be verse/chorus or whatever...and then practice those different phrases. Rocksmith 2014 does this with 'riff repeater.' I've used that quite a bit to perfect different pieces in a slow, controlled way. Good luck and please let me know if you have any other questions!!!

Wikipedia, for sure. It's got great information on every kind of chord, what modes are, what makes an arpeggio, etc etc

I don't use many guitar books, but I'm still working through Speed Mechanics, and it's been several months since I bought it. It's just exercises, though, so it's not really 'helpful', per se.

This book Has helped me a whole lot through the years. It teaches finger position and technique and picking. It's a really good book.

The short answer is: by going slow and slowly building up your speed with a metronome.

A more complicated answer would give you various exercises and stuff to play. That was one area where I struggled when I first wanted to build my speed up - I knew sort of what methods I needed to apply to my practice. But I didn't know what exactly to practice. I found this book: https://www.amazon.com/Speed-Mechanics-Lead-Guitar-Stetina/dp/0793509629/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8 pretty helpful in getting my mechanics on point and to make me comfortable with playing fast. I like it because it's got lots of focused little exercises to work on and I can take notes and stuff in the book.

Steve Stine's youtube is also a good free resource for some speed building exercises.

I've got Nelson's book too. It's a good book too, but I think it's not a patch on another Stetina book... "Speed Mechanics" : http://www.amazon.co.uk/Speed-Mechanics-Lead-Guitar-Stetina/dp/0793509629

(Damn, Troy... you should be paying me man!)

Nice job!

I noticed you lift your fingers quite a bit from the fretboard, especially your pinky. If you're looking to improve your mechanics a bit, check out Troy Stetina's Book. It helped me quite a bit.

1. Get Speed Mechanics for Lead Guitar
   
2. Practice.
   
3. ???
   
4. Profit.

Buy a copy of Speed Mechanics for lead guitar and look through that. Keep the your thumb on the back of the neck as much as humanly possible. Use your pinky. Work on minimizing and isolating your movements.