12-Week Shred Guitar Mastery

Shred Routine: Week 1

Introduction

Welcome to the first week of your 12-week shred transformation! This week, we’ll lay the foundation for fast, clean playing by focusing on alternate picking, arpeggios, legato, and tapping. Each exercise is designed to build precision, endurance, and speed.
Stick to the routine, and you’ll see major improvements in your technique.

Alternate Picking

What is Alternate Picking?

Alternate picking is a fundamental picking technique where you continuously alternate between downstrokes and upstrokes. This technique maximizes speed and efficiency while maintaining accuracy. It’s a key element in achieving clean, fast runs across the fretboard.

Scale Patterns

Most shred solos are built around scale patterns. We’ll start by playing the most essential ones on single and two strings.

Speed Goals:

We will use three speed levels as benchmarks for improvement:

Nice: 160 BPM
Fast: 190 BPM
Extreme: 240 BPM

Exercises:

Picking Scales: Patterns 1-9 (10 minutes)

Pattern Combinations (30 minutes)

Now, let’s combine different scale patterns to create melodic shred lines. These exercises will train your fingers to move fluidly while maintaining precision.

Combination 1, 2, 3 & 4:

Introduction to Picking Arpeggios (10 minutes)

What are Arpeggios?

Arpeggios are broken chords where the notes are played one at a time instead of strummed together. They are essential for sweeping, neoclassical shred, and creating fluid, expressive solos.

Exercise 1:

Basic major, minor and minor b5 arpeggios using alternate picking.

Introduction to Legato (5 minutes)

What is Legato?

Legato is a smooth playing technique where notes are connected using hammer-ons and pull-offs instead of picking every note. This creates a fluid sound and allows for faster execution.

A great way to practice legato is by applying it to the scale patterns we covered in the alternate picking section. Try playing them without picking every note!

Exercise:
Basic legato patterns (Hammer-ons & Pull-offs)

Introduction to Tapping (5 minutes)

What is Tapping?

Tapping is a technique where you use a finger from your picking hand (usually the index or middle) to tap notes on the fretboard. This allows you to extend scale runs and create fast, fluid phrases.

We’ll start with basic tapping patterns using the A minor pentatonic scale. In later weeks, we’ll apply this technique across all strings for more complex licks.

Exercise:
2 basic tapping patterns on the A minor pentatonic scale.

Wrap-Up

This concludes Week 1! Keep practicing, stay disciplined, and focus on clean execution. See you next week for more shred-building exercises!

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