bayoubill
I do everything wrong 

Absolutely not. Those exercises you posted are exactly what I do in one segment of my regimen and should definitely be done by anyone looking to become a better guitarist. I would add a couple more patterns to that to cover all patterns that appear within the common diatonic scales but they take some further discussion on how to shape one's hand which is hard to put in text and would require elaborate tab. Maybe later.
 
I agree but disagree in regards to counterpressure. Basically very little to no pressure should be coming from the back of the neck via the pad of the thumb (it should be the "toothpaste grip" principal... if you could squeeze toothpaste out of a tube with the amount of pressure being applied you are squeezing too hard). Squeezing too hard will slow you down and lead to cramping HOWEVER while first getting the hang of proper left hand technique it can be very difficult to fret notes at first until the other muscle strengthen and adapt. Therefore, and this is by no means traditional instruction at all, I believe it is more beneficial to allow a bit more pressure at first. The player is going to be playing a little slower anyway at first as they build mental and muscle memory and the pain of cramping itself will teach them to back off the squeezing as they speed up.
 
There does need to be a bit of counter pressure when it is warranted, IMO. There can be a lot of nuances and technique variations though that achieving different results or are simply necessary because not all our hands are built the same. When I show people stuff I stick to what I know from experience works BUT if that isn't working for someone for whatever reason (except the student simply refusing to practice) I try to offer up alternate approaches. Most of all I just want people to enjoy playing their instruments.
 
Anyway, everyone paying attention... try Bill's exercises. I just didn't comment on them because they didn't need any extra commentary. Cheers.
 

Agentcalm
Hey Beepster and Leadfoot, nice info on the fingetip tip (if you know what I mean).
A few of the things you mentioned there Beep about accidently muting other strings, poor vibrato etc are things i am constantly suffering from.  and when i do a recording it really shows.  I'll practice that "finger tip position" so to speak.   Thanks again guys.  :) 

I'm happy to help and yes... recording oneself will certainly bring every tiny bit of ugly to the surface. After years of playing live once I started getting into recording it was very disheartening. It was like "when the hell did I start SUCKING SO BAD!!!". lulz... I personally think live playing and studio playing should be considered two completely different techniques. Live you are trying force everything to cut and blend amongst sheer chaos and requires more attack and aggression. In the studio you need to pull back a bit because the mix engineering is who is going to be making things cut and blend and your job as the musician is to play as clean and tight as possible without sucking the life out of the music... very tricky. It's funny... I'm currently listening to some old Nirvana (now Danny's gonna kick my ass... lol) and Kurt is considered to be sloppy as hell but you know what? He did exactly what was needed to get his parts on tape and make it sound like it should. So he either practiced like hell or they did a million takes and spliced together the best stuff.
 
Now that I am writing exclusively into the DAW as opposed to hammering out parts on my own, bringing them to band practice, playing them live for a few years THEN maybe going into the studio I realized I am missing out on all that pre-production work. There just isn't that constant practice. Instead of having played a part hundreds, if not thousands, of times before hitting record I may have only played it a couple times. So I end up doing takes over and over because they have no life. Then I'll think I've got them, move on to another part and realize I could play the first part way better and sure enough I can and the first takes get scrapped. This annoyed me at first because it seemed like I was wasting time but then I think back to all those years of rehearsal and live gigs and realize FAR less time is being put in.
 
So now I take my time and actually jam along with an idea for weeks before really getting serious about final tracks. The song usually gets altered and made better this way too just like a song would evolve over time in band practices or on an extended tour.
 
That's a long way just to say... practice makes "perfect"... especially when it comes to recording.
 
Cheers.
 
 

listening to sweep picking always makes my eyes glaze over.
 

I never got into the 80s sweep picking craze. I'm more of a raker... which is similar but somehow raunchier. Knowing the mechanics and theory behind sweep picking is great though and can help with solos. It's just chords in arpeggio format sped up to hyperspeed.
 
Now tapping... yeah... I do a lot of tapping.

One easy thing that can make one's playing sound much faster than it really is making liberal use of naturally occurring notes on open strings. 3 notes can be sounded while only fretting two. 4 notes can be sounded while only fretting 3. That adds up when we are talking about milliseconds and 32nd/64th/128th notes.
 
Oh and another neat thing about that is if executed in a certain way the effect can be very similar to sweep picking. Start with raking downward toward the E string and sounding it with a slight palm mute which gets promptly pulled off. Hammer on to 2, 3 or even 4 notes with your fingers than a final note with your right hand forefinger or the edge of your pick (tapping). Then quickly reverse it by pulling off back down to the open E.
 
If you know your theory you can easily construct various chords and chord qualities this way solely on a single string. Toss in some glissandos (slides) with the left hand and even to tapping hand and you can easily be cramming half a dozen notes in there all the way up the fretboard.

I'm no guitar player although I enjoy playing it but something I always encourage my piano students to do is to eliminate tension. It's a real speed and fluidity killer. It is my belief that tension is caused by fear of making a mistake . Therefore we try and control everything we do which results in tension, stiffness and lack of movement. By allowing yourself to play with complete and relaxed freedom and not worrying if you mess up or not is a quick route to playing faster with more accuracy. If your hands don't feel like liquid then you need to relax more.
Potential = performance minus interference.
This may or may not apply to you but thought I'd throw it out there :)

I remember way back concentrating using my finger tips. The early  70's I think it was.  I did that for quite a while. Since then I've tried many many techniques and nowadays I just try to concentrate on using my fingers. Sometimes finding my fingers. 

LOL you guys are too much....thanks sincerely. :) I commented last with a smiley never thinking anything of it. Sorry if I threw you guys for a loop.
 
Rimshot, I can give you lots of help here but it depends what YOU consider "faster lead licks" as well as what style you may be looking to borrow from. I'll take it you are most likely looking for rock stuff.
 
For example, I've always admired Terry Kath (R.I.P.) from Chicago. He was MY first dose of guitar lightning years ago. The Chicago Transit Authority version of 25 or 6 to 4 is absolutely frightening for the times.
 
Then there are guys like Joe Satriani that sound faster than they really are due to legato techniques where they pick one note and roll 3-4 notes in one shot. This is really cool sounding but takes a properly set up guitar as well as some finger strength because you need to play notes without picking all of them. When you glue some cool scales together and put some feel/bends and a style behind them, you can really come up with some awesome lead solo's. Another guy (most will laugh at me for this) who actually helped me to nail legato was Warren DeMartinni from the band Ratt in the 80's. This was one cool thing about the early 80's...there were some monster players that were getting good tones as well as some killer lead playing. The problem was there were too many of them and not enough good songs.
 
As Ben noted about the pentatonic scale, most of those guys used stuff like that but they really took it to another level because when then got done, for some you couldn't tell they were "as pentatonic" as they really were. A lot of my style is based on that too. But the key is to paint and tell a story while in that mode...and this is where it gets hard. The key is to try and not make your solos become too scalular. It's really hard and sometimes there is no way around it. However, if you add a little something to it so it doesn't sound like a verbatim scale you learn from a book (though some have used that and it's worked...the solo to Tom Petty's Refuge is all pentatonic to where it's almost right from a book) it at least masks the scale a little showing you have some style. :)
 
Anybody can show you scales and techniques as well as tabs. All that to me is like having a guy teach you how to use a compressor that you don't own on a song while using a console that you don't own. LOL! It's all moot until someone shows you HOW to apply this stuff in your realm. When you learn a scale, it's nice to know 2-3 different ways to use it and WHEN you would use something like that or it just remains a "practice scale".
 
There are guys like Yngwie Malmsteen that do the stuff Jeff talks about with the sweep picking...and he also picks EVERY note. This is super clean sounding but takes a decent amount of time to nail because in order to be fast and precise, you have to be slow and productive first. Unfortunately, playing guitar fast is sort of like being an Olympic athlete until you get the mechanics down. It's all repetition and memory. Most of all it's knowing something so good slow, that you speed it up because you're bored and know it well enough. The worst thing is going too fast too soon because then you can pick up habits that are really hard to break. So whatever you do, go into this taking your time and be selective with what you learn. Challenge yourself but don't talk yourself right out of learning this stuff. Some of it can really be disheartening. LOL! But again, it depends on what YOU are particularly looking for in the world of faster guitar passages.
 
If you like the bluesy side of the speed spectrum, a few of my favorites would be Gary Moore, Joe Bonamassa and Eric Gales. Really killer players (I'm sure you've heard of Gary...some of his older stuff was really killer) that use speed in a good way. Eric's first two albums were his best in my opinion and Joe is just a mutant. But until we can sort of gauge what you're looking to do, it's hard really to set you in the right direction. What players come to mind for you as far as "fast" goes? If you could play like any guitar player...or even a few, who would you name? Stuff like this helps us to see what direction you should be going in. No sense sending you to listen to Tommy Emmanuel or Michael Romeo from Symphony X if you're not into that style. Then again, go listen to Tommy anyway. He's absolutely one of the best players of our time. :) Good luck man.
 
-Danny

Danny Danzi
Another guy (most will laugh at me for this) who actually helped me to nail legato was Warren DeMartinni from the band Ratt in the 80's. This was one cool thing about the early 80's...

Always dug him. It's actually nice to see those players from the 80's re-gaining a bit of recognition - outside of Japan, I mean -  even if it's got a lot to do with nostalgia.

I loved DeMartini's solos. And Gary Moore was awesome, especially his rock stuff in the 80's. Victims Of The Future was a great album. I got to see him in '83. He opened for Krokus, who was on the Headhunter tour, who was opening for Def Leppard on the Pyromania tour. Rick Allen had both arms back then.

Leadfoot
I loved DeMartini's solos. And Gary Moore was awesome, especially his rock stuff in the 80's. Victims Of The Future was a great album. I got to see him in '83. He opened for Krokus, who was on the Headhunter tour, who was opening for Def Leppard on the Pyromania tour. Rick Allen had both arms back then.

Moore's Dirty Fingers was like a secret club equivalent of Eruption for us. I think there was one older guy in town who had that one Gary Moore album and that's where we heard him. 
 
Vivian Campbell is another one I dug.