by Matt Mills.

Welcome to the second installment of the my Guitar Shredding column. Here, I continue to place patience at the top of the list. Don't rush to play fast! And of course, practice, practice, practice. But, you have to practice in the right way. This means you go for quality first and speed second. Otherwise you'll be like people who talk so fast their words become gibberish - each note in a stream of notes, like each word in a sentence, must have meaning.

One of the first scales a guitarist learns is the pentatonic scale and most guitarists will continue to play it the same way for many years. The examples I wrote here will help you to break out of the traditional fingerings for a more legato approach.

The first pattern is an E pentatonic scale with the tapping finger on the high E string on the 15th fret. This is one way to actually sweep pick the scale smoothly without too much alternate picking action.

The second and third examples are repetitive licks that can be played in bigger groupings, while still using the arpeggio tapping finger on the 15th fret. The ideas presented are ascending and descending, but they can be played in many combinations. Using a metronome, always practice the patterns with the slowest speed possible and then gradually increase speed.

Don't rush to play fast, because you may gain high speed, you'll play fast sloppily. Learn to play fast, by playing very slowly and cleanly and incrementally building your speed without losing the integrity of the notes.