Learn all of your scales: major, minor, harmonic, and melodic. Memorize and practice them constantly. Over time, with dedication, your speed and technical skills should improve.

Look up Victor Wooten, as well as Reggie Wooten. They are brothers who have been performing (and getting paid) since Victor was 3 and Reggie was 5. It think those are the right ages. They both have stuff online that you can access for free, and they just walk you through this kind of stuff that gets your technique sharp. Their musical style is jazz/funk, which I like to call “junk.”

Check it. Go through the lessons.

Learning music as you have is a good start to build up dexterity and hand strength. If you havn’t been playing long look up a teacher and make sure you’re using proper technique. If this is the case you can play more than fast enough with 2 fingers. If you’re looking to play in a band context here’s what I recommend. Music like Lamb of God and Cannibal ( I love Lamb of God) play with odd rhythms and time signatures. Neat tricks but removed from the “bread and butter” you should have under your belt to play with other people.

Learn your major scale and how chords work. Learn the extensions and how to follow along with a chord chart. All the modes relate to the major scale so get that down and you’re off.

Forget about tapping. It’s a cool trick and that’s about it. There are far more important things to learn.

There are several ways to play with 3 fingers. Again, I don’t feel that it is necessary but here goes. Thumb, index and ring finger to imitate classical guitar style to include palm muting. This is handy for playing arpeggiated parts. Another way is Index, middle and ring finger picking. Start slowly, it’s frustrating but you will get faster. On one string pick Ring, middle, index-ring,middle index,ring,middle,index and repeat on the next string. I’d reccomend this. This is a 4 note pattern that is odd because you’re playing 4 notes with 3 fingers. This gets you out of playing all triplets in a galloping style. Mix it up. Play groups of 2, 3, 4, 5 ect.This is Billy Sheehans style.

Estring R-M-I-R
Astring M-I-R-M
Dstring I-R-M-I
Gstring R-M-I-R

I play with 3 fingers as follows. R-M-I-M-R-M-I-M ect. Instead of going back to my ring finger after plucking with my index I go to my middle then ring. It’s different but works.

I find playing with 3 fingers is only marginally faster than 2 fingers and in a band context I rarely need to play that fast. The best way to use the technique is for fast triplets. That fast galloping style.

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