Alternate Picking practice/learning question.

[MicahC]

So after about a year and a half of playing I've decided to start learning a bunch of different techniques that are used to shred. So, I'm starting with alternate picking.

Is this good to practice with?

If anyone has ANY advice then, I'd love it.

 

[Alfang]

Dude , any time you move your fingers on one hand and pick the correct string with the other hand is good, alternate picking is a must, or so i'm told.  Marry had a little Lamb, alternate picking will work, just keep doing it till your fingers do it by themselves

 

[MicahC]

Yeah, I got that part when I read a bunch of stuff.  :icon_thumright: But, you can't very well play mary had a little lamb at 160 bpm and make it sound cool in a solo, can you? That's why I was asking about pentatonic scales and whatnot, plus I figured actual responses from people would help a tad more than articles written 3 years ago.

So, in other words....... :help:

 

[guitlouie]

Yeah, that's a good one, buuuuuut.  When that one "gets under your fingers", so to speak, you need to find another.  The trick is to keep throwing curve balls at your fingers so that they get good at adapting to whatever your brain is throwing at it, otherwise, yes you will be able to alternate pick that one passage like a mofo, but nothing else.  I like to practice an exercise like that until I can do it backwards, forwards, upside down, and whatever else, then I try to forget about it for a while.  If when I come back to it months later I can do it just as well as before, than I am learning technique, not just memorizing one thing by rote. 

 

[koshersteel]

That sequence is a great start. Once you've got it down do it in groups or 3,4,5,6,7,8,etc. Play it in all the primary scales and modes. Alternate pick it, down pick it, play it with all upstrokes, then play it in down-up-down and up-down-up picking patterns. Play it all on one string, play it while skipping strings. Arpeggiate it...

And never forget the immortal words of the great Cellist Pablo Cassals "At the age of 80 I'm still playing the same exercises I learned when I was 7 years old."

 

[blue313]

Big +1 to all the comments so far.  This is definitely a good picking exercise, as well as a good study of the A-Minor Pentatonic scale.

 

[mayfly]

I use similar exercises that I've played to death over the years.  Yes, I'm still using the same ones.  Make sure you use a metronome and make the picking very smooth.  The hardest transitions are: going from a low string on an upstroke to the next higher on the down stroke, and,  going from a high string on a down stroke to the next lower on the upstroke.  Find exercises that have these in them all over the place.  Take it slow and get it perfect, then slowly speed it up.  I know this is a pain in the ass, but it works.

The interesting thing is that if you are away from your guitar for awhile and you can't seem to whip those licks out like you used to, going over some of the old exercises will put you back in form pretty fast.

 

[jmasin]

Just play scales... any scale you play pick the notes alternately.  It will become 2nd nature and you'll find yourself beginning to pick efficiently where required.  At least that's what I found.  It will become automatic over time - If the string/note combination called for it you'll pick a certain way (of course if the sound your going for calls for a different picking technique/direction that's a different issue).

Cheers!

 

[GoDrex]

Using a metronome is a very good idea. Nothing worse than a shredder who can't play in time.

 

[Shmoopie]

Tape, glue, or rubber band the pick to you hand, and if you hand doesn't do what you want it to, hit it with a riding crop, or bull whip.
Thats the way my dad tought me.  :sad:

 

[stubhead]

Here's some metronome theory, that I stole from Steve Morse and that I inflict on my students:

Every day when you're specifically doing "speed exercises" you have to find your daily baseline tempo, that at which you can play an exercise perfectly. This can vary a lot, 10% or more - tiredness, a cold, lack of practice, that doesn't matter. Each exercise has a different baseline depending on difficulty too. I like to choose longer licks for myself, at least 16 notes with some string-crossing because it keeps me interested, regardless choose one exercise at a time to concentrate on. What Morse says, specifically, is:

"Play the exercise and alternate it with some scales or modes that you already know. Do this for five minutes at the baseline tempo, trying to play each note perfectly in time. Every five minutes, move up one bpm, and repeat what you just did.

After 30 minutes of this, you should have moved up 5 bpm from your baseline tempo. Remember what was the fastest tempo at which you could play all the notes perfectly. It may be your original baseline tempo, but usually you'll hit a higher number in a repetition like this. Now, take the fastest tempo and add 10 percent. Round off the increased number to the nearest setting your machine will display.

Play the exercise and alternate with scales at this increased tempo for five minutes, regardless of whether or not you are making mistakes. Turn off the metronome, and play the exercise one time perfectly, probably at a slower tempo. Now do whatever you want until tomorrow."

What this does is kick open the door to the possibility of always increasing-speed. I actually like to play them slow and fast, sort of ties in with Petrucci's "burst" method (which he doubtless got somewhere further back too). As my other biggest influence John McLaughlin says:

"Speed and fluency are a combination of two things. First and foremost, in your imagination, you must hear yourself playing in this way, or it won't happen for you on the fretboard. Secondly, be willing to attack the problem of inarticulation through work and application of exercises."

I find it highly useful to specifically find odd numbers of notes on strings, so you have to work your way through the problems of pick direction changes. 90% of the trouble people have when they can't play something correctly slowly* has to do with changing pick direction - and there's no easy way through it. (This is the same thing people are saying above, just put differently). Make up licks with 2 notes per string on one string, a single note on the next, three notes per string on the next... when you think you can play it cool starting with your index finger, find an entirely new location for the same lick starting with your little finger, with different numbers of notes per string... heh heh, so much for being fastly cool. :evil4:

*(If you can't play it fast after a few years, you're just lazy or stupid.... 6 hours a day is a good amount to practice, though the best usually had bursts of 10 and 14-hour days.)

P.S. If you wanna go deep, John Petrucci's "Rock Discipline" is a great DVD that contains summations of information that came earlier. Paul Gilbert's "Intense Rock" and Steve Morse's "The Definitive Steve Morse" are classics that go deeply into picking technique, but Petrucci "borrowed" the best of those and has the most information all in one place. If you boogie around YouTube searching "lesson" plus "Gilbert" or "Petrucci", "Morse", "Rusty Cooley", "Frank Gambale" etc. you can bury yourself in info.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uT3CuibES7Y

 

[Mr Real Nice]

Is alternate (up/down) picking supposed to be something difficult?  I've never had guitar lessons before but it just seemed natural to do it that way.  It seems like it would be a hell of a lot more difficult to try to downstroke every single note, especially when the tempo goes up.  :dontknow:

 

[MicahC]

Is alternate (up/down) picking supposed to be something difficult? 

At high speeds, yes. Well, for most people.


Thanks to EVERYONE for the input. Any questions I had have been answered and that is awesome. I have a lot to do now  :hello2:

 

[ildar]

Don't limit yourself to just alternate picking. Practice as many picking combinations as possible for any given exercise. For instance, a four note per string chromatic based exercise has many different combos per string-up/down/up/down; up/up/down/down; up/down/down/down; etc., etc. For scalar, diatonic, or melodic exercises the same combinations can be used. Also look into economy picking- for common three note groupings per string you'll end with a downstroke and begin again with a downstroke on the adjacent string, great for ascending lines.
For any picking exercise, develop speed and accuracy in every combination, and above all be expressive.

 

[po_0784]

(sorry for the sucky english)

Picking (All sorts)

I'm quite good at most styles of picking (Sweeping, Atkins picking, Economy picking, straight alternate, string skipping)... I got a lot of guitar students at the school where I work who are aspiring shredder. Here's one little neat trick of mine I developed after some time:

1) You need to be able to do your technique with the metronome
2) You also need to be able to do it really slow and gradually accellerate in a constant fashion and slow back down again (without metronome)

Once you can do those 2 things, your speed will increase dramaticly. Step 2 imply that "your" technique is not a one trick pony. Michael Angelo once said "try to pick the faster you can, and now take this same technique to play slowly (trem picking)". Good advice, thats what we are trying to do here, find ONE (the best for you) technique and make it usable at any speed. Most people use a certain picking technique until they reach let's say 140bpm... then they use something different (trem picking) to go at 170bpm. Most of the time, they got big problems in the 140-170bpm zone  :evil4:

Rhythmic

After you may want to take the military rhythm drill ! You put the metronome super slow (lets say 60 bpm) and you play a super simple C major scale... you simply go up and down the scale but after each 4 beat, you increase the rhythmic divisions and come back home to 1/4 after..

Simple way : 1/4 - 1/8 - 1/16 - 1/32

The EVIL way : 1/4 - 1/8 - 3plet - 1/16 - 5tuplet - 6tuplet - 7tuplet - 1/32

You should feel quite confident of your picking abilities after that, and have a better rhythmic feel. People often work too much on speed on not enough on groove.

Hope this is helpful in any way hehe  :icon_thumright:

 

[TonyFlyingSquirrel]

Here's some metronome theory, that I stole from Steve Morse and that I inflict on my students:

Every day when you're specifically doing "speed exercises" you have to find your daily baseline tempo, that at which you can play an exercise perfectly. This can vary a lot, 10% or more - tiredness, a cold, lack of practice, that doesn't matter. Each exercise has a different baseline depending on difficulty too. I like to choose longer licks for myself, at least 16 notes with some string-crossing because it keeps me interested, regardless choose one exercise at a time to concentrate on. What Morse says, specifically, is:

"Play the exercise and alternate it with some scales or modes that you already know. Do this for five minutes at the baseline tempo, trying to play each note perfectly in time. Every five minutes, move up one bpm, and repeat what you just did.

After 30 minutes of this, you should have moved up 5 bpm from your baseline tempo. Remember what was the fastest tempo at which you could play all the notes perfectly. It may be your original baseline tempo, but usually you'll hit a higher number in a repetition like this. Now, take the fastest tempo and add 10 percent. Round off the increased number to the nearest setting your machine will display.

Play the exercise and alternate with scales at this increased tempo for five minutes, regardless of whether or not you are making mistakes. Turn off the metronome, and play the exercise one time perfectly, probably at a slower tempo. Now do whatever you want until tomorrow."

What this does is kick open the door to the possibility of always increasing-speed. I actually like to play them slow and fast, sort of ties in with Petrucci's "burst" method (which he doubtless got somewhere further back too). As my other biggest influence John McLaughlin says:

"Speed and fluency are a combination of two things. First and foremost, in your imagination, you must hear yourself playing in this way, or it won't happen for you on the fretboard. Secondly, be willing to attack the problem of inarticulation through work and application of exercises."

I find it highly useful to specifically find odd numbers of notes on strings, so you have to work your way through the problems of pick direction changes. 90% of the trouble people have when they can't play something correctly slowly* has to do with changing pick direction - and there's no easy way through it. (This is the same thing people are saying above, just put differently). Make up licks with 2 notes per string on one string, a single note on the next, three notes per string on the next... when you think you can play it cool starting with your index finger, find an entirely new location for the same lick starting with your little finger, with different numbers of notes per string... heh heh, so much for being fastly cool. :evil4:

*(If you can't play it fast after a few years, you're just lazy or stupid.... 6 hours a day is a good amount to practice, though the best usually had bursts of 10 and 14-hour days.)

P.S. If you wanna go deep, John Petrucci's "Rock Discipline" is a great DVD that contains summations of information that came earlier. Paul Gilbert's "Intense Rock" and Steve Morse's "The Definitive Steve Morse" are classics that go deeply into picking technique, but Petrucci "borrowed" the best of those and has the most information all in one place. If you boogie around YouTube searching "lesson" plus "Gilbert" or "Petrucci", "Morse", "Rusty Cooley", "Frank Gambale" etc. you can bury yourself in info.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uT3CuibES7Y

I can't agree more, but I would add that the Frank Gambale Vid "Speed Picking" gives you more in the fundamentals of efficient picking patterns that will eventually lead up to the relaxed, syncopated, efficient playing.  Over time, as your hands become more relaxed, you'll find that your speed will improve, but in a way that will not cause fatique to your hands, your fingers will stay closer to the fretboard between notes (unlike Warren Demartini in Ratt's "Lay it Down" vid) , and your playing will sound cleaner.

Also, having an instrument that is very well set up with low action will certainly aid your efforts.

 

[stubhead]

Well, it might be a bit to early for young Micah to be concerned about extreme fluency at 220 bpms*,  :dontknow: but I'll say this anyway: I see the "efficiency picking" that Gambale and others advocate using as an outgrowth, or further development, that should be based on the solid fundament of alternate picking technique. If you learn alternate picking first, there may be passages where the efficiency or "slip-picking" technique will get you through those easier; however, if you learn efficiency picking as your base method, and try to alternate-pick the same passage, you won't be able to do it. More importantly, too much efficiency picking, too early, too young (snif :sad1, has a huge tendency to dead-end your speed, because:

The single biggest problem that prevents people from adding speed to a particular passage is that they're applying uneven time values to each note;

i.e., some notes are longer than others, because you're minutely speeding up and slowing down within each lick. In this regards, learning to slip the pick every chance you get, first, is a recipe for disaster.... you just can't apply the juice when you're already playing the note values inaccurately. Gambale himself says in his video that efficiency picking is based around a 3 nps** approach, and he re-writes licks to suit the technique - fine, until you run into a lick that you're supposed to play the way it's written....  :icon_scratch: and won't fit itself into three notes-per-string where you're at on the fretboard. One of the reasons I really like the concept of playing the same lick in different places, using different combinations of notes-per-string and different fingerings, is that it forces you to address the issue of inconsistent time values. MAKE THEM ALL SOUND THE SAME.... You just can't get speed, with versatility, without getting super-even timing. There's tons of guys with "flash" technique who can play their ONE LICK super-fast but couldn't play an exercise like the one above here at even half their "hot" speed, much less in different positions.

I think efficiency picking is fine, but as an addition & adjunct to the time-counting of alternate picking, not as a substitution for it. I'm not the fastest picker in the world, I even have a student who can (irritatingly) play Gilbert & Petrucci & Morse-type exercises far faster than me, but I can play Bach's S&P's with a flatpick and he can't... he makes up all these near-impossible, ridiculous 13 and 17-beat exercises and tries to smoke the old guy... friggin' kids. And I'm the one who taught him to do it... (snif :sad1
My sneak cheat is slipping in my middle and ring fingers to pick up the odd note at velocity (AKA "combination picking"), but it's still based off of the count from alternate picking.

*(Beats-per-minute)
**(Notes-per-string; don't worry Micah, by the time you finish high school you'll be able to converse totally incomprehensibly, if you stick with it :toothy12

 

[Wana_make_a_guitar]

Is alternate (up/down) picking supposed to be something difficult?  I've never had guitar lessons before but it just seemed natural to do it that way.  It seems like it would be a hell of a lot more difficult to try to downstroke every single note, especially when the tempo goes up.  :dontknow:

I'm there with ya. I  thought it was easy,learnt it in the third lesson i had.

But anyway dude, when you got that picking down pack, try tremello picking. same thing, but usually way faster.

 

[MicahC]

Well, I will NOT be playing Gilbert stuff for a loong while. At the correct speed anyway.  :laughing8:

The responses that have been posted are awesome! Especially stubhead, I thank you all  ccasion14:

My practicing schedule I'm still working on. I was think something along the very rough lines of starting at about 70 BPM and then putting it a little higher to about 80 every three minutes or so. Something like

70 BPM - 3 minutes
80 BPM - 3 minutes
90-BPM - 3 minutes
etc....

Then when I get to the place where it starts to sound bad ( not clean) I go down to the setting I had it to before and go up a BPM slowly until I get there? Comments? I really had no practice schedule for the time I've been playing. It was really just "Hey Micah, you should learn this song!" So, I'd go and learn it and play the rest of the songs I knew for a couple hours.

And another question: Some people have a stiff wrist and use their elbow to do the motion, but I've heard that technique is bad for you. And then others use their wrists. Is it a matter of preference or what?

Thanks AGAIN, because these responses have been way beyond what I expected to get.

 

[po_0784]

As I tell my students, if you want to play fast, forget about the elbow and the arm. Simply watch videos of player who can do it (Michael Angelo, Rusty Cooley, Guthrie Govan, Shane Lane)... They all use a really small movement coming from the wrist.

I BARELY move my arm when picking insanely fast. Its stricly a micro movement of the wrist. Most people will never pick superfast simply because when they pick a string, they let the pick go too far. The pick only need to go to the other side of the string, not a foot below. When im playing, people often say that it looks like im not playing at all because theres no movement. That may look boring to some, but it works!