Improve Your Picking - Part 1Summary: One of the most important techniques you should work on is your picking(unless you mainly play fingerstyle). Improving your skills in this area will help you gain speed and give you more control, especially when playing harder pieces. This lesson aims to give you tips and exercises to help you reach your full picking potential.
Before I get in to the actual exercises, I like to make clear a few important points that will help your progress go smoothly and safely:
1. WARM UPBefore you start practicing these exercises, make sure you are warmed up properly. Do a few stretches and shoulder rolls to get the blood flowing and gently shake your wrists, BUT DON'T OVER DO IT!2. USE A METRONOMEWithout a metronome you won't get far with these exercises, and probably not as a guitarist either. If you haven't got one yet I suggest you go and buy one as soon as possible, it is a much more important purchase than any effects pedal.3. RELAXWhen you practice these exercises, REMEMBER TO RELAX. Sit comfortably at all times and take regular breaks, if you feel even the slightest pain then put your guitar away and come back again tommorow.4. START SLOWLYStart all of these exercises slowly, at a tempo of around 50-60bpm initally and gradually increase your speed over the coming weeks and months. MAKE SURE YOU CAN PLAY IT CLEANLY AT THE TEMPO YOU ARE CURRENTLY AT FIRST THOUGH.5. THINK ECONOMYEconomy - This word holds the key to how much you will get out of these exercises, but exactly does it mean? - Economy simply means to eliminate as much motion as possible between pick strokes. This is very important because the less you have to move your hand, the faster you can get back to the string.6. PICK WITH YOUR WRISTMake sure you pick with your wrist rather than with your elbow, as failure to do so is likely to cause future injuries.Now it's time to get to the exercises. They are mostly all basic chromatic exercises that you may have seen before. Although they don't sound great, they are incredibly useful for improving your picking.
Remember the points I made above before starting the exercises, and good luck.
1. Introduction to alternate picking
This is the first exercise and is an introduction to alternate picking, which involves picking using a downstroke and then an upstroke(or vice-versa). If you have never tried alternate picking before then this is exercise is a good place to start, as it involves no fretted notes which allows you to focus entirely on your picking hand throughout. It may seem tough initally but keep at it and watch your economy movement too.2. Chromatic Exercise #1
This is the first chromatic Exercise and I can tell you now that there will be many more of these before the end of this lesson. You may have seen chromatic picking exercises like this before, they don't sound good but they are incredibally useful for improving your picking. Use one finger per-fret for this exercise, i.e. fret notes on the first fret with your index finger, fret notes on the second fret with your middle finger, etc.3. Chromatic Exercise #2
This exercise is the same as the last except it is played backwards. Practicing this is good because it not only helps your picking, but also your co-ordination between both hands.[
4. Chromatic Exercise #3
This exercise is basically the same as the first chromatic exercise, except that the eighth note rhythm has been replaced with sixteenth notes. Take your time with this one as it should prove quite a challenge as you are now playing 4 notes per-beat.5. Chromatic Exercise #4
This exercise is basically the same as the last(again!). As with the second chromatic exercise this will help you with both your picking and your co-ordination between both hands.Okay, that wraps up this lesson. In part 2 I will show you some more advanced exercises.
If you enjoyed this lesson, then check out the
Music Lessons Center
Guitar: Improving Your Picking, by Chris Frost
