Alternate Picking Exercises – A Great Way To Improve Playing Skills

In numerous cases, the first important thing that I see about performers is that, during their playing, they often employ really unpolished picking techniques.

Their techniques lack the firm discipline of some consistent, steady and controlled types of very stable alternate picking styles.

Here you will read about some moves that picking hand maybe have to encounter in different playing situations. Development of these alternate techniques can enable the real execution of most ideas that are maybe worth improvising.

Those ideas will also help you in your mastering of alternate picking exercises.

How To Precisely Practice These Picking Exercises?

Firstly, use your metronome. Practicing alternate picking exercises without your metronome will not be so useful. That’s like if you potentially watch and play some Jersey Shore type of marathon, so begin with a single click for the note, and then slowly move into multiple notes, and use your own rhythmic senses wisely.

[su_youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZUiAxJEv_M” width=”440″ height=”260″][/su_youtube]

Practice slowly. The first few times you try these exercises, before you get the muscle memory flowing, it’s essential that you keep the tempo slow. But even after you’re able to play faster, you’ll still gain from revisiting a relaxed speed to properly assess the details of your technique.

Watch Your Both Hands For Accuracy And Efficiency.

This process is far easier in case that you’re really playing slowly. So, pay some attentions and see how far pick moves go between notes. Also, use some motions as possible, and use that often, and also consider a very important timing that’s between your fretting fingers and a pick.
Also, accent some different notes. Because, as you will often repeat some patterns, you’ll then probably accept those same notes naturally always. Whichever one appears on that metronome click is just for that, so harness this, and also try to place a quite different note over your click.

It is wise to experiment with many picking directions. I firstly prefer to start all previously mentioned exercises with some regular down stroke. But, also try to start each of these practices with a nice upstroke, because facilitating both those strategies can surely help a lot.

Alternate Picking Examples Among Some Well-Known Guitarists.

The Practice Called Di Meola

This one is named for one of some probably fastest guitarists. Al Di Meola made a smart two-string alternate picking exercise modification. He is widely known for the single-string type of alternately oriented picking licks.

[su_youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukO8p82wpxw” width=”440″ height=”260″][/su_youtube]

So he made a self-titled video for the instruction that’s is a truly great treasure for many picking enthusiasts.

The Petrucci

This one is named for Dream Theater’s guitarist John Petrucci, and he also can be counted among fastest known guitarists in the world. Well, this kind of phrase is used exclusively, with very high speed in his solo section on very nice Dream Theater’s instrumental called “Erotomania.”

[su_youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPFwNyKOJIA” width=”440″ height=”260″][/su_youtube]

“Erotomania” exercise got some quite odd groupings of five notes, but that is truly the only slightly problematic and tricky part. So, there are also many other Dream Theater’s songs that got some sequences which are also great alternate picking exercises. For example Panic Attack, Voices, Learning to Live etc.

Conclusion

Alternate picking exercises are able to save you from a lot of potential trouble. They will mostly help the more advanced player, but are, in fact, useful for everybody.

That is mostly because they can be a highly adaptable asset that will help you to really progress and thrive as a guitar player.

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