This guitar lesson will help you to develop and perfect your picking technique helping you to play guitar riffs, melodies and solos more smoothly and fluently.
Alternate Picking
The first aspect that needs to be looked at is your Alternate Picking technique. This is the most commonly used and useful picking technique. Alternate Picking is simply a fancy name for picking up and down. The majority of single note playing is done using this technique. The logic is that if you’re going to pick down for one note why not pick up on the next one?
A simple effective exercise to practice your Alternate Picking is to use a metronome to time yourself. Play eighth notes picking UP and DOWN for each metronome click. Just use open strings and focus on your picking technique making the DOWN picks sound the same as your UP picks. A good speed to start this exercise at is 80bpm (beats per minute). Once you’re comfortable with this sped ramp it up to 100bpm and quicken it further once you’ve mastered each faster tempo.
Using 4 Fingers On The Fretboard
The next step is to get your fretting hand to work with your picking hand. Many guitarists have a weak and uncoordinated 4th (little) finger on the fretboard. To develop the 4th finger while practicing your Alternate Picking try this exercise. On each string play the frets as indicated alternate picking each note. Also practice this exercise with a metronome starting at 80bpm only increasing speed once mastering the slower tempo.
Also note that to have the proper stretch for all 4 fingers in these exercises keep the thumb behind the neck and pointing upwards.
Outside Picking
The next picking/4 finger exercise works on your Outside Picking technique. Outside Picking involves picking between a pair of strings. An example is picking DOWN on the 6th string and UP on the 5th string. The four fingers of the fretting hand can also be developed with your outside picking by following the zig-zag patterns shown below. Play them up and down the guitar neck on all adjacent pairs of strings.
For more advanced players try skipping a string in the middle of the pattern (e.g. picking between the 1st and 3rd strings). Again for these exercises use a metronome to check your timing and ensure that every note sounds consistent and clear.
Inside Picking
Inside Picking is the opposite of Outside Picking where you’re picking inside a pair of strings. For example UP on the 6th string and DOWN on the 5th string. To practice your Inside Picking use exactly the same exercises as used for the Outside Picking. Generally most people find it easier to outside pick but inside picking is a handy technique to master for certain riffs, melodies and solos.
Other Guitar Picking Techniques
Other picking techniques include Double Down, Double Up and for more advanced players Sweep Picking. Sweep Picking uses multiple down or up picks played quickly with the fretting hand ensuring that only one note is heard at a time. We will look at these picking techniques in another article.
Practice these guitar picking exercises daily as shown in the lesson. Use them as a warm up before playing songs and you will find that your picking and fingering coordination will improve immensely over just a few short weeks.