New students are always coming to me asking, “How do I improve my sloppy, inaccurate, clumsy and slow picking technique?”
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More often than not, the first thing I notice about their
New students are always coming to me asking, “How do I improve my sloppy, inaccurate, clumsy and slow picking technique?”
More often than not, the first thing I notice about their playing is that they employ an unpolished technique that lacks the discipline of a steady, consistent and controlled use of strict alternate picking.
What I find with these students, especially those who were previously self-taught, is that their technique is a haphazard (yet sometimes logical) combination of alternate, economy and awkward sweep picking.
While being skilled at economy picking and sweep picking is essential in every guitarist’s bag of tricks, I find that these students are not performing these techniques deliberately, but instead as an accidental consequence of dealing with the tricky nature of crossing from string to string when dealing with 1-per or 3-note-per-string style phrasing patterns.
The “tricky” bit that seems to trip these students up comes when specific mechanical movements come into play, specifically those found when crossing from a lower-pitched string with a downstroke to a higher-pitched string with an upstroke (“outside” picking), and when crossing from a higher-pitched string with a downstroke to a lower-pitched string with an upstroke (“inside” picking).
The following examples are exercises and licks I have found will clean up any guitarist’s picking technique and give them the control and accuracy to greatly improve their ability to achieve the speed and fluidity they desire. Though there are exceptions to this rule, for the sake of these exercises, make sure the alternating pick strokes are accomplished with firm, yet relaxed grip of the pick and a rotation of the pick hand wrist similar to that of turning a key in a door.
EXAMPLE 1A shows “outside” picking at its most basic. After picking down on