(instrumental music)
- A variety of musical situations
will require that you have a variety of picking techniques
to draw upon.
Now, the picking techniques that we're going to talk about
are alternate picking, economy picking,
hybrid picking and finger style picking.
Now I believe that when you're playing in a band
it's really great to have a variety of styles
of picking because you may have to
play a single note line with alternate picking.
You may have a passage that requires chordal arpeggios
that will be easier with a finger style.
You may also have to play something very quickly
that has a lot of intervals, for example,
that may require you to use hybrid picking,
a combination of the pick and the fingers,
so having many picking styles together
will help you to adapt
to a variety of different musical situations.
Let's talk about what all of these are.
Alternate picking is simply the idea
of playing with down and up strokes
and I recommend playing scales
so for example, a good thing to practice
is all of the modes of the major scale
using alternate picking.
(guitar music scales)
In that example I played G Ionian, A Dorian,
B Phrygian, C Lydian, D Mixolydian, E Aeolian
and F-sharp Locrian.
Those are all of the modes in the key of G.
I recommend using scales to practice alternate picking.
Many passages and ensembles
will have scale patterns involved
and alternate picking scales
is a great way to prepare
for a variety of different situations.
To get your alternate picking chops together
a little bit more
I also recommend playing scales in intervals.
So in this example I am going to play F major,
the F major scale,
and I'm going to play the scale up and down
and then I'm going to play it in thirds,
then in fourths, then fifths, sixths and sevenths.
Let me break this down for you slowly
so you can understand all of the details.
The first thing will be just the scale up and down.
(guitar scale)
All with alternate picking.
Then I'll play the scale in thirds
which means starting on the first note
then going up a third like this.
(guitar music scales)
Then back to the second note of the scale.
Then up a third and so on.
Goes like this.
(guitar music scales)
Next we'll play the scale in fourths
so I'll start on the F and then I'll go up a fourth.
(guitar music)
Then to G, go up a fourth.
All the way through the scale
all with alternate picking.
(guitar music scales)
Now fifths.
(guitar music scales)
Sixths.
(guitar music scales)
And sevenths.
(guitar music scales)
These are all great exercises
to practice your alternate picking.
(instrumental music)