# Critique my picking technique please



## Berserker (Feb 22, 2016)

Hey guys,

This is really embarrassing but I don't see any other way to improve. My alternate picking sucks big time, and I've never managed to develop any speed, so I was wondering if you could take a look at my technique and tell me what improvements I can make. I try to stay relaxed and limit my movement but I just don't seem to get faster. This is 75bpm and I'm struggling on the descending runs so it's pretty sloppy.

I'm committed to putting in the effort but I just want to clear up any major flaws before I spend hours reinforcing the movements.


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## MikeNeal (Feb 22, 2016)

i dont know if i am qualified to offer advice, because i'm not a master of alternate picking. 

but when i started wanting to learn faster stuff i had to really start practicing it. i really struggled with similar issues as you. i found it was easier to pick faster first, then clean up the slop later. i noticed as i was getting cleaner my pinky on my picking hand started anchoring itself to either the bridge or the pickup, or sometimes just to the body. it helped keep my hand positioned at steady


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## Ps43203 (Feb 22, 2016)

Your technique is not as bad as you think it is, you stay relaxed and try to get rid of any wasted motion. The only thing you have left to do is, do it MILLION times a day. Nothing can replace practice. Also try to learn something new, every day. A tiny lick or scale pattern, etc.. And just practice. I recommend playing things you like/or want to hear. Don't bother playing .... you will never use. Seriously, when doing scales, play them backwards and forwards and skip strings etc.. You WILL get better trust me. One more tip, make sure what you are playing is CLEAN, CLEAN, CLEAN, don't worry about speed, the speed will come, just make sure you are playing correctly, does not matter if it's at 5 bpm, if that's the best you can do, stay there, and then incrementally move up in speed. You will be fine, if you are committed to the instrument.


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## Ps43203 (Feb 22, 2016)

One more tip that I guarantee will help you also, is get some SMALL picks, like dunlop jazz III's, or anything similar. They will feel really weird until you get used to holding them, but they will improve your technique. For me the thicker the better, but thickness doesn't matter, it is the size of the pick that really helps with speed.


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## CapnForsaggio (Feb 22, 2016)

"Stylus Pick" + 3 weeks of drills = FAST.

These were big in the 80's. I played a medium full sized pick for years. Spent 3 weeks on a stylus pick, and haven't been able to play anything bigger than a "black ice" since then. 

Also, it is unbelievable for developing conservation of motion and sweeping. 

Note: the stylus pick is NOT for playing, it is for PRACTICING. Also, don't buy the one with the DVD, just buy the picks alone.... It's just alternate picking patterns.


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## Berserker (Feb 23, 2016)

MikeNeal said:


> i dont know if i am qualified to offer advice, because i'm not a master of alternate picking.
> 
> but when i started wanting to learn faster stuff i had to really start practicing it. i really struggled with similar issues as you. i found it was easier to pick faster first, then clean up the slop later. i noticed as i was getting cleaner my pinky on my picking hand started anchoring itself to either the bridge or the pickup, or sometimes just to the body. it helped keep my hand positioned at steady



Thanks man!



Ps43203 said:


> Your technique is not as bad as you think it is, you stay relaxed and try to get rid of any wasted motion. The only thing you have left to do is, do it MILLION times a day. Nothing can replace practice. Also try to learn something new, every day. A tiny lick or scale pattern, etc.. And just practice. I recommend playing things you like/or want to hear. Don't bother playing .... you will never use. Seriously, when doing scales, play them backwards and forwards and skip strings etc.. You WILL get better trust me. One more tip, make sure what you are playing is CLEAN, CLEAN, CLEAN, don't worry about speed, the speed will come, just make sure you are playing correctly, does not matter if it's at 5 bpm, if that's the best you can do, stay there, and then incrementally move up in speed. You will be fine, if you are committed to the instrument.



Good to know my technique isn't fundamentally awful, guess I need to slow it down even more. I use the John Petrucci Jazz picks at the moment... they're a little bigger than the Jazz III but I prefer the feel.



CapnForsaggio said:


> "Stylus Pick" + 3 weeks of drills = FAST.
> 
> These were big in the 80's. I played a medium full sized pick for years. Spent 3 weeks on a stylus pick, and haven't been able to play anything bigger than a "black ice" since then.
> 
> ...



Never heard of these before but definitely something I'll check out. Thanks buddy!


I know I'll never be a shredder, I don't have enough time (or the will) to practice hours a day. I would just like to be able to play moderately fast comfortably, and actually be able to play a reasonably quick solo. 

Time to put the effort in... anyone have some good exercises for speed building? I mainly just do chromatics and major scales at the moment.


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## TruckstopChuckie (Feb 23, 2016)

Isn't the only way of developing speed just to do your exercises on a regular basis (daily)? I guess its also important that you don't get stuck with exercises that uses the same patterns. Your fingers (fretting hand) needs to be challenged with all kind of different motions, and really those that's not symetric. That way you're not only learning your fingers to do movements that keeps you 'locked in', but you're also learning your brain to think outside the box.


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## DudeManBrother (Feb 23, 2016)

If you can trem pick on an open string, then alternative picking isn't your problem. Synchronizing your left and right hands is what you need to work on. Once you feel tension in your wrist and forearm, simply say in your own head,"relax" and let your body figure out how to accomplish the command. Practice any run slowly a few times so your fingers get accustomed to the shapes, then play it full speed, but pay attention to the notes that were sloppy, then slow down and hit those particular areas until they're clean.


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## CapnForsaggio (Feb 23, 2016)

For me, the stylus pick made massive improvements for 2 reasons:

1) It forces extreme economy of motion. 
2) It forces you to pick very shallow, which is key to fluid speed.

I swear, I'm not affiliated with these things, but I am a believer. If your alt picking is good but not great, these will take you there. By force.


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## Spectre 1 (Feb 23, 2016)

Work on your fret hand.


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## InCasinoOut (Feb 23, 2016)

TruckstopChuckie said:


> Isn't the only way of developing speed just to do your exercises on a regular basis (daily)? I guess its also important that you don't get stuck with exercises that uses the same patterns. Your fingers (fretting hand) needs to be challenged with all kind of different motions, and really those that's not symetric. That way you're not only learning your fingers to do movements that keeps you 'locked in', but you're also learning your brain to think outside the box.



Well yeah, it's good to challenge yourself and broaden your width of what you can do, but you won't be building good, accurate, muscle memory if you don't commit to a few particular patterns before moving onto new ones. As Dudemandbrother mentioned, right and left hand synchronization is the key to building speed, not just playing every permutation of 4-finger left-hand patterns.


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## ncfiala (Feb 23, 2016)

One thing I will say is drop the typical 1-2-3-4 chromatic exercises. In my opinion they're pointless. If you're going to practice, you might as well practice something you can use.


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## Rachmaninoff (Feb 23, 2016)

My tips, just reinforcing what the guys said above:

Use small picks, like Jazz III;
Play cool solos, not that 1-2-3-4 miserable exercise;
Practice with discipline, reserve some time every day.


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## MikeNeal (Feb 23, 2016)

also, i had to force myself to get way faster with alternate picking because my buddy wanted to cover laid to rest by lamb of god.

its a pretty decent song to start learning alternate picking to. its got some tricky parts


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## Mathemagician (Feb 23, 2016)

I started with the boring chromatics.

1-2-3-4
1-3-2-4
1-4-2-3
1-2-3-4 2-3-4-5 3-4-5-6

Etc Etc. first 10 minutes everyday of practice. Pick clean and practice to a click. I had to unlearn years of bad habits to learn to play to a click and I'm no where near done correcting that issue.


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## Zeus1907 (Feb 23, 2016)

I can't see the rest of your picking hand (full hand, to see your wrist movement). 
So that makes it difficult to truly critique your technique, but from what o can see, you're on the right path. 
I don't agree with the stylus pick, do you think your heroes used one to get great technique? The Stylus pick has you develop a 'lighter' tough. I personally pick super hard, almost accenting every note, sounds more powerful. 

Just keep practicing, there no way around it. What really took my speed to the next level was alternate picking arpeggios, and string skipping. 

1. Play with a metronome religiously
2. Alternate pick every arpeggio and its inversions. 

This alone after a month or so should help. 
Even if you just stick with the Maj and min shapes.


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## Berserker (Feb 24, 2016)

Thanks for all the input guys, I'll concentrate on slowing down and getting both hands perfectly in sync. Maybe I'll try to use solo sections slowed down as exercises rather than generic patterns. I'll look in to arpeggios too.


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## Santuzzo (Feb 24, 2016)

I suggest slowing it way down to a speed at which you can play it perfectly, with good left-right-hand synchronization. No matter how slow this might be, start slow enough for you to be able to play it perfectly and then build up the speed from there.
Also, work on scales, arpeggios, etc as well, as other have suggested.


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## classicalmetal24 (Mar 19, 2016)

I would suggest to watch your picking hand also, there seems to be a glitch in your picking hand, if you watch the video closely you'll see what i mean, it kind of falls short on some of the clicks. Maybe I'm just crazy though. Other than that it's pretty solid.

To re-iterate what others are saying, your picking hand is nice and relaxed which is good. However the problem is with your fretting hand, it's not articulate enough and the transitions between one string and another are not smooth. I have a exercise to correct this but it is hard to explain it in words. maybe I'll do a video.

Also another good exercise is to not pick and just use your left hand to fret the notes, try to do that in time. Use your right hand to hold the top of the fretboard.


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## classicalmetal24 (Mar 19, 2016)

Berserker said:


> Thanks for all the input guys, I'll concentrate on slowing down and getting both hands perfectly in sync. Maybe I'll try to use solo sections slowed down as exercises rather than generic patterns. I'll look in to arpeggios too.



I think you're doing a disservice to yourself by dropping the chromatic exercises. Chromatic scale is the most basic thing you can do on guitar, so it makes sense to use it as a way to begin getting your playing hands in sync.

You want to start with easy > moderate > advanced, and chromatic is the most basic thing you can do, so IMHO I really think you should stick with it.

I would also try exercises where you fret one note and just alternate pick in time with the metronome.


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## Don (Mar 22, 2016)

You have to focus on really being in time with the metronome. You are totally out of the timing. Put an accent on the first note of each string or each bar. Speed up your metronome to double (but not your playing) and focus that every other note is falling exactly in time with the click. You could also put the guitar aside and practice clapping your hands in sync with the metronome. Good luck!


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## CRaul87 (Mar 22, 2016)

Unless you are a freak of nature, alternate picking takes a LOOOONG time to develop and master.
You don't need us to tell you hey you are wasting motion or not accurate enough, that stuff also comes in time it's not like we're gonna critique you and all of a sudden you'll make changes that will take your AP to the next lvl.
Just practice it every day if you really want to get good at it. It's one of those things that every guitar player should know how to do but that doesn't mean that every1 will master it so don't fall in the trap of trying to be Paul Gilbert or John Petrucci because all that will do is hold you back.
Practice AP along side all other techniques and I say favor what comes naturally and keep in check what you suck at because at the end of the day you want to play and make music.


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## Mo Nodehi (Mar 24, 2016)

Seems to me like you're moving your picking hand's thumb too much when picking, try to pick only with your wrist. Also move your arm up or down so your wrist angle doesn't change too much compared to the strings, and you won't have to bend your wrist too much to get to those higher strings. 

Try this: Play with each hand separately, without using the other one(only left, and only right) and increase the tempo to see if you can play faster. If you play faster when only using the picking hand, then the problem is most likely in your fretting hand. If you also can play faster when only using your fretting hand, then your 2-hand synchronization needs to improved. Although 2-hand synch needs to improve anyway.

Remember though, if you're practicing something that doesn't work(doesn't get you the right results), even if you practice it 10 hours a day for 10 years, it's not going to really help you.

Mo


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## Berserker (Mar 24, 2016)

Thanks for all the input guys, I've been concentrating on hand synchronization and fretting hand timing/stamina and I'm definitely seeing progress. There's a long way to go but the small amount of regular progress I'm making is encouraging.


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## Drew (Mar 24, 2016)

Chromatics aren't the most interesting musical things you can play, and there'll definitely come a point where you want to stop practicing them frequently and instead focus on things that can become musical building blocks - scale and arpeggio fragments, say - but I think for now you can get a lot of value out of them in getting your hands to work together as a team. 

Two things are jumping out at me while watching this. Well, three, the third being "badass Strat!" 

* I think your fretting hand is weaker than your picking hand here, particularly on the descending segments. Hand syncronization is, IMO, kind of a BS concept - if both hands are separately in time, they're in time with each other. So, as paradoxical as this is, my suggestion would be to practice this _legato_, against a metronome, until your fretting hand alone can play this perfectly in meter. Initially you might even want to try moving away from a simple click to a metronome with a click for the downbeat, but also a 16th note softer beat going on (or even a super simple drum track, kick on 1 and snare on 3, with a 16th note hi-hat) to really force yourself to listen to make sure your fretting hand is moving 100% in 16th notes. 

* I'm also hearing a little bit of a hesitation on the descending section with the string skips. Applying the same principle, see if you can find a way to distill this down to a simple, relatively repeatable drill that really highlights those. Maybe 4-3-2-1 on the high E and then 4-3-2-1 on the G, repeated back and forth for a while, then drop down to high B and D? Keep working down that way? You could try straight 16th note string skips, like fret the 5th fret on the high E and G string and jump back and forth alternate picking between the two strings, but that's going to become increasingly hard to bring up to speed. Whcih, to be fair, may be a great reason to do just that.


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## Berserker (Mar 24, 2016)

Drew said:


> Chromatics aren't the most interesting musical things you can play, and there'll definitely come a point where you want to stop practicing them frequently and instead focus on things that can become musical building blocks - scale and arpeggio fragments, say - but I think for now you can get a lot of value out of them in getting your hands to work together as a team.
> 
> Two things are jumping out at me while watching this. Well, three, the third being "badass Strat!"
> 
> ...



Thanks man, some good ideas there!


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## Drew (Mar 24, 2016)

If you want to go all-in on your fretting hand, you could do the Satriani "grab the neck with your picking hand to mute the strings with the palm of your hand, and tap with your fretting hand" thing - 5:02 here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgUwD9e8uNM


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## extendedsolo (Mar 24, 2016)

I think you are on the right track. Everything doesn't come together overnight. Yes it's not fast/clean perfect but keep it clean and the speed will come. It just takes a very very long time to get up to Jeff Loomis speed. 

I would recommend a couple things

1)that exercise you have, keep doing it. Do it to a metronome at a speed you feel comfortable with. Then bump it up a little. When you reach your top end speed back off by about 5bpm and see if you can nail it. Only do it for about 10 minutes though. Really good for focusing solely on picking

2)Use scales that maybe you didn't know or ones that you did know in a new position over a backing track. So for example the Major scale over a Major 7th chord vamp. Practice with a metronome similar to the chromatic. Good for pulling double duty on getting your ears acclimated to a sound and alternate picking.

3) Pick 2 songs. One you think you can nail or is close to your skill level that has an alternate picking part. Practice it until you get it. think of this as your "skill right now song." Then pick a song that you know you are super far away from being at a skill level. Like Malmsteen or something. Practice a really fast part cleanly so you don't have to worry about speed, then come back to it every once in awhile so you can see how you've progressed. Don't practice it every day, come back only once every 1-2 weeks. It's your goal. For example mine was Eugene's Trick Bag. Took me a long time to get up to speed alternate picking everything. 

Using those 3 methods even is how I've gone from being able to really pick anything up to a speed that I want to get to. Really I started with Metallica Sanitarium intro solo and just went from there. I really had to work though to get the Waves solo by Govan down. Domination by Pantera used to be at the top of my range, but now it's "easy" by comparison. You'll get there just keep going. I would also recommend the Troy Stetina books


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## simonpimonpoo (Mar 26, 2016)

You should try moving your picking hand when changing strings.

I used to pick like you and when i made that change to my right hand i saw major improvements.

Try to keep the angle between pick attack and string the same on every string. By moving your whole hand by pushing it forward/downward you achieve this while at the same time being able to mute whatever string is above the string you are picking. The fleshy part of your thumb should always be resting ontop of the string just above the string you are picking.

Edit: Just to clarify, your right hand should be moving diagonally across the strings so that you pick closer to the neck pickup when moving up higher.


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## Cameron French (Mar 27, 2016)

John Petrucci's Rock Discipline instructional DVD is great for alternate picking advice and exercises. I think a good portion of it is on YouTube.


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## imnotnollynollynolly (Mar 27, 2016)

Hard to tell from the video but no big red flags on your picking hand that I can see. Are you muting the strings you aren't playing with your right hand? Slow it down a bit as well, your timing is pretty off and having good timing is more important than having shredding picking technique. I somewhat disagree with the others about playing chromatic to build chops, it may not be the most efficient in the long run but it works and gives you a lot of energy to focus exclusively on your technique while you play since it's so basic. That's IMO and many probably disagree, it's also mostly how I did it (not that I have insane chops by any means).


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