Speedpicking/alternate picking practice patterns

Speed picking video lesson 2 - practice patterns

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So now that you have got the basics down - it's time to get speeding. The key to "mastering" speedpicking is to be completely comfortable with a few of patterns of your choice.

You will find that "pro guitarists" often don't have more than a couple of different speedpicking patterns - which they are so comfortable with that they can apply them to any scale in any direction on the guitar.

This should be your goal too. In this lesson I will give you the tools to get going.

What you already need to know about speed picking

You have hopefully already studied Speed picking lesson 1. So before diving into this new material, make sure you are comfortable with (or understand) the following:

Strictly alternate picking

Small picking motion

Picking accents

Picking angle to the string

'Pick a picking pattern' and start practicing...

Start with a pattern from the video, which you like the sound of most.

1. Without the metronome - play the pattern slowly a few times to memorise it - keep a constant eye on your picking hand to make sure the motion stays small and aleternate. Also, make sure you don't get lots of distortion noise.

2. Start the metronome with an extremely slow bpm - before even playing - count the notes out loudly. If you chose a sixteenth note pattern you should be counting...

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4

...while still counting, start playing. This will ensure your evenness.

3. Spend some serious practicing time on tempos you are comfortble with - let speed come naturally through hours and hours of practice. If you stick to this rule - you will not only get a speedy technique - you will also sound good. Even with speedpicking - good tone has to be your goal.

Pushing yourself too quickly to higher speeds will give you poor tone and an uncontrolled technique. In fact - the only way to achieve speed - is to practice slowly - many guitarist fail on speedpicking because they miss this simple fact.

Fruits of serious practicing

Follow these advices and practice the video seriously. The upcoming speedpicking lessons will show you how to create all sorts of speedpicking runs...!

Good luck!

	"Speedpicking lesson 2 " backing track (E minor - 170 bpm)

	Backing track slow

	TAB

E minor aeolian speedpicking
E minor/aeolian - scale suggestion for this lesson's backing track

Lesson Questions, Feedback & Comments

Kristofer Dahl	23rd December 2006
GMC Founder & Rocker	Now you know what you gotta practice during christmas! PS I hope everyone realises that practcing is much more important than spending time with the family, right?

Stevie-Ray-Vaughn	23rd December 2006
Member	haha I agree

Norven	23rd December 2006
Member	thats right:D

kevin-riff-after-riff	23rd December 2006
Member	i agree as well, but did you know even if you can pick fast you still wont get a nice song unless chris teaches us how to do it =]

Tom	6th January 2007
Member	great lesson kris. hey one request... i have been practising my improv solos and i'm getting faster and better, but guess what, i find mysleg going up and down the fretboard on aminor/cmajor scale. is it possible for u to post backing tracks for all keys. like a seperate track for aminr, b minor, c minor etc. so we can learn to play the fretboard in each key. i know u are busy but hope u can help out. tom

Kristofer Dahl	6th January 2007
GMC Founder & Rocker	thomasma: Stay tuned and we will get more and more backing tracks in different keys. The last speedpicking lesson (speedpicking lesson 3 - vertical), for instance, was in G minor. Good luck!

Robwylde	6th January 2007
Member	This series of lessons is great. This site ROCKS! I've been learning a ton. One thing that I'm really struggling with is applying what I've learned into really music. What scales with what chords? Help!!!!

Kristofer Dahl	7th January 2007
GMC Founder & Rocker	Robwylde: No simple explanation that unfortunately - it's a relevant question though. Ask in the forum and we can sort it out!

mattacuk	1st February 2007
Moderator - Lets go fishing!	I have really enjoyed this lesson too. Have been practicing all the patterns from this and the last speed picking lessons on my metrnome DAILY. Started off at 40bpm and have been very careful to be even and accurate. Currently playing at 42Bpm, but i wonder how often should i be moveing up a couple of notches?

Kristofer Dahl	1st February 2007
GMC Founder & Rocker	mattacuk: When you feel completely comfortable with your current speed!

Jimmy S	5th April 2007
Member	Kris, I've been practicing for about an hour and i can play at 130bmp quite comfortably, but that seems kind of slow. Could you please tell me what you think is fast and extremely fast?

kyeric	13th April 2007
Member	130pm is slow with 16th triplets? Nice work, James!!

Seventh	16th May 2008
Member	great lesson exactly what I need:) but one question though, why is accenting so important?

Kristofer Dahl	16th May 2008
GMC Founder & Rocker	Thanks Seventh - when you get up to high speeds the accent will be the only thing you hear/feel!

Seventh	16th May 2008
Member	what will happen then if I sometimes don't play them? (I will play them, but I jus wonder)

Jesse	6th July 2008
Member	NICE!!!

thijsmans	8th January 2009
Member	is it treu that i have to play an accent on every metronome click?

thijsmans	8th January 2009
Member	nvw, already got the anwser

Artemus	19th March 2009
Learning Tone Seeker - CHALLENGE STAR!	Finally! Someone that understands and encourages the importance of practising with clean AND distorted sound. I've been saying this to people for years, especially my students. It's generally accepted that you have to start out practising speed licks on clean but they often don't realise the importance of muting unwanted string noise on distortion. Cheers Kris, these are great lessons, very wacky The exercises remind me of the Paul Gilbert videos that I started out on