GMC:er Posts: 25.297
Joined: 23-December 09
From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA
ALTERNATE PICKING : Getting Over The Hump!!!
I have had some questions about making it over that initial hump in alternate picking. That spot where you know what your fingers should be doing, they just don't want to do it.
Here is a quick tip. Start (as I did) by incorporating rythm parts that use the bits you are trying to work on. Pick bits that you want to play, or want to learn, or want to write. This way, you can play things that you want to play, and develop the muscle memory you need and let your fingers work out the details so that when you go to sit down with a metronome and one of my Shreddy Boot Camp Lessons, you will be well ahead of the game.
As for alternate picking. The good news is you don't have to put in thousands of metronome hours to get there. When I was working up my speed I made really great progress actually playing rythm parts focusing on two strings only. For example, Get the tablature for Master of puppets if you don't already know it, which I'm guessing you might. There is one section in particular. Play this as alternate pick, not downstroke as is traditional. Here is an ancient vid of the bit. 30 seconds in about.
Here is an ANCIENT vid that shows a bit from master of puppets that works great for this. About 30 seconds in.
*DON"T PLAY THIS BIT WITH DOWNSTROKES (Even though it's traditional) USE ALTERNATE PICKING
Playing this one lick will force your hand to find it's path to string traverse and alternate picking. It's something that the hand has to work out for itself even after you know the techniques. Don't worry about speed so much as precision. Speed will happen as you go just as a byproduct.
So find other bits you enjoy playing, that have this element. Things you want to play. Then write some things along this line. Later, once you have some "hand time" in, playing the workouts in my bootcamp for example, will seem more straight forward.
Instructor Posts: 13.792
Joined: 11-March 10
From: England
I think this a great approach and when we consider that most of the metal gods started out by learning their fave riffs and honing their rhythm technique, it's not such a surprise after all.
As I said in another thread, when you play riffs you tend to concentrate on making the overall sound be as good as possible.. you don't tend to think about the actual technique etc so it's a good way to get in a lot of fundamental picking hand work because your hand just gets on with the job in the background whilst your thinking about the riff, the timing, the palm muting etc..
Gear Tyler Burning Water 2K Burny RLG90 with BK Emeralds Fender US Tele with BK Piledrivers Epiphone 335 with Suhr Thornbuckers PRS SE Custom 24-08 Ax8
Learning Roadie Posts: 636
Joined: 23-March 07
From: Australia
Gee after the last couple of weeks working on riff's with Ben in the Bushido "the way of the warrior" classes I'm getting a good work out and I use to be quite scared of these fast alternate picking riff's - NOT NOW I'm finding a sort of groove I slip into. So I can see how this will really help my alternate picking. I reckon if I play another million riff's I'll only get better. Another thing I guess I note is with riffing you play attention to being even and note separation which I struggle with with alternate picking.
I'll have to learn master of puppets Todd.
[quote] The Skate Punk Lesson on GMC is really good for getting cross string Alt picking practice.
I failed that one on rec I'll have to give it another shot.
Instructor Posts: 13.792
Joined: 11-March 10
From: England
QUOTE (zoom @ Nov 29 2012, 08:13 AM)
Gee after the last couple of weeks working on riff's with Ben in the Bushido "the way of the warrior" classes I'm getting a good work out and I use to be quite scared of these fast alternate picking riff's - NOT NOW I'm finding a sort of groove I slip into. So I can see how this will really help my alternate picking. I reckon if I play another million riff's I'll only get better. Another thing I guess I note is with riffing you play attention to being even and note separation which I struggle with with alternate picking.
I'm finding a sort of groove I slip into. So I can see how this will really help my alternate picking. I reckon if I play another million riff's I'll only get better.
