Todd Simpson - Shred Journey

"0 to 60, an Introduction to Alternate Picking”

Introduction

Welcome!

In this course, I'll be showing you how to get started with "Alternate Picking". In this lesson, I will try to assume nothing. We will start at the very beginning and work out way up. The goal of this series is to take you from 0 to 60 BPM (Beats Per Minute) and beyond. Once you can keep your alternate your picking steady and go across strings, you are ready to begin working up your speed. All it takes is practice.

Please do not use any sort of profanity or try to start any off topic discussions that don't pertain to our coursework here. If you fail to adhere to this policy, you may be removed from participating in this class. I can't wait to get started and begin hearing feedback from you. Lets do it!

Todd

Quick Vocabulary: "Beats Per Minute" (Per: Wikipedia.org)

Beats Per Minute is a unit typically used as either a measure of tempo in music, or a measure of one's heart rate. A rate of 60 bpm means that one beat will occur every second. One bpm is equal to 1/60 Hz.

The BPM tempo of a piece of music is conventionally shown in its score as a metronome mark, as illustrated to the right. This indicates that there should be 120 crotchet beats (quarter notes) per minute. In simple time signatures it is conventional to show the tempo in terms of the note duration on the bottom. So a 4/4 would show a crotchet (or quarter note), as above, while a 2/2 would show a minim (or half note).

In compound time signatures the beat consists of three note durations (so there are 3 quavers (eighth notes) per beat in a 6/8 time signature), so a dotted form of the next note duration up is used. The most common compound signatures: 6/8, 9/8, and 12/8, therefore use a dotted crotchet (dotted quarter note) to indicate their BPM.

Exotic time and particularly slow time signatures may indicate their BPM tempo using other note durations.