Developing Shred Picking Technique

By: Rich Roger

Welcome to my lesson “Developing Shred Picking Technique.” This lesson not only applies to you metal lovers because It doesn’t matter what style of music you want to pursue, picking is an essential part of any guitar players technique. So if you aren’t picking, you’re not grinning!

Picking Hand Positioning

Here is a walk through of how your hand positioning should be. Keep your picking hand close to the guitar, anchor your hand to the guitar body by using your ring and pink fingers and don’t let your hand float in the air, don’t bend your wrist outward (If you do so, you will not have controll and percise picking) and make sure you keep your hand relaxed and don’t tense or stiffin up. Also, experiment with different guitar picks. Different players tend to use what is confortable to them, however a thin pick will not stand up to fast alternate picking. I find that a heavier pick will doesn’t bend that easy and extra heavy picks barely bend at all.

So grab a bag of your favorite guitar picks and lets wear them out on these exercises!

PART I- Picking Exercise 1

Example 1 is a warm up exercise that I myself have been playing for over 20 years. This exercise will do wonders on your picking hand, and again, I can not stress how important it is to start slow. Make sure all of your notes have the same attack with your picking hand. This exercise starts on the 3rd fret on the 6th string. Follow the finger pattern and the pick strokes below the tab. A good way to practice this exercise that will really get your wrist and forarm burning is to play it the exercise at every fret starting on the 1st fret then ascending the neck to the 19th fret and back moving one fret (half-step) at a time.

Assending

PART II- Picking Exercise 2

Example 2 is another warm up exercise that will also do wonders for your picking hand. You will start off with just your 1st, 2nd and 3rd fringers on your fretting hand and begin on the 3rd fret on the 6th string and contiunes with one note a half step higher on each string. As in example 1 follow the finger pattern and the pick strokes below the tab. Also, I recommend you play this exercise starting in every fret as in example 1. This exercise will really not only get your wrist and forarm burning on your picking hand, but it will also help develop the coordination in your fretting hand.

Example # 2

Example 3 is the same exercise with just your 2nd, 3rd and 4th fingers.

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Part III

 

Try to incorporate all of these exercises into your daily routine. Also, make sure that you practice these with a metronome with the following beat divisions:

 

• Quarter Notes: 1 Note Per Beat

• 8th Notes: 2 Notes Per Beat

• Triplets: 3 Notes Per Beat

• 16th Notes: 4 Notes Per Beat

• 16th Note Triplets: 6 Notes Per Beat

• 32nd Notes: 8 Notes Per Beat

 

So turn on, tune up, and rock out!

You can find more about guitar virtuoso Rich Roger at http://www.myspace.com/RichRoger or http://www.richroger.com/ he's defenitly worth checking out!