Guide To Picking, Part 1: Rhythm And Articulation

Hello fellow guitarist and welcome to this Masterclass!

There seem to be very few skills that modern electric guitar players are more eager to acquire than good picking technique. Just like me, I‘m sure you remember being completely floored when you first heard players like Steve Morse, Paul Gilbert or John Petrucci masterfully execute their wild picking runs. It‘s a true staple of virtuoso guitar playing and something that most of us aspire to make part of our playing.

Having taught thousands upon thousands of guitar lessons I can safely say that it is a topic that 9 out of 10 students will mention very soon, whether they are novices or professionals. It can be a very hard subject to study and grasp, but also to teach.

Through all my work with students of all levels, it became apparent that there are stumbling blocks in learning to pick efficiently. At the same time, there’s a surprising lack of quality information out there, given the importance of the subject.

Like me, I‘m sure you have tirelessly searched for tips and tricks, acquiring countless books, videos and instructionals... only to find the same exercises thrown at you over and over, accompanied by shallow advice such as “start slowly and steadily increase your speed” and “use consecutive down and upstrokes”. And then you barely notice any improvement.

Through the three parts of this Masterclass series, I‘m going to share the knowledge I‘ve acquired through self-study, academia and teaching over multiple decades, and address the common problems myself and my students seem to struggle with. My aim is not just to teach you face-melting hyper-speed runs, but to teach you the skills necessary to develop a picking hand that is applicable in real-life musical scenarios, which will ultimately make you sound more (for the lack of a better word) “professional”.

While flashiness and virtuosity will of course be a substantial part of these studies, I will always vouch for developing your skillset in a way that makes you a well-rounded, employable musician, that can adapt to various musical contexts and that other musicians will want to work with.

This instructional assumes that you have a basic command of the core picking mechanics and motions. It is directed mostly towards intermediate players, who want to learn and acquire new skills but is also helpful for advanced players, who want to refine what they already have or to add higher degrees of virtuosity and facility into their playing. It doesn‘t start from the very ground up, such as holding the pick or how to execute basic picking motions.

What you find here is a more practically minded approach, rather than isolating and examining the smallest of picking motions. Think of this as a collection of practice ideas, concepts and vocabulary that I find crucial to mastering picking; a collection of my personal experiences if you will. Should you be interested in the former, I urge you to check out Troy Grady‘s “Cracking the Code” website. I‘ll be using some of his terminologies throughout this Masterclass and while I‘ll explain it briefly, the Cracking the Code website is the place to dig deeper.

Remember that as a teacher I‘m always trying to keep an open mind towards all kinds of different approaches to learning. The ideas shared here are based on my personal experiences, tastes and preferences. However, the world of electric guitar is vast and unlike many classical instruments largely non-standardised. No serious instructor should ever claim that there is only one way of tackling a problem, especially in the realm of arts, where the desired results are up to the artist’s intent.

While each of the chapters in this three-part Masterclass is self- contained and can be studied on its own, I still recommended working through each chapter chronologically at first. Later chapters will often assume that you’ve acquired the skills described in previous chapters. Especially the topics covered in Part 1 (RDAP and articulation) are of very high importance from my experience, as they are fundamental skills. A common misconception is that “fundamental” means easy when really, it means that it is a part of nearly everything that you’re going to do on the instrument.

I strongly recommend spending some time developing some solid RDAP and articulation skills before building a more advanced picking skill set.

The three parts of this Masterclass are to be seen as one cohesive product, with a lot of references and a cohesive progression. With all that out of the way, let’s dive right in!