https://guitarnoise.forum/guitar-players-discussion/my-picking-exercises/ Guitar Noise Discussion Board en-US Thu, 04 Jun 2026 14:46:02 +0000 wpForo 60 https://guitarnoise.forum/guitar-players-discussion/my-picking-exercises/#post-7035 Sat, 12 Feb 2005 11:06:34 +0000
I've recently changed my picking style a bit, and I'm working on redoing my alternate picking technique, starting from scratch.

Here are some non musical exercises I came up with, they are modified from some Paul Gilbert lick I saw a while ago. They are really helping with my outside / inside picking and hand coordination.

I'm practicing these exercises with a starting point of 60 bmp and I'm patiently incrementing the metronome by 3 bmp a day.

Play these as alternate picked triplets,
tri-po-la, tri-po-la, tri-po-la, tri-po-la

E||-------------------------------------------|
B||------------5-----------5-----------------|
G||---5--6--7----7--6 ------7--6--5--6--7-|
D||-------------------------------------------|
A||-------------------------------------------|
E||-------------------------------------------|

E||-------------------------------------------|
B||------------5-----------5-----------------|
G||---5--6--8----8--6-------8--6--5--6--8-|
D||-------------------------------------------|
A||-------------------------------------------|
E||-------------------------------------------|

E||-------------------------------------------|
B||------------5-----------5-----------------|
G||---5--7--8----8--7-------8--7--5--7--8-|
D||-------------------------------------------|
A||-------------------------------------------|
E||-------------------------------------------|

E||-------------------------------------------|
B||------------5-----------5-----------------|
G||---5--7--9----9--7-------9--7--5--7--9-|
D||-------------------------------------------|
A||-------------------------------------------|
E||-------------------------------------------|

Start over and repeat like 1000x times :)

Try starting with an upstroke too.
Now shift the patterns to higher / lower strings and up and down the neck. After doing these pattern for a while, I do something like this where I'm skipping strings:

E||-------------------------------------------|
B||-------------------------------------------|
G||-------------5----------5-----------------|
D||-------------------------------------------|
A||---5--6--7----7--6 ------7--6--5--6--7-|
E||-------------------------------------------|

Check them out, just start off really slow and clean and try to isolate any picking problems.

-Dustin]]> Guitar Players Discussion dcarroll https://guitarnoise.forum/guitar-players-discussion/my-picking-exercises/#post-7035