chords
Use These Alternate Picking Exercises for Faster, More Accurate Picking!
Want to get faster and more accurate picking in your solos? Then take a look at this lesson to learn a short but super powerful alternate picking and left hand workout!
In this lesson you’ll discover:
- How to use this short workout to develop an accurate, fast and fluent alternate picking technique
- How to move it all around the guitar neck so you can nail your picking at every fret and on every string!
- How to avoid some of the common things that hold guitarists up and stop them from getting great picking chops!
Plus,this exercise will improve your left hand and right hand synchronisation making playing great licks and solos much easier. Have fun!
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Alternate Picking Exercises – Exercise for Faster, More Accurate Picking!
Need some alternate picking exercises to supercharge your alternate picking technique, fret hand accuracy and speed? In this video I’ll show you a cool alternate picking exercise you can use to do exactly that. Let’s dive in and start boosting your alternate picking!
0:10 In this lesson you’ll learn a short alternate picking exercise for powering up your picking and fretting hand speed, accuracy and co-ordination. It’s not the most musical of exercises and you probably wouldn’t play it in a solo, but it’s a powerful workout for your alternate picking and a great warmup exercise too.
0:42 Alternate picking exercises like this can be moved around anywhere on the guitar but we’ll start on the D string at the 5th fret.
Follow the picking guidelines and fingering guidelines here for step 1 of the exercise.
1:00 Metronome practice exercise. Here’s how you can use your metronome to build up your technique with an exercise like this. The metronome is set to 66bpm and I’ll play the exercise once with a little rest in between, then repeat this process.
1:20 Alternate picking exercises like this will only work if you develop good habits as you practice them! Notice how my fret hand and picking hand are staying close to the guitar and keeping movement to a minimum. Extra movement is unnecessary and will slow you down!
1:37 Step 2 of the alternate picking exercise introduces a string crossing move. Move the 2nd note from the exercise over onto the next string. Follow the picking pattern!
2:20 Practice it with the metronome like we did with step one earlier. It’s still set to 66bpm.
2:39 Step 3 of this picking exercise moves 2 notes across onto the next string. This changes the alternate picking pattern and the fretting hand movement. Alternate picking exercises which make you pick in several different ways like this are a powerful way to boost your picking skills and fluency.
3:09 The metronome can be used as before on this step of the exercise.
3:24 The final part of the exercise moves another note onto the next string. We can build up the strength and accuracy of our fingers with alternate picking exercises which use all 4 fingers of our fretting hand like we’re doing here.
3:38 Metronome demonstration.
3:47 Let’s join up each step to create a complete alternate picking workout. Each step is played twice before moving to the next one. Keep in time with the metronome and keep the picking and fingering correct as you play it.
4:10 As you get the hang of it you can gradually increase the speed of the metronome. Keep the exercise the same but just just push your speed a little. I’ll demo it at 88bpm and then 100bpm.
4:40 Alternate picking exercises like this can be moved anywhere on the guitar neck and still work. Here I demo it in some other places.
4:50 Some players think exercises like this are boring…and they can be for sure! But it’s worth devoting a little time to them because they develop your playing technique in a very focused way and can get you results pretty fast. Also they’re a great way to warm up when you start your practice session.
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Blues Rock Licks; Unison Bends for Killer Licks
Whether it’s Slash, Schenker, Hammett, Rhoads, Hendrix, Page, Satch or any other great rock player…you can bet they’re using the sound of unison bends in their licks and solos!
But what are unison bends, how can you nail them and how can you use them to play killer solos and licks of your own?
In this lesson you’ll learn the secrets of playing monster unison bends as well as how to use them for powerful and high impact solos.
Discover
- The 2 most important unison bends all the great players use!
- The common mistakes guitar players make (leading to unison bending disasters!)
- How a simple tweak can double the number of unison bending licks you know!
- Plus more…
Once you’ve studied this lesson you’ll be on the road to bending like a boss!
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Blues Rock Licks – Unison Bends for Killer Licks!
Lesson breakdown:
0:09 Blues Rock Licks demo with unison bends. Check out this intro jam to hear the kind of blues rock licks you can play with the unison bends you’re going to learn in this guitar lesson.
0:31 Unison bends…what are they?
If you don’t know what unison bends are, well you’ve definitely heard them before! It’s when we play the same note twice in a row, but using a bend to sound one of them. Even though the note is the same…the sound of the bend creates a cool effect. Here you’ll learn one of the most common unison bends there is. It’s show in the key of C# minor.
1:40 Unison Bending Lick 2
Here we see another of the common bends you hear in all the blues rock licks of your favorite players. You’ll also learn an essential guitar technique for controlling your string bends.
2:39 Technique Tips for Awesome Unison Bends
How good your blues rock licks sound is in large part down to how good your string bending technique is. Here you’ll learn some guitar technique tips for great unison bends.
3:40 Using Unison Bending to Create Blues Rock Licks and Solos.
Here we’ll combine some of the unison bending moves to create some blues rock licks you can use in your solos. It’s not hard to come up with dozens of licks just by using a little imagination!
4:48 Unison Bends and Double Stop Bends
Play both notes at the same time and you get a double stop unison bending. This is a favorite move of players like Slash, Hendrix, Wylde…pretty much everyone!
Check out the essential technique tips for powerful double stop bends.
5:34 Blues rock licks can easily be created simply by combining some of these bends. Follow the picking tips and guidelines shown here to make them easier to play.
6:27 Now you can experiment with using these bends to create a load of blues rock licks of your own. Try anything you can think of and keep a note of what works best. Have fun!
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Blues Turnaround Lesson
How To Add the Classic Blues Turnaround Into Your Solos
In this episode of the ASK JAMES GUITAR SHOW I’m going to show you exactly how to do it.
Watch this short lesson to find out:
- What is a ‘turnaround lick’ and how you can use it to give your playing that ‘polished’ sound
- How to play the classic turnaround lick all the blues legends use (step-by-step breakdown included!)
- How you can learn to ‘drop into’ the lick anytime at the end of your solo for that classic ending
- How to practice this skill…for speedy results!
Have fun…and remember you can ASK A QUESTION on the Ask James Guitar Show page…
SUPERCHARGE your Blues Trick Bag with my awesome ‘Blues Guitar Bundle’!
Here’s a breakdown of what’s covered in this lesson:
- 0:25 What is a ‘turnaround lick’? Here I answer this question and demonstrate the turnaround lick we’re going to be using.
It’s in the key of G and I’m going to demonstrate it over a 12 bar blues in the key of G. - 1:12 Here’s how to play the G blues turnaround lick we’re using in this lesson.
- 2:18 The lick begins on beat 2 of the 11th bar of the 12 bar blues. So you need to improvise up to that point before dropping seamlessly into the turnaround lick. I’m going to demonstrate how to do this over a 12 bar blues backing track.
- 3:21 Here I explain what I did in my improvisation. Also how to learn to ‘feel’ when it’s time to begin the turnaround lick.
- 3:44 If we isolate the final 4 bars of the 12 bar blues and practice playing round and round over that section it focuses our attention on combining the lick in with our solo. Do this unaccompanied at first. Then take a 12 bar blues backing track and loop the final 4 bars around so you can play over it.
- 5:07 Another tip for tagging your turnaround lick onto the end of your blues solo.
- 5:46 The ‘turnaround’ isn’t just a lick! It’s actually the final 2 bars of the 12 bar blues chord sequence. You don’t have to play a ‘turnaround lick’ there at all if you don’t want. It’s fine just to carry on your solo. Hear me demo this approach.
Questions? Leave them in the form on the ASK JAMES GUITAR SHOW page
Hope this lesson helped you out and see you next time!
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Nail Sweep Picking Technique
with this awesome lesson & workout
Learn how to sweep pick and how to practice sweep picking plus loads of monster sweep picking tips.
Here’s a summary of what’s in the video:
0:37 Why you need to get the basics right and three super common sweeping triad shapes.
2:15 What is sweep picking? Here you’ll find a basic explanation of the technique and why you might use it. Discover the advantages of sweep picking over alternate picking when playing certain types of passages and how overcome many problems guitarists encounter when they start trying to learn how to sweep pick.
3:22 How to start sweeping in one continuous down or up pick with the plectrum. We don’t want our sweep to be several small up or down picks. It needs to be a single smooth ‘glide’ or ‘sweep stroke’ with the pick. This takes a little practice to feel natural, but once it does you’ll find the technique comes together quite quickly.
3:55 Essential picking hand guidelines for sweep picking. Your hand should be relaxed and free of tension and try to pick from the wrist rather than elbow or arm. Pick firmly enough to get a clear, solid note from the string but don’t pick too hard or you’ll get a harsh and ‘unmusica’sound.
4:30 Some guitar players like to angle the pick slightly as they sweep as they find it helps them cross the strings more easily. I don’t really do this but feel free to experiment and find the pick angle that you prefer the most!
4:46 Often with sweep picking players put a lot of emphasis on their picking hand but the fretting hand has a crucial role to play if you are to develop great sweeping technique. Your fretting hand fingers need to ‘roll on and off’ the notes as the pick passes through them. Don’t hold down a fixed or locked chord shape and sweep across it or the notes will ring together and be unclear. This will only come from slow and accurate practice.
6:14 Let’s take a look at some three string ‘sweep arpeggio shapes’ and fingerings for A minor, G major and C major.
9:10 One of the best ways to practice sweeping these shapes is to break them into two parts. Then you can focus on perfecting each half before joining them together. Use a metronome and focus on getting your sweeping really in time. Check the notes are lining up with the click of the metronome so that you know you’re getting it right!
13:40 Now we’ll join up the two parts of the sweep to play the entire shape. Watch your timing and cleanliness here – it is absolutely crucial!
14:45 How can you build up speed in your sweeping? Here I’ll show you how to using a simple practice method to help you really supercharge your sweep picking big time! Take your time with this and increase the speed of your metronome more gradually than I do here!
18:20 Here’s a complete sweep picking study or practice exercise for you to learn and use to hone your sweep picking chops! It uses only the three shapes we’ve seen so far but we’re going to move them around a bit to get F major and Bb major triads as well.
23:30 Here I demonstrate the etude at a few different tempos taking care to stay in time with the metronome at all times.
Have fun with this lesson and take your time to get the basics of the technique right. It will pay off big time!
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Pinch Harmonics – How To Get Screaming Harmonics
Just Like Your Favourite Rock and metal Guitarists!
The scream of pinch harmonics is a characteristic part of modern rock and metal guitar playing!
But how can you get ’em? In this guitar lesson you’ll learn exactly how you can get sceaming harmonics from your guitar – just like you hear in the playing of Randy Rhoads, Steve Vai, Slash, George Lynch…in fact nearly every major rock guitar player heard today.
Get Your Free ‘Pinch Harmonics Guide’ Featuring Full TAB For This Lesson!
Want to nail pinch harmonics? In this guitar lesson you’ll learn how you can master this essential tool for rock, blues or metal guitar. Discover correct technique, tips for getting them whenever you want, awesome harmonics licks you can use use in your solos and exercises to get you on the road to pinch harmonics mastery!
Here’s a breakdown of what you’ll learn in this lesson:
1:02 What are pinch harmonics? Hear what they sound like and learn how and why you might want to use them in your solos.
1:40 How you can consistently get them in your playing (so that they sound big, fat and punchy!). The technique might sound simple, but it does take a little practice to master. You’ll probably find them a bit ‘hit and miss’ to start with but by following these guidelines you’ll soon be ripping them out whenever you want.
2:40 Technical tips for effortless ‘squealers’ whenever you want them! Where you pick the string and how you’re holding the pick can make a big difference. We cover this and more in this section of the lesson.
7:12 Adding vibrato to harmonics (here’s the secret to making them sound truly awesome…). It’s when you ‘shake’ pinch harmonics that they really start to come to life. This is what gives them that lyrical ‘scream’ that we hear in the playing of guitarists like Zakk Wylde. Check him out, he’s possibly got the most aggressive pinch harmonics out of any player out there!
8:00 Bending strings with pinch harmonics (for high energy rock and metal licks which will really turn heads!) Adding a harmonic to a string bend adds a whole new sound to your ‘bending toolbox’. Check out some tips and techniques here.
9:20 Three licks for pinch harmonic practice and to use in your guitar solos. These licks are coming from the A minor pentatonic scale and give you some cool ways to integrate harmonics into your solos. Try them out over a backing track in A minor to see how you can get them to work.
12:05 How to use picking hand muting to make your harmonics stand out even more (all the legends do this simple trick…)
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Play Guitar Faster Today
with these proven speed building exercises and techniques
I’m not gonna lie to you…lots of people have said I ramble too much at the start of this lesson. It’s true! It was my first ever video and I was a little nervous! You can skip ahead if you like and get to the meat of the lesson. Either way check it out because these speed building and metronome practice techniques will massively increase your guitar playing speed if you use them. Have fun!
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Play Guitar Faster – Speeding Up Your Guitar Playing – Conquer fast guitar licks, speed up your guitar playing, improve your finger independence, fretboard hand strength, stretching and soloing ideas!
2:45 – 5 super important principles you need to know about increasing the speed of your guitar playing and how to practice building your speed. Starting slow, using a metronome, working on problem areas, making up your own guitar exercises and licks and more. Doing all of this will hep you to play guitar faster.
7:20 – 3 step action plan for building your speed and learning to play any lick or exercise faster. Use this in your practice routine and you’ll see great progress! You’ll probably see an increase in your playing speed in just a couple of minutes. Find your cruising speed – this is the speed at which you can comfortably loop the lick or exercise around. Then bump up the metronome speed and practice playing the lick once at this speed. Then play it twice, and when you’re ready play it 3 times. When you’ve got it try looping it round and round at the new speed. A good target speed for sextuplet licks is 120 bpm (beats per minute) on your metronome.
8:19 The minor pentatonic scale shape and Lick 1. This is in the style of Randy Rhoads, but it’s a very commonly played lick. It’s straightforward and easy to slip into your playing. Here you’ll see a demonstration of how to use the metronome to effectively increase your playing speed.
14:58 How to make sure your playing is totally in time. This is a super important guitar tip so check it out!
15:25 Lick 2 is a blues rock lick in the style of Slash, Zakk Wylde and many other great guitarists. How to use the metronome and 3 step action plan to increase the speed of this lick.
18:10 – Lick 3 is a great left hand hammer on and pull off exercise in the style of guitar players like Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Randy Rhoads and most other modern rock guitar legends. The A minor lick is in 16th notes and will help you improve your finger independence, fretting hand stretching ability, and little finger strength and accuracy. Then see how to break it up into chunks, work on each section with the metronome to build your speed, before putting it back together to get a great guitar workout. A great target speed for 16th note type licksis 160 bpm on your metronome. Give it a shot!
25:20 – Lick 4 is a great speed guitar lick using the A blues scale. It’s an awesome left hand hammer on and pull off exercise which will work great in a guitar solo. Break it up into chunks and perfect each part of the lick before adding them together for a left hand blues scale shredfest!
28:20 – How to integrate licks and exercises into your playing so you can use what you learn from your practice time.
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Power Up Your Alternate Picking Chops
with this picking masterclass & workout
How cool would it be to be able to play fast phrases in your solos? It would be fantastic! Right?
Well, in this lesson I’ll show you how to power up your alternate picking technique with some simple exercises.
Learn:
- How to position your picking hand, wrist, elbow and shoulder (super important for flowing, tension free picking)
- How to develop accuracy and control in your picking
- Tips for ‘synching up’ your picking hand and your fretting hand for flawless playing
- A great exercise to help you to power up your picking (and reach those top speeds!)
Don’t forget to Get Your Free ‘Alternate Picking Workout Guide’ Featuring Full TAB For This Lesson!
Get Your Free ‘Alternate Picking Workout Guide’ Featuring Full TAB For This Lesson!
Alternate Picking Guitar Lesson and Workout
0:14 Hear me demonstrate the alternate picking workout I’m going to teach you in this guitar lesson. It looks complicated but is super quick and easy to learn and will help you develop your picking technique and speed up your guitar playing!
1:15 Super important principles you need to know about alternate picking! Your picking hand, elbow, wrist and arm need to be relaxed and free from tension. This will fight you and lead to poor tone, rhythm and control. Also use just the tip of the plectrum or pick. Keep your picking hand very close to the guitar strings and develop the ability to pick with small, controlled and even up and down picks. This might not happen instantly – but regular picking practice on your guitar WILL pay off!
2:22 Many people focus exclusively on their picking hand when working out on their alternate picking but remember your fretboard hand has to be able to keep up! Keep your fingers near to the finger board and the guitar strings so their isn’t lots of extra movement. This will slow down your picking and affect your picking fluency.
3:40 Alternate picking exercise and workout. I’ll take you through it in stages as the exercise can basically be broken into 3 parts. It’s very chromatic in nature and not particularly musical sounding but it will help you develop good alternate picking.
3:56 Here you learn the first part of the picking workout. Make sure you’re following the strict alternate picking pattern of continuous down and up picks! This pattern uses all 4 fingers of your fretting hand too and will help you with your finger independence and fretboard accuracy.
6:26 Here you learn the second phrase in the alternate picking workout. Simlar to the first phrase but on the B string and top E string.
8:07 I’ll demonstrate the first 2 phrases put together here at a moderate tempo.
8:45 Here’s the final part of the alternate picking exercise. It’s all on the high E string and ascends and descends the string chromatically.
10:30 Summary of important points for your fretting hand and picking hand. The benefits of being able to use all 4 fretboard fingers.
11:08 Hear the whole picking workout played at a slow to moderate tempo.
12:13 Action plan for building your picking speed and making your picking rhythmic. This methods works for learning to play any lick or exercise faster. Use this in your practice routine and you’ll see great progress! You’ll probably see an increase in your playing speed in just a couple of minutes. To start with break up the picking exercise into each of the 3 phrases it uses. Find your cruising speed – this is the speed at which you can comfortably loop the lick or exercise around. Play the first part of the exercise once at this speed. Then play it twice, and when you’re ready play it 3 times. When you’ve got it try looping it round and round at this speed. Gradually increase the speed of your metronome ove your practice sessions. A good target speed for sixteenth notes 160 bpm (beats per minute) on your metronome.
15:06 How to make sure your playing is totally in time. This is a super important guitar tip so check it out!
16:00 Summary of how to practice the workout to boost your alternate picking.
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Get Your Fingerstyle Up and Running Fast
with this ‘fingerstyle essentials’ masterclass
Get Your Free ‘Finger Picking Handbook’ Featuring Full TAB & Chord Shapes For This Lesson!
Learn correct fingerstyle hand position, which fingers to use for fingerpicking plus tips and hacks which will get you fingerpicking straight away. I’ll also teach you two short fingerstyle pieces using simple chord shapes which you can use to build fingerstyle technique and fingerpicking mastery!
Fingerpicking is a really cool and useful guitar technique which most great guitar players use sometimes- even if they’re not really known as acoustic guitar or fingerstyle guitarists. It’s a great way to add colour and texture to a song and just has a different sound and attack to playing with a pick or strumming.
1:58 Basic fingerstyle technique involves using the fingers on your right hand (if you play right handed) to pick or pluck the strings on the guitar. Normally the thumb will pick any notes on the low E,A or D string. The 1st or index finger plays the G string, the 2nd or middle finger plays the B string and the 3rd or ring finger plays the high E string.
3:05 It is really important to be consistent in your fingerpicking technique. Use the method above all the time to start with and check you are not deviating from it – at least for now. Being consistent will pay off. You’ll make less mistakes, it will be easier and your fingerpicking will progress much faster than if you are not consistent in your approach.
3:55 Follow these fingerpicking guidelines to avoid slowing down your progress.
4:15 Correct picking hand position for finger picking guitar. Keep your hand close to the strings with your thumb pointing along the length of the string. Each finger should sit right by the string it is going to be picking. Check your hand is not too far away from the strings – this will hold you up!
5:20 Guidelines for finger picking action. Don’t let your fingers snatch at the strings. Just pluck them with a firm but smooth and controlled movement
5:55 Make sure your finger picking is rhythmic, in time and with an even attack across all the strings. This is essential for developing a controlled and musical fingerstyle technique.
8:14 Here’s the first finger picking study demonstrated for you. This is an easy piece to start finger picking with. It uses 3 fingerpicking patterns and a G chord, Cadd9 chord, a D chord and an Em7 chord.
10:15 How to play G, Cadd9, D and Em7 chord shapes used.
12:40 Learning the picking patterns used on the G, C, D and Em7chord shapes and connecting up the sections of the fingerpicking piece.
18:09 Demonstration of the whole finger picking practice piece.
19:34 Awesome practice tip for improving new finger picking patterns and getting them nailed! This practice technique really works.
21:04 More advanced patterns you can use on G, Caddy9, D and Em7 chords. Put these together to play the more advanced fingerpicking example piece.
25:58 Demonstration of the more advanced example piece and tips for better fingerstyle playing and performance.
26:58 Recap on lesson and fingerstyle technique.
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