Alternate Picking Tips: Grip for Fast Playing

Alternate Picking: Essential Grip for fast articulated picking

Hi Guys

Today, a “Re-Post” that some of you have been searching for:

It’s the look at alternate picking plectrum/pick grip page.

PLEASE NOTE: This page/blog is only for anyone who might be having problems with holding the pick for long periods when improvising, or moving from the improvised line back to chord melody.

It’s not so important how you hold the pick or what finger you use. But, it is essential not to have a wobbly thumb and/or finger .

Three pictures demonstrating how to grip the guitar pick correctly for fast alternate picking guitar phrases in the syle of malmsteen, mclaughlin and al di meola and other guitar shredders.

A lot of guitar players when they start out with alternate picking often change the grip just as they are about the pluck the string! This makes it impossible to gauge distance.

When the thumb is rigid and the grip is solid, distance, articulation and timing fall into place automatically.

Pic 1: Good solid grip

Example of how to grip the guitar pick correctly for fast alternate picking in the syle of guitarists like malmsteen, mclaughlin and al di meola

Pic 2: Pick confidently plucks string

Image depicting how to grip the guitar pick correctly for fast alternate picking guitar technique

Below [Pic 3]: BAD!

At the last moment the pick is turned as it is about to pluck the string and the thumb and finger wobble/collapse:

Here are a couple of exercises for practicing whilst getting the feel of gripping the pick firmly.

The first is a simple A minor Pentatonic scale in sextuplets.

Counting basic 1 2 3 4 5 6:

This starts on a down stroke:

Next we have the same thing but in groups of four 16th notes.

alternate-picking-guitar-techniques-exercise

It’s a good idea to play around with these two exercises by mixing the groups of 4 and 6 together and create little phrases out of them.

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