Electric Guitar Tips&Tricks #1 - Speed Picking

What's up, Steemians! I have a bit more free time recently and I decided to turn it into something productive and useful. I would like to share with you my 20-year experience of playing the guitar and hopefully contribute something to your guitar playing and to our Steemit community!

Today I'd like to take a closer look at speed picking, or alternate picking in general. We will focus on rhyhtm guitar today, however the same technique principles can be transferred to soloing as well. In guitar playing everything is connected and intertwined, nothing stands on its own, that's the magic of it!

First of all, a few words about perfect speed ticking technique. There is one man in the music business who's got it all when it comes to speed picking, and that is Vogg of Decapitated, one of the biggest bands in death metal today. His riffs are based on muted speed picking and he is flawless. Check out the intro riff here:

Making of "Carnival is Forever" album with some mind-boggling speed picking riffs:

So, this is where you want to get your picking technique in the end. It's powerful, fast, precise and killing.

Let's get down to business, here are my tips for developing good speed picking technique:

Focus on your wrist

You should focus all your energy on the wrist, you execute speed picking from your wrist. Many guitar players switch to forearm once they go to higher tempos, the trick is to always control your picking movement and to make sure that you use your wrist. You will notice your arm tensing when playing at demanding tempos, say over 210 BPM. It is natural and OK, in my humble opinion, as long as your execution comes from your wrist. The more you practise your speed picking the higher the point when you start tensing, hence everyday practice is virtually necessary if you are seriously thinking of improving your picking technique.

You need attack

I don't mean attack to an extent when you are attempting to break strings and you are changing the pitch because of the exaggerated force of picking. However, I have seen many fellow touring musicians who "pet" strings instead of attacking them. Great rhythm guitar players have great string attack. If you want your riffs to have heavy, machine-gun-like sound you won't achieve it playing light.

Pick on all strings

Something that many guitar players, including myself, got trapped in at some point. You need to develop the same speed technique on all strings. You might not need them all for rhythm sections, but speed picking is necessary to play killing solos. Practice on all strings.

Play in front of a mirror

The only way to make sure that you are not acquiring bad habits when practising speed picking is to do it in front of a mirror. Monitor every minute of your practice and be always on top of things when it comes to your technique. You don't want to develop bad habits as far as your picking technique is concerned cause it takes months, if not years to get rid of them.

It is OK to practise your right hand only

There is nothing bad with seperating your hands when you focus on a particular aspect of your guitar playing. If you are really serious about your picking technique, I highly recommend you spend hours, days, weeks and months focusing on your right hand only for at least 30-60 minutes a day.

Accentuate important notes

When you play fast speed picking riffs you need a compass, something that always tells you where you are. Those are notes which you should accentuate, attack them harder with your wrist. It will always be the first note in a riff, and depending on the riff, you might want to place an accent every 4 notes, every 8 notes, every 12 notes, etc.

These are just some main ideas that have helped me to develop a speed picking technique that I am satisfied with and that allowed me to play with some great bands in death metal genre, that is Decapitated, Cryptopsy, Decrepit Birth and others. I will put some videos in the next post which will give you a more detailed view on my idea of practising speed picking. Hope you enjoyed it, I appreciate your feedback, see you next time.

Earworm