So I know that sounds cocky, but since I developed this exercise, it really is the ONLY thing I do to develop my picking. It’s just a very versatile exercise that you can make simple alterations to in order to focus on different picking styles.
We’re going to start with alternate picking. Alternate picking is when you ALWAYS pick down-up-down-up-down-up… We will be using a simple 3-note figure that goes across two strings. The thing that makes this tricky is that you are alternate picking an odd number of notes, which results in your pick direction for each note switching every time you repeat the figure.
Play that 4x, then start moving it up one fret at a time until you reach the 12th fret. Once you get up there, play it 4x, then start moving back down. Make sure that you are emphasizing the down BEATS, not just the down STROKES. Do it with a metronome too! (those things are very important)
Now we’re going to turn it into an economy picking exercise! Economy picking means that whenever you move to a lower string, the first note you pick will be an upstroke, and whenever you move to a higher string, the first note you pick will be a downstroke. Sweep picking is a an application of economy picking. When we play the same figure above with an economy picking style, we will play it like this:
It feels a little different, but more importantly, it SOUNDS different. Try coming up with some other picking patterns. D-U-D is a good one, so is U-D-U; you could even try all upstrokes if you want.
Now we’re really going to start getting crazy! We’re going to incorporate some string skipping into this. Try playing this figure with all those different pick patterns you used on the previous one.
If you’re looking for an even greater challenge, we’ll up the ante and turn it into a 5-note pattern!
Yeah! That should get your brain all nice and befuzzled! But that’s the sort of thing that really helps develop your technique. You can toss practically any bizarre picking pattern (or rhythm) my way and I can do it without much trouble, and it’s all thanks to this exercise!
Lastly, I would like to talk about something I call “paraddidle picking”. A “paraddidle” is a basic drum rudiment where instead of alternating strikes with your left and right hand, you double up every third strike. This results in a R-L-R-R L-R-L-L pattern. I decided to try doing this with up and downstrokes, and it really is challenging (most of my Berklee teachers struggled to do this when I showed them, it really is THAT bizarre). All I do to practice this is pick a random note and trem pick it with this pattern: D-U-D-D-U-D-U-U. If you watch the video, you can see that I can do this pretty fast. It’s a great exercise and it has a unique sound to it as well. It’s just another way to play something… another color on your palette.