Learn The Simplicity Of Guitar Picking

Most serious guitar pickers recommend quite a heavy pick. I recently read about a guy who used a dime for guitar picking, that is heavy. Or you can buy picks from the guitar shop and cut them to a size that suits you. You can go to any lengths to suit your own individual style. One thing you must always do though, is hold the pick between your index finger and your thumb. As you practice your picking exercises you need to pay strict attention to how you are holding the pick. You get a much cleaner sound if you hold the pick parallel to the strings. If you angle the pick the attack will be soft and mushier.

To develop picking speed just work on your alternative picking. Start with downstrokes and alternate with up strokes, not paying any attention to have last your picking at this stage. Once you can do even strokes without hurting yourself start practicing with the metronome set at the lowest speed.

Here is a useful tutorial on guitar picking.

If you look at your peak you will see that one part is pointier than the other two angles. That’s the bit you apply to the strings. What you should be mostly working on as a beginner guitar pick up is your down and up strokes, daily practice will develop your speed. Different guitars have different attitudes to how to practice speaking. Some say that you should keep your wrist very tight and rigid so that the movement is coming from your elbow. Your body is probably going to be telling you to do the movement from the wrist, and the you will probably end up striking a happy medium.

All guitar practice involves some kind of discomfort, but if you find that your wrist, arm, back or shoulder is getting painful, then stop. Do not play through the pain, that is for movie heroes. If you start to hurt then stop playing. If it’s starts again when you begin playing tomorrow, maybe you should see a doctor.

Even if you’re not a serious metal guitar player, you will probably want to learn palm muting technique. Rest the heel of your hand on top of the strings, in front of the guitar bridge. If you have volume and distortion turned up try varying amounts of pressure with your hand to get subtle nuances of heavy metal chugging. You can even use very light pressure to let the strings ring a little.

Let’s not forget the Duane Eddy twang. You get that twangy sound by playing near the bridge, if you want a more mellow sound move your picking hand towards the neck.

And to finish this post a couple of alternate picking guitar video lessons:

Tom Kopyto "Alternate Picking Exercise" Video Guitar Lesson – Click here for the funniest movie of the week

Of course you are going to be in need of further exercises for getting your up and down strokes flowing automatically. You can get these from a teacher or from an internet search. For practicing muting and experimenting with different sounds, you should already know some songs you want to fool around with.