Alternate Picking Exercises 1 & 2 – Lesson 40
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Here is exercise 1 at 100 bpm for the scales and at 50 Bpm and 100 bpm for 2 arpeggios. Sorry for the sloppy playing with the arpeggios at times, my ring finger has like the length that if I don't put my finger down in a specific way the string falls on the part between two joints and that actually hurts quite a lot
With exercise 1, something that helped me get strictly alternate picking and not accidentally doing two down picks in a row is focusing on which string is which stroke. So if you start on a down, the next string will start on an up, then the next one a down etc. Going over this slowly helped me stop accidentally resetting my alternate picking back to a down stroke 
Hope this is helpful for someone/ makes sense (if I worded it badly and you have any questions let me know!)
Hope this is helpful for someone/ makes sense (if I worded it badly and you have any questions let me know!)
Any thoughts on when it is reasonable to mark this complete? This is biggest "blank" for me on working on the lessons here like it's a class in general. Target BPM's or other specific guidance would be great. For example, I can play these at 120 bpm in eighth-note triplets, which may be fast for some and slow for others. It doesn't feel right to mark it complete just because I can play it cleanly at slow tempo, and while I do want to increase my playing speed, what's good enough here? This is an intermediate lesson, and there's advanced alternate picking as well, so maybe those should be executed at a fast pace?
For me, when it's 8th triplets, the mark is 200 bpm, and when it's 16ths I set it on 175 bpm.
I would recommend setting the mark at a speed that makes it a little uncomfortable to play but not impossible so you don't burn out on the same exercise. Then you can come back after you complete all lessons and ser the bar higher than the first time.
Honestly, there isn't really a mark per se. The Mark is when you are able to play the stuff you want to play. For example, do you want to play a solo that uses alternate picking at 180 BPM 16th note triplets than that's your mark. The exercise itself is really mostly to develop the technique, it's not as if there is a rule see in stone about what BPM you have to reach to complete the lesson. If you are fine with playing it at 120 BPM eight note triplets and don't have the desire to play faster than that you already me your mark.
I also never really used exercises to develop my technique, I used songs to do it so I always used the speed in songs I was learning as the mark I was aiming for. That said, learning something works differently for everybody.
Hmm, thank you for sharing. I understand using songs you want to play as a motivator, that's how I got into guitar in the first place. I guess I relate to this to something like a sport, say, basketball, where playing the song is like the "game" itself and technique practice like alternate picking/legato/etc. is like doing drills that help you prepare for the game. But you don't just sign up for the NBA and start doing Steph Curry half-court shots. We start at free throws and when you can make 8/10 on average we'll move to the jump shot, but not until you can do that bare minimum, and then a 3 pointer, etc. Just like if I were to grab an alternate picking etude and say I wanna play this at full speed so I'm just going to practice this until I get to that speed. It's probably better to do something simpler at this speed, then that's a checkpoint and you can move on to this next level/next exercise.
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