I can’t alternate pick

[Matt Wildman]

So recently I’ve been revisiting the alternate picking exercises in syns Etudes and I can do it slow but when I go faster I start economy picking…which is hard not to do because I learned how to economy pic before I really decided to learn alternate picking. I just find it so hard to play fast that way for some reason. Tips? Anything thanks

 

[idssdi]

I economy pick with every chance I get aswell. The two things that helped me with my alternate picking are:
1. String Skipping. So go to the alternate picking etudes and try to learn how to play the ones with string Skipping in them(or learn how to play some Paul Gilbert licks he skips strings all the time)
2. Play pentatonics the ‘conventional’ way. So just 2 note per string like most people play them. You can’t economy pick those so when you want to pick every note you will have to alternate pick.

 

[Ethan Keeling]

I didnt have the exact same problem but my guitar tutor told me to put a metronome on (as fast as you want it) and if you play, say for an example, a pentatonic scale, play the notes twice. So thats the same note twice before moving to the next. It helped me as its a constant repeat of alternate picking a scale but for longer.
Try something like this (i defo recommend a metronome on slow) and just repeatedly do it until you feel more than confident to increase the tempo. this should solve your problem. like Syn said, its easy to break bad habits early on as oppose to later on when you develop the bad habits.
good luck, hope this made sense!

 

[Matt Wildman]

Those sound like good tips guys! Yeah I’ll definitely do the pentatonic scale and I’ll try playing the notes twice

 

[Calvin Phillips]

Yeah any odd numbers and you’ll automatically think triplet.
Make yourself think doubles.

 

[Ed Seith]

The other approach to Ethan’s method on 3nps scales is to play each string’s sequence twice, so:
3-5-7-3-5-7
then move up to the notes on the next string.
By using an even number of notes you can use Troy Grady’s downward or upward pickslanting method which makes for smoother and faster picking overall.

 

[Jak Angelescu]

Matt my friend your last video you posted was on March 28th. I would love to encourage you to post a video of you alternate picking! Also don’t just focus on Syn’s etudes. Do the lessons throughout the school that will actually help you learn how to alternate pick properly. Those etudes are just exercises. But there could be some basic fundamentals you are missing. I would like for you to post a video up so we can see what you are actually doing to see if there is something that you are doing that’s inhibiting your progression