Hey guys, and welcome to Metal For Breakfast, Volume 1. In this lesson I will be discussing on how to develop your picking technique, as I know a lot of you have been talking about it, and I know a few guitar players personally who just can’t seem to develop their picking at all because of bad habits and bad technique.
This first picking lesson will hopefully help you get a head start in your picking.
The following will consist of some picking shapes or patterns. We won’t worry about putting them into actual music right now, just get your coordination between your picking and fretting hand down.
Before I start, here are some tips to remember when practicing:
1:) Always start slow, and then speed it up….ALWAYS. Accuracy is a byproduct of speed.
2.) Practice all the time
3.) Play these types of licks clean and with distortion. This is important because if you use distortion all the time, it can mask how the lick actually sounds, but if you play it clean, you can hear your mistakes. The reason you must also practice these with distortion though, is that you must practice your muting technique to avoid excess string noise.
4.) Record yourself playing because sometimes when you are practicing, you don’t get a sense of what the “audience” will hear sometimes, so record yourself on whatever you have, and listen to it and critique it to the best of your ability.
Ok, so lets get started. You can play these patterns using alternate picking or economy picking. It does not matter. (I myself am an economy picker).
This is a pattern using fingers 1,2,4
This is a pattern using fingers 1,3,4
This is a pattern using fingers 1,3,4 (if you prefer to use your middle finger for whole steps, that’s cool)
Ok, so the above patterns I use all the time, and so do pretty much all other shred heads (petrucci, gilbert, malmsteen, etc.). There are other patterns that I will show later, but that is enough for you to practice for now. Don’t forget that you can use these patterns anywhere on the neck in any combination on any string.
So now what I’m gonna do, is put these patterns into use by giving you actual licks. Remember…I am not putting these into actual music for you yet
Shred Guitar Licks Intro
Shred Guitar Lick #1
Shred Guitar Lick #1 – Slow
Shred Guitar Lick #1 – Fast
Shred Guitar Lick #2
Lick #2 Audio Guitar Lesson
Shred Guitar Lick #2 – Slow
Shred Guitar Lick #2 – Fast
Shred Guitar Lick #3
Lick #3 Audio Guitar Lesson
Shred Guitar Lick #3 – Slow
Shred Guitar Lick #3 – Fast
Shred Guitar Lick #4
Lick #4 Audio Guitar Lesson
Shred Guitar Lick #4 – Slow
Shred Guitar Lick #4 – Fast
Shred Guitar Lick #5
Lick #5 Audio Guitar Lesson
Shred Guitar Lick #5 – Slow
Shred Guitar Lick #5 – Fast
Shred Guitar Lick #6 (Betchya can’t play this)
Lick #6 Audio Guitar Lesson
Shred Guitar Lick #6 – Slow
Shred Guitar Lick #6 – Fast
Jeff’s Final Words of Shred Guitar Wisdom
Well, that’s the end of volume 1. I hope you guys enjoyed it and it helps your picking technique…stay tuned for volume 2 which will deal with putting these sorts of licks into actual music using modes. (Cyberfret Note: Unfortunately there never was a Volume 2, but I hope you have enjoyed Volume 1)
