Alternate Picking

When beginner guitarists play single notes for the first time, they will most likely use downward picking strokes all the time. Alternate picking involves alternating downward and upward picking strokes in a continuous run.

So instead of playing:

downward pick, downward pick, downward pick, downwardpick, etc.

You would play:

downward pick, upward pick, downward pick, upward pick, etc

Why use alternate picking? Alternate picking is simply more efficient and will let you play as fast as possible. When you downward pick all the time, you are not only tiring out your arm from continually moving your pick back up to the top of the string to downpick again, you are wasting time.

The 2 tabs below are identical, the only difference being the first one is just using downpicking and the second one is using alternate picking. Try playing both. The "D"s and "U"s directly above the notes represent downstroke pick and upstroke pick respectively. While the first example will probably be easier for you at first, it is imperative you master the second example. In time, you will start to realize how effective and easier alternate picking can be.

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The secret to learning the guitar as fast as possible: consistency. Don't confuse consistency with thinking this means you need all the free time in the world for guitar lessons. Practising the material I teach you for just 10 minutes per day will be far more beneficial to you than practising once a month for 6 hours in one sitting.

About Us

Contact us at stupideasyguitar [at] gmail.com. The goal of this site is to teach people how to play the guitar as quickly and easily as possible. From what I've found, guitar teachers and instructors often don't teach their students things that will help them learn the instrument as fast as possible. Why? Well, a lot of guitar teachers are classically trained so they will teach their students things like how to read music which can be very time consuming, frustrating and boring for beginner guitarists. While there is nothing wrong with learning how to read music, this should never be taught at the beginning of the guitar learning process because its gets in the way of teaching students things that are much easier to learn so they can get playing recognizable riffs, chords and songs on the guitar as soon as possible. The more students aren't learning the simple and easy things first, the greater the chance there is of them quitting and giving up on the guitar altogether.