Picking techniques

Alternate picking, palm muting, strumming, legato and sweep picking, with step-by-step demos.

Essential

Content under musical review. It may contain inaccuracies.

This collection gathers what you need to play with a pick with control and evenness. Start with basic technique and alternate picking, add palm muting for rhythmic tones, move on to strumming chords and combine the pick with legato for smoother phrases. Sweep picking closes the path as an advanced technique.

Each topic comes with a step-by-step demo: read it first, then follow the steps with the guitar in your hands and a slow metronome. Move on only when each step sounds clean.

In this collection

1 · TopicPicking techniqueHow to hold the pick, alternate picking, string crossings and building speed with a metronome without tension.
2 · DemoDemo: alternate pickingFive steps to learn to alternate downstrokes and upstrokes, from an open string to three-notes-per-string phrases.
3 · DemoDemo: palm mutingFive steps to partly damp the strings with the edge of your hand for a dry, percussive attack.
4 · TopicStrummingThe pendulum motion, basic eighth- and sixteenth-note patterns, accents and muted strums.
5 · TopicLegatoHammer-ons, pull-offs and slides; how to sound notes without picking them while keeping volume and control.
6 · DemoDemo: hammer-on and pull-offFive steps to sound notes with the fretting hand alone, by hammering onto and pulling off the string.
7 · TopicSweep pickingFast arpeggios with one pick motion per direction; syncing both hands and muting each note so it doesn't sound like a chord.