Guthrie Govan Alternate Picking Guitar Lesson Masterclass | Licklibrary Guitar Lessons

hi I'm Guthrie Govan I've been asked by the good  people at lick library to do a little talk on   alternate picking and how you can build up speed  how to work on your alternate picking technique   especially should start by thinking about the  nature of the pick you use and I'd like to try   and sell you two ideas one life is a lot easier if  your pick is quite thick and rigid and isn't gonna   flap about and the basic logic behind this is best  understood if you think about a writing analogy if   you're trying to write with a rubber pencil and  what the end of the pencil would actually end up   doing would be a combination of what your fingers  told it to do and what the rubber felt like doing   obviously you want to cut out that unpredictable  element you want the end of the Pixar they're   exactly what it's told so the thicker and more  rigid that pick is there the better chance you've   got also I think you get a wider dynamic range  with a thick pick you can really dig into a note   a lot more the other thing that's that I've seen  hold back a lot of people trying to work in their   picking is what happens at the point of your pig  I think it's very very helpful to have a pointed   pick rather than a rounded one if you just think  about that the nature of the pick is gonna take   you less time to get that point from one side  of the string to the other so grab that pointy   pick that pointy thick pick and let's think  about the mechanics of alternate picking and general idea behind alternate picking is whenever  you do a downstroke rather than following it with   another down stroke you might as well use that  upward motion that your hand is doing in between   the two downs and play another note with that so  in other words if you've got a string of notes to   play you should be picking down on the first one  up on the second one down on the third up on the   fourth I needn't go on alright so basically what  you need to do with your pick is make sure there's   not too much of it sticking out and that you've  got a firm grip on it that it's a firm connection   between what your hand is doing and where you're  touching the string some players like to hold the   pick like that kind of between the underside of  the thumb and the underside of the fingertip I'm   more of a fan of tilting the pick round slightly  like that so it's more between that pad of the   thumb and the side of the index finger that  seems like a more natural grip and that way   you can keep your wrist straight and as you as  your hand descends on the guitar you see how   straight the wrist is and that the pick is lined  up they're slightly at an angle some people tell   you the angled approach is wrong I put it to you  it's more like this and if you pick at an angle you get a little kind of biting attack at the  start of the note whereas if you pick like that   so the flat of the pick is all touching the  string you get more of a round tone and then   you compare that again with the pick at an angle  okay there's something sharper at the start of the   note there so it's flat flat of the pick there  and the edge of the pick they're both valid I   think it beats buying pedals it's good to have  both of those at your disposal and I think you   can switch between the two you can find the right  amount of angle just by kind of feeling your way   around to pick like that and while your hands in  that playing position well soon find something   that's comfortable if it doesn't feel natural  it's probably doing it wrong so it's worth   spending some time just making sure it doesn't  tire your hand out when you pick for extended   periods of time and try and find something that  feels as easy as possible the next thing we need   to worry about is muting there whenever you  play a note on any string pardon me if this   sounds a bit Zen but that means there's five  other strings that you don't want to be hearing   and in the case of this note here's just third  fret on the g string what you don't want to hear   is that the top two strings there which you'd  meet with the underside of this hand and these   three strings here the round ones you don't  hear those either so the solution there is to   incorporate into your picking technique some bit  of flesh that you're not using for me it's there   although the some players it's more this part  down here that will rest comfortably on those   strings so you only hear that one note when you  stop playing there's a nice satisfying silence all right next thing to worry about is anchoring  I think it's important to feel as many points of   contact between your forearm your hands and  the body of the guitar not so important now   I'm sitting here comfortably in the chair but if  I were trying to run around the stage and play at   the same time it would be like trying to hit a  moving target whereas if you rest your forearm   maybe somewhere around here and then rest that  part that we're using for muting anyway on the   low strings then you've got a solid connection  all the way down and you had almost feels like   part of the guitar and then you can start  worrying about the actual movement look   results in alternate picking and I've seen a lot  of people do this wrong for one of the better word   some people think it's best to move the pick like  that between the thumb and the forefinger now it   seems to me your thumb and your forefinger have  already got enough to worry about gripping the   pick making sure not too much of it sticking out  and generally squeezing it to determine how loud   the note comes out you don't to have to move  that whole assembly as well every time you're   picking a note so instead of that I would say  try and lock that thumb and forefinger assembly   there and then let your wrist do the work it's  just slight movement of the wrist anyone who's   tried to play funk guitar will be familiar  with this because a funk guitar is all about and it's more clear there when the movement is  exaggerated to cover more strings that is the   risk during the work I've seen some players  get great results picking from the elbow like   that I think the problem there is after about 10  seconds of an intense picking you start to seize   up along here and you don't want to be seizing  up I think moving from the wrist ultimately is   the most comfortable weight of it and therefore  the way that you can be able to sustain for the   longest period of time and no one should be  hurting themselves in the name of practice so   all right let's take a look at the most basic  exercise I could think of for working on your   alternate picking and that's the one where  you just take one note and pick it down up   down up down up and then gradually try and  speed it up aiming for evenness of the notes and if you can't maintain that for a good length  of time the chances are you'd be holding the pick   inefficiently or you're making your elbow to do  too much work it must be possible to do this for   lengthy lengthy periods because just imagine what  a mandolin player has to do they play everything   like that all right so if you think from that  perspective alternate picking really isn't   anything to be worried about the other thing you  can do keeping things nice and basic is just to   work on the dynamics and one of the one of most  important factors in music is just the volume at   which you play any given note and I think it's  an interesting just to start with a really quiet and you learn a lot about how your picking hand  works just by trying to get a smooth rise in the   dynamic level there when you've got a clean sound  like that it tends to mean that the note gets   louder and softer but even if you've got a lot  of gain going on it will still make a difference   to the sound the harder you hit it the more like  Paul Gilbert it sounds so an interesting reference   point in there all right once you work on that  for a while you should find it starts to feel   nice and natural and then you can worry more about  syncing it up with what this hand is doing that's   all very well but after a while you want to play  some real music so what we need is some exercises   just to try and synchronize those two hands now  that the common one that you see all the time is and that's all well and good but the chances of  you using that liquor a gig are fairly minimal so   instead of that we should concentrate on scale  based exercises that actually fit other chords   and with that in mind let's have a look at this  one that's in the key of b-flat no common rock   keyboard sax players love it if you ever have  to play with one you know some notes that work   in b-flat and what you're doing there is a  you've got the third fifth and seventh fret   on the g string and you're going full finger first  finger second finger and then finger same finger and as you speed that up you'll find that you  reach a point where you can't concentrate on   every individual note anymore and that's  when the idea of targeting comes in the   idea there's one note and in my case is that  one thing it's the first one that falls on   the beat so as you kind of pick yourself into  a frenzy you're always looking forward to that   you start with you might want to hit that note  a little harder just to make sure you're always   aware of where the new pattern starts and the  old one's finished and that will stand you in   good stead after that if you want to extend  that a little bit the next thing to do would   be to make this assumption right I'm using  notes from the b-flat major scale let's look   for other notes from the b-flat major scale  on that same string 14 15 17 19 I'll stop   there so that means you can take that same basic  pattern and use different groups of three notes Oh all right so something like that and it's  introducing this new idea where you have to   shift this hand as well without this hand  that's doing the picking being thrown off   course so you'll have some fun with that so let's  look at some typical string crossing exercises there's one that all Paul Gilbert fans will know once again a b-flat major though this  time crossing strings there's you've   got this one lone 7th fret of the g  string and then 10 8 7 8 10 again on   the d string so there's a 6 note pattern  only one of the notes is on the g string and it's worth checking out whether you can  do that starting on a downstroke or starting   an upstroke it feels very very different you  probably find one way is easier than the other   but depending on what sort of player you are it  might be that you prefer starting on a down or   it might be that the up is easier the thing that  not many people go on to do is then try and reef   Inger that exercise so instead of this there just  being one note on the g-string you might have two this time you're picking hands has to change  strings in very different places this time   it's a seven five on the g-string and  then eight and seven on the d-string and then you could take that to logical extremes  move down another scale position and re finger   it's still say melody so you got seven five  and three on the g string and then just this   solitary seven on the D string and then straight  back to the G and if you can play that lick in   all three of those positions that's a good  introduction to string crossing hi this is   Guthrie Govan I'm here to talk about legato and  a much misunderstood technique this one to heard   but a lot of us do it to some extent basically  anyone who can't pick every note they're playing   is using Lagarto to some extent or another  whether they realize it or not if you keep   things nice and open like that it's more likely  you'll come up with something creative that fits   into your own playing using this technique first  things first how do you tap then to two kinds of   motion here one is the hammer on and maybe that  bluesy Bend at the end and 15th fret up to an a   and now the conventional way of picking that  would be down up down up one day sometime ago   a lazy guitarists discovered that if you just  do three down strokes in a row it feels like   one down stroke you're saving a lot of movement  and the upshot of that is you can play quicker

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Id: 51OMFYGG-fs

Length: 14min 35sec (875 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 23 2015