Category: Guitar Technique

October 12, 2010

Guitar Lesson: A Great Guitar Technique Building Song

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Over the last several blog posts, we’ve been looking at the most common guitar techniques. We covered the basics of:

Alternate Picking

Hammer-ons and Pull-offs

Sweep Picking

String Skipping

Stretching

Today we will apply alternate picking, flat picking, sweep picking and string skipping guitar techniques to a fun bluegrass piece from the 1800′s called “Jack Lamson’s Hornpipe”.

This piece offers quite a lot for guitar players.  As I mentioned, the song is fun to play and works well at all tempos.

The song uses primarily alternate picking.  There are also some arpeggio passages were sweep picking works great.  For example, the second half of measure 1 is a great spot for sweep picking.

In measure 15 you will find a string skipping passage.

This arrangement for Jack Lamson’s Hornpipe is in F major.  The scale form that is used throughout is:

Here is the PDF sheet music with tab for Jack Lamson’s Hornpipe for you to print off and get started on.

Have fun!

October 6, 2010

Guitar Technique Tutorial: How to Sweep Pick

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Alternate picking is an extremely efficient picking technique for melodic patterns that ascend or descend on a single string or a group of strings.  However, when you encounter a situation where there is only one note played per string you will find sweep picking to be much more effective.

Sweep Picking

An arpeggio is produced by playing the notes of a chord one-by-one.  Arpeggios are often played with just one note per string.  Instead of using alternate picking to play arpeggios, you will find sweep picking to be more efficient.

In sweep picking, you use as many continuous down or up-strokes as possible.  If the arpeggio changes direction, you simply reverse your picking.

In Sweep Picking Exercise #1 you will see an E major arpeggio.  In this fingering for the arpeggio, there is one note on each string.  The way to play this is to use one continuous down-stroke for strings 5-1 and then one continuous up-stroke for strings 2-4.

Sweep picking gets its name from the way it looks when performed—it looks like you are sweeping across the strings with your pick.

Sweep Picking Exercise # 1

E major arpeggio

Sweep Picking Exercise # 2

E major arpeggio

In some arpeggios you will need to play two notes on a string.  To do this use alternate picking on the strings that have two notes and sweep pick the rest.

In Sweep Picking Exercise #2 you will see that we have added in one additional chord tone for the arpeggio.  There are now two notes played on the first string.  This means you will need to use a combination of sweep picking and alternate picking.

For more powerful guitar technique building exercises check out my courses How I Got Killer Guitar Chops While I Was Still in High School: Confessions of a High School Shredder and Mega Chops: Scale Mastery Beyond Hanon.

October 4, 2010

Guitar Tutorial: 6 Simple and Effective Stretching Exercises

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Finger stretches are often required for performing scales, chords and songs.

The following exercises will help promote flexibility and stretching capability in your fret-hand.

It is best to perform some warm-up alternate picking and hammer-on/pull-off exercises before you begin the stretching exercises—this means that your muscles will be warm.  The most effective stretching occurs when muscles are warm.

The stretching exercises presented here should first be performed with alternate picking.  Once you begin to find the stretches relatively easy to perform, you should then begin to play these exercises as hammer-ons and pull-offs.

The next step is to increase the actual stretch.  If the stretch is one fret, make it two frets; if the stretch is three frets, make it four frets, etc.

As you move each exercise up the fretboard it will get easier to perform the stretches because the frets get smaller.

Each of the exercises shown here begin on the first fret.  If you find the stretch very difficult to perform you can begin the exercise on the fifth, sixth or seventh frets, etc.  Also, you can decrease the required inter-finger stretch by one fret or more if required.

Remember, when you stretch you should stretch only to the point of mild discomfort and then back off a little.  Remember, stretching will not increase your flexibility if you experience any pain.

Stretching Exercise # 1

This exercise uses fingers one and two.  The stretch is one fret.  Remember to practice these exercises on each fret.

Stretching Exercise # 2

This exercise uses fingers one and three.

Stretching Exercise # 3

This exercise uses fingers one and four.

Stretching Exercise # 4

This exercise uses fingers two and three.

Stretching Exercise # 5

This exercise uses fingers two and four.

Stretching Exercise # 6

This exercise uses fingers three and four.

Want more stretching?  Check out my post -> Simple and Effective Guitar Flexibility and Finger Stretching Exercise.

For more powerful guitar technique building exercises check out my course How I Got Killer Guitar Chops While I Was Still in High School: Confessions of a High School Shredder.

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