Spoiler: Yes, they can. Focusing intently on short rhythmic figures will up your picking game immensely.
Beginner
Intermediate
• Develop better right-hand technique.
• Learn how frequent rests can help you prevent injury.
• Understand how to isolate and improve picking weaknesses.
Whether you’re a lead player looking add some fast-picked lines to your vocabulary or a metal player who wants to play faster riffs, you’ll need a solid foundation to tackle the heavy-duty alternate picking that’s needed. It’s always good to have that technical headroom to express yourself without hitting the ceiling too quickly. In this lesson, we’ll look at how “speed bursts” can help you with short- and long-term technique goals.
There is no “correct” way of picking. Picking techniques vary from player to player and there are some odd ones, like Marty Friedman’s approach where he bends his wrist at almost a 90-degree angle.
MARTY FRIEDMAN - MIRACLE (Official Video)
Notice how other players pick from different parts of their arm. Paul Gilbert’s picking motion comes mostly from his wrist, while shredders like Vinnie Moore and Rusty Cooley derive their power from their elbow. It’s not important how you do it, just make sure not to create excessive tension. Now, some tension is ok, but if your tone gets buzzy or you’re having trouble controlling the rhythm you should probably slow down and relax a bit more. This is a trial-and-error process, so it’s important to be honest with yourself and reflect on what your hands are doing. You’ll get a feel for how much tension is appropriate.
That brings us to the next important point about picking: rhythm. It’s all about being in time. At a certain speed—which is different for everyone—our brains stop processing each note individually and think of them as a group of notes. At slower speeds, our brain processes each note we hear before sending out the signal to play the next note. This is what neuroscientists call an open feedback loop, while fast playing occurs in a closed feedback loop, where our brain sends out the signal for an entire group of notes that is processed as one unit. That means that playing slow and playing fast utilize different neurological processes and the old adage of practicing slow to play fast doesn’t work.
Yes, you do need to first practice something slow to properly learn the phrase or lick, but once you have it under your fingers, you must crank up the speed and focus on the first note that falls on each beat and let your brain build up those note groupings. This is known as a speed burst. That’s why being in time and having good rhythm is so important for this process.
Practicing at fast tempos will also expose problems in your technique and efficiency that don’t show during slow practice. I’ve included some basic exercises first to help you really feel the rhythm of the right hand.
Ex. 1 introduces the idea of speed bursts. I’m playing 16th-notes on the first three beats of the measure and then one beat of 32nd notes. That will help you to get used to how it feels to play fast and dial in your right-hand technique with these short bursts. I play four measures of this and then take a short break so as not to fatigue my hand too quickly.
Ex. 1
Start at a comfortable speed and, once you get a feel for it, increase the speed in increments of about 5 bpm until the point where the burst starts to feel a little uncomfortable. At that point I’d recommend single repetitions and focusing on the rhythmic feel. Take short breaks between every repetition. When you feel comfortable at that speed, add more repetitions. When you can do four comfortably, bump up the metronome until it’s uncomfortable again. This forces your body to adapt to the speed and actually get better. You don’t get faster by staying in your comfort zone. Also, don’t do this while watching TV as some people recommend. Mindful practice reaps much faster results than noodling away while being distracted, by a TV or anything else. I also find being really focused on what you’re doing prevents getting bored quite effectively.
Ex. 2 does the same but adds a triplet feel for the burst, forcing you to focus on the rhythm and timing even more. I try to feel the sextuplet as two groups of three. Personally, this gives me more rhythmic control when applying fast picking to string changes as opposed to feeling three groups of two. Try both and see what feels better to you. There are never too many ways to feel a rhythm.
Ex. 2
I use a triplet feel throughout Ex. 3, flipping the picking direction every measure. You’ll start with an upstroke in the second measure and the burst in the second measure will reverse the picking pattern. Take it slow at first to really get comfortable with that and then follow the above procedure again. This is a great exercise to lose excessive tension and focus on your upstroke. You can and should of course also practice starting all the other exercises on an upstroke as well.
Ex. 3
Ex. 4 is more for metal rhythm players who want to work on downstrokes at different subdivisions and then then add an alternate picked burst at the end.
Ex. 4
I use these first four examples as a right-hand warmup every day. Of course, there’ll be a point of diminishing returns once you hit certain speeds and you’ll reach that point rather quickly, which is why I focus most of my practice time on other aspects of my picking.
Let’s dive into some alternate-picking workouts. These are combinations of different short licks for you to work through. Practice each lick (marked by the letters in the notation) until you’ve got it under your fingers and then work through them back-to-back as a little routine. Start around 60 bpm and every time you get through about eight repetitions perfectly, bump up the speed. Once you start feeling uncomfortable, take a short break between every repetition. I prefer working through the licks in order because that improves your technique on a more general level and will translate better when you try to learn new songs or solos.
I usually spend about 25 minutes on one of those workouts building up speed. After staying at my limit for a few minutes I pick the lick that’s the least comfortable and lower the speed to where I can play it for about 30 seconds before I get sloppy. When you can play it cleanly without excessive tension for a full minute you can increase the speed there as well. If you comfortably hit 200 bpm or above, you can also start using 16th notes or sextuplets to work on different rhythmic feels. One you get comfortable with that you can even go up to 32nd notes to practice the feel of playing fast over slower beats. First up is Ex. 5, which focuses on eighth-notes. Once that’s in your fingers try Ex. 6, which works out a triplet feel.
Ex. 5
Ex. 6
Move these exercises to different scale positions and fingerings to mix it up. Also practice on different strings and with different tones so you can confidently play fast with clean and distorted tones as each one exposes different weak spots. Once you get those under your fingers you too will be praising the benefit of the burst.
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The PXO was created as a live or studio tool. When we sent Phil the overdrive sample he found that it saved him in backline situations and provided him a drive that plays well with others.
The PXO is an overdrive/boost where you can select pre or post giving you variety in how you want to boost, EQ and overdrive. We have provided standard controls on the overdrive side such as Volume/Gain/Overdrive and EQ but on the boost side you have a separate Tilt EQ that allows you to EQ with simplicity. You can experiment by cascading in a pre or post situation and experiment from there. The PXO has a lush, thick feel to the bottom end and a smooth top end that begs you to dig into the note.
J. Rockett Audio Designs PXO Phil X Signature Overdrive Pedal
In this promotional photo of the Waikiki Trio, the standing guitarist is playing a Martin 0-42, and the seated guitarist is playing a Martin 0-18K.
Pacific Island pluckers had a hand in developing the beloved dreadnought acoustics, and changed the course of American guitar music.
In 1906, a devastating earthquake and three days of raging fires leveled 80 percent of San Francisco. Nine years later, to honor the opening of the Panama Canal and signal that San Francisco was back, the city held the Panama-Pacific International Exposition.
More than 18 million people visited. One of the most popular attractions was the Hawaiian Pavilion. Live music and hula dancing, integral parts of Hawaiian culture, were in the show, where they could be experienced on a large scale on the mainland for one of the first times.
That was the beginning of the Hawaiian music craze that had a good run in the U.S. until the Great Depression. Hawaiian musicians had already embraced the ukulele and steel-string guitar, originating the slide-based lap style (versus the typical, so-called Spanish-style playing orientation). Both instruments saw unprecedented demand on Hawaii and the mainland. The story of the ukulele is well-told, but in doing research for this article, I came across a funny comment that caught my eye: “It could be said that in the mid-1920s, Martin was a ukulele company that also made guitars!”
In early 1916, we made a large-body custom guitar for Hawaiian musician Major Kealakai. He ordered it through our largest distributor, Ditson. It was kind of a 0000-size, 12-fret, steel-string guitar with an extra-deep body. The Major and his band were touring the U.S. mainland, and he felt he needed a bigger, louder guitar.
Shortly after that, Ditson commissioned a new larger, pear-shaped steel-string guitar from us to capitalize on the growing interest in Hawaiian music. It was called the dreadnought. It had just 12 frets, a slotted headstock, and a sizable, resonant body. Initially, the dreadnought didn’t sell very well. We did find success, however, making many of our smaller-bodied guitars with steel strings set up for “Hawaiian-style” playing. These were often made with a koa-wood back and sides, and occasionally tops as well. Additionally, if players wanted to use our other guitars lap-style with a slide, Martin manufactured a nut extender to raise the strings far enough above the frets so they wouldn’t interfere.
“It could be said that in the mid-1920s, Martin was a ukulele company that also made guitars!”
While steel strings were available in the late 1800s, the quality was inconsistent. Thanks to the popularity of the banjo and the mandolin, steel-string quality improved. The steel string provided the extra volume many players were looking for.
During the Great Depression, Ditson suffered financial difficulties and was sold. We kept the dreadnought in the line and put the Martin name on it, but sales still remained low. In 1929, we made a one-off, 14-fret steel-string version of our 000-size guitar for a well-known vaudeville banjo player, Perry Bechtel. We squared off the shoulders to accommodate the 14-fret neck. He loved it—and we thought we were onto something.
Gibson also saw opportunity in larger-bodied guitars with steel strings and 14-fret necks. They introduced three new models in 1932: the HG-20, HG-22, and HG-24. The first two were slightly smaller than our dreadnought, and the third was slightly bigger. They realized the value of a 14-fret neck for modern playing styles with steel strings. But instead of squaring off the shoulders, they moved the bridge down and attached the neck to the slope-shouldered bodies.
Not only did those models have a traditional round soundhole, but they also had four f-holes and a sound baffle to try to compete with the newfangled resophonic guitars that were quite loud. But the Gibsons were not well received by consumers, and were eventually discontinued.
In 1934, we redesigned our dreadnought with square shoulders to accommodate a 14-fret neck. That same year, Gibson reintroduced the HG-24 body size with a single round soundhole—no more f-holes or sound baffle—and called it the Jumbo. The Martin Dreadnought and the Gibson J Series guitars are still wildly popular.
I do wonder if they would even exist today if Hawaiian music hadn’t entered the American-pop music sphere in the 1920s?
The tiniest TS on Earth has loads of practical upside and sounds that keep pace with esteemed overdrive company.
Solid Tube Screamer tones in a microscopic machine. Light and easy to affix to anything.
Small enough to lose easily! Vulnerable in the presence of heavy steppers?
$99
Olinthus Cicada
olinthus.com
The Olinthus Cicada’s Tube Screamer-on-a-postage-stamp concept is a captivating one. But contemplating the engineering impetus behind it begs questions: How much area does the pedal and mandatory/included TRRS breakout cable actually conserve? Where do you situate it in relation to other pedals so you can actually tap the bypass—which is the pedal enclosure itself! Would my neighbor’s cat eat it? As it turns out, there’s many good reasons for the Cicada to be.
For starters, small size and light weight on this order are a big deal. Flying with gear is stupid expensive. So, for players that don’t relish the antiseptic aspects of modeling, this micro-analog middle path could be a sensible one. Altogether, pedal and cable are about the size of a set of keys. You can stuff it all in a pocket, put clean laundry in your gig bag, and tour for a while, as long as the rain doesn’t soak your shoes.
All this assumes you roll with very small and very few additional effects. But if you can survive on overdrive alone, you can stick a little adhesive to the back—tape, Velcro, bubblegum, etc.—and affix the Cicada to almost anything. It sounds really good, too! A classic TS application—Fender combo and Stratocaster—yields soulful blues smoke. The same Fender amp and an SG means dynamite, raunchy, and rich Mick Taylorisms. It even does the Iommi stomp pretty well at high gain! I’m still not sure if the Cicada is a solution for a less-than-pressing engineering problem. Nevertheless, it opens up real practical possibilities and sounds more than legit in the process.
Featuring a slim Headlock system, water-resistant shell, and spacious front pocket. Available in classic Black and Ash, as well as new colors Moonlight Blue, Amazon Green, and Burnt Orange.
This brand new design reimagines and elevates the original to new heights, featuring a fresh range of colors and a refined slim Headlock system. The enhanced MONO Sleeve is engineered for durability, featuring industrial-grade webbing handles reinforced with steel rivets and bar-tack stitching, a water-resistant 420D shell, and plush interior lining. A spacious front pocket offers easy access to essentials like cables, tuners, and other gear, while the ergonomic shoulder straps ensure comfort during long-distance commutes. Sleek and compact, the MONO M80 Sleeve 2.0 is the perfect choice for guitarists on the go.
To bring the MONO M80 Sleeve 2.0 to life in the launch campaign, MONO collaborated with renowned guitarist Rock Choi from Seoul, South Korea, known for his bold and precise playing style, and Susannah Joffe, an emerging indie-pop musician from Austin, Texas, USA. Together, the artists showcase the M80 Sleeve 2.0 in a dynamic video set in New York City, demonstrating how effortlessly the case integrates into the urban lifestyle while offering superior protection for their instruments.
The updated Sleeve 2.0 is available in classic Black and Ash, and for the first time in MONO’s history, debuts a range of new colors: Moonlight Blue, Amazon Green, and Burnt Orange, giving artists fresh avenues to express themselves through their gear.
The MONO M80 Sleeve 2.0 features include:
- An ergonomically designed case that is sleek and suited for urban travel, along with comfortable shoulder straps and a tactile side handle for easy carrying.
- A water-resistant 420D shell and plush interior lining, built to military specs and extreme resistance to abrasion and the elements.
- A slim Headlock system, made from shock-absorbing EVA rubber, secures the guitar's neck and headstock, while the EVA insole protects the body and strap pin from impact.
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- Rock-solid, industrial webbing handles that are standard in MONO cases. Bar-tack stitching and steel rivets reinforce strength, while high-grade webbing offers a comfortable grip.
- String guard protection to safeguard your guitar’s strings.