
Intermediate
Beginner
- Develop a better sense of articulation.
- Learn how to combine sweep picking, alternate picking, legato, and economy picking.
- Create phrases that better align with the emotional expression of the music you’re playing.
I remember seeing John Petrucci’s Rock Discipline DVD when I was a teenager and his advice on practicing really stuck with me. Now, I don’t remember any of the specific exercises from that video, but his method for splitting up your allotted practice time was really interesting. According to John, he would divide his time up equally between areas like alternate picking, sweep picking, legato, and tapping. It’s a straightforward idea, and it obviously worked for him, but I want to propose a different approach. I’d like to try to change the way you might think about technique and your technique practice.
I have found that metal players set out to learn every technique on the instrument for its own sake. This leads to a path that equates these techniques to simply motor skills. But how about this: Think of them as unique and transformative sounds and phrasing tools. Speed is a phrasing tool, but nobody cares how you pick that fast passage if the emotion and feel are there.
Instead of practicing exercises for different techniques, choose a piece of music and try to play it in different ways. You could use alternate picking for the entire thing or take a more legato approach. Are there one-note-per-string elements in it that could be swept? Want to improve a certain technique because you like the sound of it? Then don’t do exercises that just apply that technique to ideas you already know. I’ve found you progress a lot faster, and your playing will sound more musical, if you approach technique this way.
Music is not meritocracy; it isn’t about who’s the fastest or cleanest. It’s about expression, and different techniques will allow you to express yourself in different ways on the instrument. Many great players have said in interviews they chose their “signature technique” because it came easy to them or because their musical journey forced them to play a certain way. Per Nilsson has said he favors legato because it came much easier to him than alternate picking. Andy Wood has impeccable alternate picking because he started out on mandolin playing fiddle tunes. Andy James has said in interviews that he barely ever sweeps because it feels unnatural to him and he’s not very good at it (although I have seen him do some pretty impressive sweeps). Let’s dive into a few examples and see how you can apply various techniques to each one to create different sounds, accents, and feels.
The first idea (Ex. 1) starts out with a fairly straightforward descending scalar lick taking ideas from early Whitesnake and Deep Purple solos. The whole idea has a C Dorian (C–D–Eb–F–G–A–Bb) sound. After the descending scalar idea, we go into an intervallic phrase that slides up the scale and playing the respective diatonic sixth of each note we ascend in the scale before ending the lick on a Cm7 (C–Eb–G–Bb) arpeggio idea.
The first example was played with mostly alternate picking. Personally, I prefer an alternate-picking approach for scalar ideas like this. It’s just easier to stay in the pocket for me. Ex. 2 is the same idea played with more hammer-ons and pull-offs, or legato. Pick once per string and let the left hand do the rest of the work. For the intervallic sixths I used hybrid picking.
Ex. 3 mixes different techniques to accent certain notes and create a more dynamic sound. This is probably how I’d play this idea most of the time unless I’m going for particularly aggressive picked sound.
The second idea has more of a fusion sound and starts out with a F#m7 arpeggio (F#–A–C#–E) idea with a few notes added in for color and to accommodate the pattern. After I ascend the arpeggio I go into a descending chromatic line before ending on a pentatonic idea sliding up the neck and ending on the b3 (A) of F#. I’d typically use this lick over an F# minor vamp. Ex. 4 Is how I’d play it using legato technique. It’s a mix of hammer-ons, pull-offs, and economy picking for the arpeggio and pretty straight forward legato for the chromatic and pentatonic ideas.
In Ex. 5 I economy pick the entire arpeggio idea and add a little hammer-on before descending the chromatic phrase. This way I can start the rest of the lick on a downstroke.
Strictly alternate picking this idea is quite a challenge but I’ve given it my best shot in Ex. 6. It’s rhythmically more in the pocket but it’s not as fluent for me as other techniques. It’s great practice for your right hand if you like the sound and want focus on alternate picking.
The last idea is based on Andy Timmons’ incredible song “Groove or Die” but in a different mode and key. It’s a descending sequenced D major arpeggio (D–F#–A) which goes into an ascending three-note-per-string D major scale (D–E–F#–G–A–B–C#) that can be looped. In Ex. 7 I strictly alternate pick the entire idea, which sounds rhythmically tight but limits my speed significantly.
You can hear how this sounds with sweep picking and legato in Ex. 8.
Ex. 9 is how I personally find it the most comfortable to play. A mix of alternate picking, slides, and pull-offs. You could also economy pick the ascending part but I find it easier to stay in the pocket with alternate picking for scalar ideas.
Feel free to mix and match different techniques to find what’s most comfortable and pay close attention to how it sounds. This will help you develop a healthier attitude towards technique and how to practice in order to improve it. Techniques are just tools to express phrases in different ways and shouldn’t be practiced solely for the sake of being able to do them. The music always comes first!
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Cut the cord! PG contributor Tom Butwin goes hands-on with three compact wireless guitar systems from Positive Grid, NUX, and Blackstar. From couch jams to club gigs, find the right unit for your rig and playing style.
Positive Grid Spark LINK Guitar Wireless System
Enjoy a stable, noiseless experience with a compact wireless unit design, ultra-low latency, and an extended range. Other features include 6 hours of playing time per charge and a secure 110-degree hinged input plug connection.
NUX B-8 Professional Wireless System - 2.4GHz
A pedal-style professional wireless system geared for electric guitars, acoustic-electric guitars, bass guitars, and even electronic instruments, and transmits 24-bit 48 kHz high-quality audio.
Blackstar Airwire i58 Wireless System
This professional wireless instrument system is designed for guitars, basses, and other instruments with 1/4" outputs. Operating in the 5.8 GHz frequency band, it avoids interference from crowded Wi-Fi signals while delivering authentic tone, ultra-low latency (<6 ms), and high-resolution sound with no treble loss.
Learn More:
https://www.positivegrid.com/
https://www.nuxaudio.com/home.html
https://blackstaramps.com/
Growing up in Australia, guitarist Jedd Hughes tells us he dreamed of playing in Vince Gill’s band as far back as elementary school. Now, he lives in Nashville and stands next to the man himself on stage night after night. We’ve invited Jedd to join us on this episode of 100 Guitarists to talk about just what makes Vince’s playing so special.
Jedd tells us how his dream came true and how he first started playing with Vince. We dig deep into how everybody’s favorite country guitarist raises the bar every time he picks up the guitar, how he gets his amazing clean tone, and we take time to appreciate all aspects of his solos—including how he builds them and how he plays such clean bends. As for why his concerts are so long? “He loves to play.”
In our current listening segment, we’re covering the Black Crowes and Jimmy Page’s Live at the Greek box set and a live recording from Burlington, Vermont’s Breathwork.
This episode is sponsored by EMG Pickups.
The least exciting piece of your rig can impact your tone in a big way. Here’s what you need to know.
Hello, and welcome back to Mod Garage. This month, we will have a closer look at an often overlooked part of our guitar signal chain: the guitar cable. We’ll work out what really counts and how your cable’s tonal imprint differs from your guitar’s tone-control function.
Today, the choice of guitar cables is better than it’s ever been, and you can choose between countless options regarding color, stability, plug style, length, diameter, bending strength, shielding, etc. A lot of companies offer high-quality cables in any imaginable configuration, and there are also cables promising special advantages for specific instruments or music styles, from rock to blues to jazz.
Appearance, stability, longevity, bending stiffness, and plug configuration are matters of personal preference, and every guitarist has their own philosophy here, which I think is a great thing. While one player likes standard black soft cables with two straight plugs, their buddy prefers red cables that are stiff as hell with two angled plugs, and another friend swears by see-through coiled cables with golden plugs.
“We often want to come as close as possible to sounding like our personal heroes, but we fail because we’re using the wrong cable for a passive guitar.”
Regarding reliability, all these parameters are important. Who wants a guitar cable making problems every time you are on stage or in the studio? There are also technical parameters like resistance, capacitance, transfer resistance on the plugs, and more. Without making it too technical, we can summarize that, sound-wise, the only important technical parameter for a passive guitar circuit is the capacitance of the cable. Sadly, this information is often missing in the manufacturer’s description of a guitar cable, and there’s another thing we have to keep in mind: Most manufacturers try to offer cables with the smallest possible capacitance so the guitar can be heard “unaltered” and with a “pure” tone. While these are honourable intentions, they are self-defeating when it comes to making a guitar sound right.
Let’s take a trip back to the past and see what cables players used. Until the early 1980s, no one really cared about guitar cables—players simply used whatever was available. In the ’60s and ’70s, you could see a lot of ultra-long coiled cables on stage with players like Clapton, Hendrix, May, Townshend, Santana, and Knopfler, to name just a few. They used whatever was available, plugged in, and played without thinking about it. Ritchie Blackmore, for example, was famous for notoriously using incredibly long cables on stage so he could walk around. Joe Walsh and many other famous players did the same. Many of us have these players’ trademark sounds in our heads, and we often want to come as close as possible to sounding like our personal heroes, but we fail because we’re using the wrong cable for a passive guitar. So what are we talking about, technically?
It’s important not to look at the guitar cable, with its electrical parameters, as a stand-alone device. The guitar cable has to be seen as part of the passive signal chain together with the pickups, the resistance of the guitar’s pots (usually 250k or 500k), the capacitance of the wires inside the guitar, and, of course, the input impedance of the amp, which is usually 1M. The interaction of all these in a passive system results in the resonance frequency of your pickups. If you change one of the parameters, you are also changing the resonance frequency.
”Ritchie Blackmore, for example, was famous for notoriously using incredibly long cables on stage so he could walk around.“
You all know the basic formulation: The longer the cable, the warmer the tone, with “warmer” meaning less high-end frequencies. While this is true, in a few moments you will see that this is only half the truth. Modern guitar cables are sporting a capacitance of around 100 pF each meter, which is very low and allows for long cable runs without killing all the top end. Some ultra-low-capacitance cables even measure down to only 60 pF each meter or less.
Now let’s have a look at guitar cables of the past. Here, capacitances of up to 400 pF or more each meter were the standard, especially on the famous coiled cables. See the difference? No wonder it’s hard to nail an old-school sound from the past, or that sometimes guitars sound too trebly (especially Telecasters), with our modern guitar cables. This logic only applies to our standard passive guitar circuits, like those in our Strats, Teles, Les Pauls, SGs, and most other iconic guitar models. Active guitars are a completely different ballpark. With a guitar cable, you can fine-tune your tone, and tame a shrill-sounding guitar.
“No problem,” some will say. “I simply use my passive tone control to compensate, and that’s it. Come on, capacitance is capacitance!” While this logic seems solid, in reality this reaction produces a different tone. “Why is this?” you will ask. Thankfully, it’s simple to explain. You might be familiar with the typical diagrams showing a coordinate system with "Gain/dB" on the Y-axis and "Frequency/kHz" on the X-axis. Additional cable capacitance will shift the resonance frequency on the X-axis, with possible differences of more than one octave depending on the cable. A cable with a higher capacitance will shift the resonance frequency towards the left and vice versa.
Diagram courtesy Professor Manfred Zollner (https://www.gitarrenphysik.de)
Now let’s see what happens if you use your standard passive tone control. If you close the tone control, the resonance frequency will be shifted downwards mostly on the Y-axis, losing the resonance peak, which means the high frequencies are gone. This is a completely different effect compared to the additional cable capacitance.
Diagram courtesy Professor Manfred Zollner (https://www.gitarrenphysik.de)
To summarize, we can say that with different cable capacitances, you can mimic a lot of different pickups by simply shifting the resonance frequency on the X-axis. This is something our passive tone control can’t do, and that’s exactly the difference you will have to keep in mind.
So, let’s see what can be done and where you can add additional cable capacitance to your system to simulate longer guitar cables.
1. On the cable itself
2. Inside the guitar
3. Externally
In next month’s follow-up to this column, we will talk about different capacitances and how you can add them to your signal chain with some easy-to-moderate modding, so stay tuned!
Until then ... keep on modding!
Do you overuse vibrato? Could you survive without it?
Vibrato is a powerful tool, but it should be used intentionally. Different players have different styles—B.B. King’s shake, Clapton’s subtle touch—but the key is control. Tom Butwin suggests a few exercises to build awareness, tone, and touch.
The goal? Find a balance—don’t overdo it, but don’t avoid it completely. Try it out and see how it changes your playing!