How To Play Guitar Good - The Mysteries of Alternate Picking Revealed.
by: Jeremiah La Follette

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Once you have begun to learn all of your beginner guitar chords, and basic guitar scales, you will want to make sure that you are utilizing the best right hand technique possible in order to play your guitar is accurately and as fast as possible.

In order to learn how to play guitar good you’ll need to learn the right hand guitar technique called alternate picking. Alternate picking is also a great way to learn how to play your guitar chords correctly, and introduce the concept of arpeggio playing.

The good news is that you can start applying these simple alternate picking techniques immediately to your guitar playing.

Let’s take a look at how to apply basic alternate picking to your guitar playing.

1. Hold your guitar pick correctly
2. Practice using up and down strokes
3. Alternate your guitar strokes
4. Apply alternate picking to your scales
5. Apply alternate picking to your chords

1. Hold your guitar pick correctly: You want to make sure that you’re holding your guitar pick correctly. If you play guitar only with your fingers this will be a great opportunity for you to learn how to play with a guitar pick.

2. Practice using up and down strokes: The basic concept of alternate picking is quite simple. With your guitar pick you will be picking each note and alternating between down and upstroke’s.

3. Alternate your guitar strokes: Once you have the basic concept of alternating your guitar strokes for each string, (up and down, one note at a time) you can now alternate your guitar strokes. For example instead of picking: up, down, up, down; you will be using the pattern of: up, up, down, down, etc. The possibilities of alternating your guitar strokes are limitless.

4. Apply alternate picking to your scales: On the first note that you play your guitar scale with, pick down. The next note you will pick up. When you have mastered going up and down on your guitar scales the next thing you want to do is to have your first note be plucked upwards first. The second note will now be a down stroke, and so forth.

5. Apply alternate picking to your chords: Alternate picking your guitar chords will do three things. The first thing alternate picking will do is ensure that you are playing correctly each of the guitar notes on the chord you are playing. The second thing alternate picking will do with your chords is introduce you to guitar chord picking patterns. The third thing alternate picking will do with your chords is introduce you to what is called arpeggio playing. Simple arpeggio playing is playing the guitar chord one note at a time. Arpeggio playing is also great for playing guitar chords with slow songs.