Techique is your level of physical accomplishment and mastery of certain concepts, your ability to seemlessly and musically play difficult songs, runs and passages is dependant on your level of technique. in this lesson we’re going to look at a few tried and true ways of developing technique.

Alternate Picking . . . .

Most guitar students don’t master the concept of alternate picking immediately. Alternate picking means that you alternate upstrokes with downstrokes. Traditionaly, guitar students develop alternate picking by practicing eighth notes.

The eighth notes in the animation above each have an arrow indicating the directon of the pick when picking a series of eighth notes correctly. The “and” of the beat is always played as an upstroke when practicing and developing alternate picking picking. The video to the left shows a smooth alternate picking as properly executed by the wrist . The exercise below uses the chromatic scale as an a difficult and challenging ear training and picking exercise.



Tremelo Exercises . . . .

A Tremelo is a fast series of notes, usually achieved with some sort of alternate picking strategy. In other words, going back and forth with the pick, real fast. When doing a Tremelo exercise, your goal is to play an even, steady and rhythmic flow. The ability to pick is developed with Tremelo exercises, everything about guitar palying seems to get easier when you add some sort of Tremelo exercise your practice routine. For some reason, probably because they can be tedious and uncomfortable, Tremelo exercises are often overlooked by teachers and students. The alternate picking/ Tremelo exercise below uses the fattest string, string 6 (low “E”) with a very complicated rhythm.



As you work on this alternate picking/ Tremelo exercise be sure to give a good listen to the picking rhythm and duplicate this rhythm with a smooth up and down picking motion as is seen in the video just above. Once the exercise become easy on string 6, play the exercise several times on each string as part of your normal practice routine. Remember, trememlo exercises make everything about guitar playing seem easier but are often overlooked because because of their tedious and boring nature.

Guitar Buddy.

GuitarBuddyCOVER

There’s a great old saying that goes like this: “If you give someone a fish he eats for a day, teach him how to fish and he eats for a lifetime.” To you, as a guitarist, it means this: learn a song and then play it for a few weeks, learn how music how music works and then play forever. This book teaches you how guitar music works.

In recent history music education has become a highly developed art. Guitar Buddy is the first and only guitar book written from the perspective of someone who understands this beautiful art. Guitar Buddy puts you in touch with the music maker inside of you, awakening him.

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This incredibly well thought out and highly developed learning system was developed by Berklee College Of Music graduate and widely respected author Karl Aranjo. (A system written for you, the student with a desire to really learn.) You’ll receive a companion C.D. with 75 recorded examples of the highest quality. These tracks are all done with the sound of a full band to get you immediately into the game, playing and making real music from day one.

This learning system also contains an exciting new edcational methodology called the Music Acquisition Device. All musical works are made up of smaller parts or phrases which are then combined into songs. The Music Acquisition Device shows you how these pieces and how they fit together. This breaks guitar music down into fun, easy, great sounding play along tracks which you’ll love to listen to and chime in with.

Guitar Buddy; The User Friendly Way To Learn Great Guitar and companion C.D. is only $22.00 plus shipping and handling.