Arpeggios

[litninboybob]

I've always been a strummer or fingerstyle player. Now I'm trying to learn to use a pick to play leads & arpeggios. I am constantly hitting wrong strings. Could anybody recommend some type of practice exercise that would help me develope my picking skills?

Litninboybob

[roadbiker]

Try the Spider Exercise. You can find it on YouTube. Justin Sandercoe has a good video of it. I have been doing it for nearly a year. It's hard, but I m far better now than I was when I started.

Jim

[outatune]

Litninboybob, I am trying to learn to flatpick and have been strumming and fingerpicking for many years. The ole 'I missed the string' problem has plagued me all my like but as I practice and do different exercises I find that as I progress, that problem get better too. I think doing the exercises is the key to being a better player, period. I don't think the exercise matters as long as you are playing single notes or a series of them. Select some exercises that lead to the type of player you want to be. (whatever that may be)

I am getting too old to think I'm ever going to be a really good flatpicker but every month I get a little better, so we'll see what happens.

David in TN

[oldhippiegal]

I picked up a pick again a little over a year ago, and I'm finally hitting the right strings over 90% of the time Like anything with the guitar, it yields to hundreds of hours and plenty of curse words. (ymmv on the second part of that).

Two of the first songs I struggled my way through with the pick were Wish You Were Here (which really isn't all that hard, but sheesh, getting the right strings was a challenge for me) and Hurt (which is even easier, but it's crucial you're hitting strings 5-4 when you're supposed to be).

The more I do any given thing with the pick (two-string harmonized fills, for instance), the easier it is to do it on additional songs.

An interesting challenge is to take a song you've played fingerstyle and try it with the pick. Not every fingerstyle song can be picked, but many can, at least sections of them can. (I play Emmanuel's Stevie's Blues with either fingers or pick, for instance.) If you attack it like this, you already have the left hand down pat so all you need to learn is how to hit the right string.

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by litninboybob

I've always been a strummer or fingerstyle player. Now I'm trying to learn to use a pick to play leads & arpeggios. I am constantly hitting wrong strings. Could anybody recommend some type of practice exercise that would help me develope my picking skills?

Litninboybob

Hi Litninboybob...

Hello and welcome to the Forum! Glad you joined, and jumped in with a thread.

Pete Huttlinger's DVD Essentials for Fingerstyle Guitar has a section of exercises which covers arpeggios fairly extensively. Pete uses both fingerstyle and picks, and as to how to wield plectrum with more skill, perhaps Steve Kaufmann would be a good resource. It is a DVD lesson which will keep you busy for months, and has really great exercises for building your skills.

A companion to it would be his Wonderful World of Chords DVD. Arpeggios are built on chords, and Pete does a great job of breaking them out.

Either of these costs about the price of one lesson and will take you far beyond a single lesson. They come with some paper included (charts, diagrams etc).

I recommend these two DVDs as extra resources to my students.

[GregB]

Hi Litninboybob,

The very best resource I've found is The Guitar Player's Guide to Developing Speed, Accuracy, and Tone.

Greg

http://flatpickingmercantile.com/Mer...tegory_Code=01