Check out this free guitar lesson from Guitar Control instructor Darrin Goodman on how to improve your technique with this fun and easy riff. Be sure to get the tabs to go along with this free lesson.
Introduction
Hey everybody how’s it going? This is Darrin with GuitarControl.com bringing you this video lesson. Today I want to show you a little riff that is a great picking exercise and it’s going to work both of your hands and it’s on it’s on three strings so it’s just kind of a bigger broader exercise. What’s cool about this is that it’s not just an exercise it’s actually a cool sounding riff too. So be sure to click on the link in the description for the tabs and let’s get close up and take a look at Improve Your Technique With This Fun & Easy Riff.
Picking Riff Sequence
Alright so starting off I’m at the 12th fret of the G string with my third finger; so let’s first let’s just go through the sequence of notes. So we’re 12th fret of the G string with my third finger and then we go to the 11th fret of the B string, my middle finger to the 10th fret of the B string with my first finger and then back to 11th fret. Then we follow that with the 10th fret on the high E string back down to 11 on the B string, 10 on the B, back to 11 and then back to the 12th fret of the G string… Actually we don’t go back to the 12th fret of the G string right there, I mean you can just sit there and stay in the one position but part of this we want to work is your fretting hand as well so we’re going to move it around. So we’ve got that sequence and then we change, the notes on the B and the E strings stay the same, but the note on the G string changes, so we’re going to go from 12 to 10. So our first finger is going to play that and then our first and second finger will just play the rest of the sequence, so far… Now we’re going to shift our whole hand position. We’re going to come down, our first finger is going to go on to the eighth fret of the G string and we’re going to still play those same notes on the B and high E, but now we’re going to be using our third and fourth finger… Okay then after we do that then we do one more of the eight on the G string to the B string, 11 10 11 and then we shift back up 10 on the G string to 11 10 11 on the B string and then it just starts over again.
Alternate Picking
All right so since we are alternate picking this we’re going to start with a down stroke. So that 12 on the G string is going to be a down stroke and then an upstroke when we go to the B string 11. Then we go to 10 it’s down and then back up again on the 11 and then a down stroke on the high E string, back to an upstroke on the 11 to a down stroke on the 10 and then an upstroke again on the 11. So that sequence just repeats the same way for the alternate picking, so it’s just a constant down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down…
Timing
All right so you can play Improve Your Technique With This Fun & Easy Riff multiple ways. I mean you could you could break it down and just do all those one two three four one two three four, all quarter notes like that or you do eighth notes one and two and three and four and which would make it a whole measure or we can play to 16th notes one e and a, two e and a, so then it’s going to be a half of a measure for each…
Getting The Most From The Exercise
So you’re going to want to practice Improve Your Technique With This Fun & Easy Riff and just get the sequence down and get it so even if you’re playing it really slow your alternate picking and work on that with the metronome. Just work on it slowly and I would recommend working on it as eighth notes and 16th notes. We’re working with alternate picking, we’re working with finger independence and being able to shift positions and working with timing, we’re kind of killing three birds with one stone so to say.
Conclusion
All right so I hope you enjoyed that you got something out of it. If you like this lesson give me a thumbs up and be sure to leave a comment down below if there’s anything that you would like to see covered in a future lesson by myself or one of the other instructors at GuitarControl.com. If you have not already done it, please subscribe to the channel and hit that notification bell so that way you don’t miss out on any of the content that we upload throughout the week. Well that is all I’ve got for you today. Thanks for watching Improve Your Technique With This Fun & Easy Riff and have a great day.
