 Hey, Freddie DeMarco here for Blackstar Potential. This lesson is on alternate picking. So to develop alternate picking, you're simply gonna start practicing down-up strokes regardless of it's convenient in the Scaling Knack. Cause sometimes it's easier to go two downs, but we're going to go down-up, down-up exclusively. So I'm gonna start with an E minor scale starting on a D. We're just gonna practice going down-up, down-up and you'll notice that it's a three note per string scale. So the next string is gonna be an up stroke, not a down. So the first string is gonna be down-up, down-up on the new string. Okay, so that's what we wanna get used to and just alternate pick and you wanna start slowly and analyze that you're not breaking your thumb. You don't want your thumb doing this, okay? You want it to stay more of a flat pick if you will. You don't wanna angle this way or that way. You wanna employ economy of motion the less you move the better. Don't pluck out, just stay right there. Very small movements and your up stroke is not a mirrored image of your down. In other words, you're down, you want to go down kind of into the next string. The up stroke, you don't go back into the next string. You just kind of flick it up. So that's one thing to practice. So I would say practice that scale slowly down-up and then just take a single note and start going slow to fast and try to do it evenly without getting snagged and don't go any faster than you can do it clean. So this kind of a thing. Now there is an alternate picking technique called circle picking where you do break the thumb but you wanna develop a technique where you don't do that. This is a good technique for tremolo picking and moving like on one string. This technique would break the thumb and it gives you a whole lot of speed and check this out. Now the cool thing about that is you can play long periods of time without fatigue but you'll get caught up when you try to switch strings because that circle technique doesn't work. You need to play more like this to be able to go over the strings. So I want you to practice this lick right here where we're gonna go index, second, fourth, index, second, fourth and then a straight back up and down. So it's a sending and descending just right up those three fingers. So like this. And then alternate pick but start improvising. So rearrange the order of the note. It's like. This random stuff, but make sure you're alternate picking. Now one of the techniques that you'll have to deal with will be outside picking. This is really hard to avoid. A lot of players try to avoid this with a hammer on or a pull off. What'll happen is if I start that same pattern but on an upstroke, watch what happens. On my way back down, what happens is when I'm on my index finger on my way down. That's a downstroke. So my next string below it is an upstroke but I already followed through. So that's considered outside picking. I now have to cross over the string. So you just kind of angle your wrist back and develop this habit that just kind of goes over the pick. I mean over the string. The pick goes right over the string. It's just kind of a new technique, kind of a habit you have to form just every time you outside pick, you kind of angle that wrist back rather than lifting and coming over. You don't have time for a two, three-step process. It has to just kind of glide over, skip that string and grab its upstroke. So it's like this. That's the original way, now starting with an upstroke. That's going to employ this outside picking. And I always isolate and fragment things. So practice just that section. Don't keep playing the whole scale just to work on that. So a downstroke on this string and the adjacent string beneath it and beneath it, I mean in pitch. It's actually higher to the ceiling but you will cross over with the outside picker. Then upstroke. That's going to be the hardest part of your alternate picking technique. Now here's a lick I want you to learn with alternate picking. This lick is done by many people, shown in many instructional videos by like Michelangelo, Paul Gilbert. It traces back to a Gary Morton called End of the World where he uses this. It's a major seventh arpeggio. Great for alternate picking because it'll have an upstroke on a new string and give a little accent to that. So it's a six note group, a sextuplet and it can be played in three octaves. And we're going to constantly repeat that over and over. The next octave and the lowest octave. So I'm considering that a C major seventh. You use a different muscle set like down low than you would up high. So practice them in all three areas. When you're working with alternate picking make sure that every lick you do you also practice palm muting. So if I took the E minor scale and I wanted to work linear, let's say up the neck this way, I'll add up all the notes in the E minor scale. Going up, let's just say two strings. I'm going to practice it very open. And then I'm going to put the heel of the hand on the strings and get a palm muting. It actually gives a tighter, more aggressive sound. So here it would be both ways. Palm muting. Well, I want to encourage you to take these concepts and work on them with the metronome or to backing tracks that are quantized where they're right in beat. So you can actually work on your alternate picking in time. So your best phrasing is going to come from playing in time. So very gridded, you know. You'll actually sound more accurate if you play gridded like that where you're actually in time. An eighth note is the duration of an eighth note. A triplet's an actual triplet. Not kind of a little sloppy. Actually a faster player playing sloppy doesn't sound as fast as a player playing it maybe a little bit slower, but more accurate. Hey, thanks for joining me for this alternate picking lesson. Okay.