Guitar Lesson 07: alternate picking, with Michael Angelo Batio

Watch Michael Angelo Batio demonstrate this in the video above, then read the breakdown.

In Lesson 06 you built two even strokes. Now you join them. Alternate picking means you strictly rotate: down, up, down, up, and you never play two downstrokes or two upstrokes in a row. In his third beginner lesson, Batio treats this as the single most important habit a new player can build, and there is a clean reason why.

Here is why it works. When you finish a downstroke, the pick has already traveled below the string. It is sitting exactly where an upstroke begins. Alternate picking spends that free position: the upstroke is the return trip you already paid for. Pick down, down, down instead, and every second stroke you first have to lift the pick back over the string, a wasted motion that caps your speed and tires your hand fast.

Batio's key point is that speed is a by-product, not a goal. He builds it from clean, even alternation at a slow tempo, then raises the metronome one notch at a time, the same method he drilled into Tom Morello. The player who picks accurately at a slow tempo will outrun the player who flails at a fast one, because sloppy motion never scales.

Start with pure picking-hand motion. Play the open high e eight times, strictly alternating.

e |-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0--
B |------------------
G |------------------
D |------------------
A |------------------
E |------------------

Now add the fretting hand with the exercise every guitarist runs: the 1-2-3-4. One finger per fret on the low E, and you still alternate every note.

e |-------------------------
B |-------------------------
G |-------------------------
D |-------------------------
A |-------------------------
E |-1--2--3--4--1--2--3--4---

Batio plays Sawtooth signature guitars throughout his beginner series. If you want a guitar from the lineup the lessons are taught on, the Sawtooth ES Hybrid Michael Angelo Batio signature is one model from his endorsed Sawtooth range.

Practice this

Set a metronome to 60 beats per minute. Play the open high e, one note per click, strictly down, up, down, up, for one minute. Then play the 1-2-3-4 on the low E the same way, one note per click, for two minutes. Do not speed up until every note is even and in time. When it is clean, nudge the metronome up a few beats and repeat. Do not chase the tempo. Let it come to you.

Where you are

Lesson 06: downstrokes and upstrokes gave you two even strokes, and now you can chain them into the motion behind nearly every riff and solo. Keep practicing in standard tuning (E A D G B E), and when you want to see where this leads, study Michael Angelo Batio, who turned clean alternate picking into some of the fastest guitar playing ever recorded. Next, Lesson 08: the circle of fifths, where you step back from technique to learn the map that shows which chords belong together.