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Hi, how ya doin' Justin here,

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what we're gonna be checking out in [br]this lesson is a Minor Pentatonic picking exercise,

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and I'm gonna be introducing you [br]to the idea of alternate picking.

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Now hopefully you've been practicing [br]up your Minor Pentatonic Scale.

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The one that sounds like this...

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. . .

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Hopefully you've been doing loads and [br]loads of practice on it,

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so you can start to [br]now think about the picking

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instead of having to think [br]about your fretting hand.

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So, what are we gonna do with this?

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Well, you probably, hopefully have just been using downpicks to play the scale so far.

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If you've been using some [br]sort of other picking,

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that might be good or it might be [br]bad, depending on how you're doing it.

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So what I'm going to do [br]is give you an exercise,

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to help you work on your [br]picking and develop this alternate style.

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So what we're gonna do first of all,

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we're gonna pick the Minor [br]Pentatonic Scale using all downpicks.

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So it's, start there, the usual [br]place starting at the 5th fret,

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. . .

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And once you've done all downpicks, [br]you would then do all up-picks.

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So up-picking every time.

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. . .

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Now I should mention at this point as [br]well for some of you speed freaks,

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it's not about doing it quickly, [br]it's about doing it accurately.

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So make sure you're not practicing a mistake.

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If it's, you should be practicing at whatever [br]speed you can perform this at perfectly.

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So if that means doing it [br]this speed then so be it.

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Don't go, no point, no [br]use to anyone whatsoever,

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especially you, do it slowly, get it right.

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Very important. OK.

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So you've done all downs, [br]you've done all ups.

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Now you're gonna do down and [br]an up pick on each note.

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So you're gonna go, starting with [br]the 1st note of the scale,

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on the thickest string, you go, [br]down up, down up, etc.

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. . .

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For this one again, don't be in a [br]hurry, but if you want to practice it,

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if you can do it accurately,

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then by all means stick it to a metronome,

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and start going,

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. . .

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Start building up the speed of it.

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But really make sure that [br]you're doing it accurately first,

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before you even think about [br]starting to make it faster.

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So, incidentally, a good starting speed [br]for all of these exercises,

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is doing stuff at 60, which [br]is going to seem incredibly slow,

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but sometimes doing things [br]slowly is quite difficult.

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So just here at 60 that's the kind of [br]tempo you want to be starting off with.

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Really simple. That's all down strokes [br]and then again your upstrokes.

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. . .

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Then your down and ups you [br]might double it, so you'd have,

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. . .

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etc, it's important that you start slowly [br]when you do it with a metronome.

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Remember the metronome induces [br]a bit of panic,

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'cause it means you've gotta [br]keep going, you can't pause.

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Which is really good, I [br]mean, we don't wanna stop.

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We want to practice, continuing and [br]making things work properly.

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So, your first part of the exercise [br]is what we just talked about.

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All down, all up, then down [br]and up on each note.

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But then I want you to have a [br]go at doing, if you like, proper picking.

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Right, and proper picking [br]is alternate picking.

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Which means you go down followed by [br]an up on the next note.

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Followed by a down, up on the [br]next, down, up on the next.

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There are other types of [br]picking, principally one called economy picking

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which is used by kinda [br]heavy metal and rock guys.

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All of the metal and rock guys [br]I know that use economy picking,

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learnt how to alternate pick first.

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And they have all emphasized to me, [br]oh, if you're trying to learn

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that technique make sure [br]that your students

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always get their alternate [br]picking happening first

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before they're trying to [br]do economy picking.

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So, if you've got a [br]friend that does economy picking,

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or you've read about it or whatever [br]try and avoid it for now.

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Get your alternate picking right first,

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and then maybe have a [br]look at economy picking later.

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So, alternate picking with [br]the Minor Pentatonic Scale,

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we're always gonna be picking a down pick [br]with the note with our 1st finger.

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So we're gonna be going, down, up, [br]down, up, down, up, down, up, etc.

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. . .

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...down, up, down, up, down.

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As you get better at this, this is [br]what you want to stick to your metronome.

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So, just if we do it [br]nicely at 60bpm, nice and slow,

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we'll be doing down,up etc

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. . .

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And it's this alternate picking [br]that's a really, really, really

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cool thing to get down.

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'Cause most of the time [br]when we're playing scales,

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especially as we get more [br]advanced and we get faster,

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you need to be alternate [br]picking all the time.

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So this is a great [br]little exercise, all down picks,

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all up picks, down and up on [br]each note, and then alternate picking,

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for your Minor Pentatonic Scale, that will [br]definitely help sort out your picking hand.

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Don't forget to anchor, with [br]your little finger as well.

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You'll probably find that helps a lot.

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You don't have to, but I [br]think it's definitely worth starting with that.

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So you can kind of decide if [br]that technique works for you or not.

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OK. Hope you've enjoyed that, and I'll see you for some more chord work in a minute.