1 00:00:05,912 --> 00:00:07,745 Hi, how ya doin' Justin here, 2 00:00:07,745 --> 00:00:12,263 what we're gonna be checking out in this lesson is a Minor Pentatonic picking exercise, 3 00:00:12,263 --> 00:00:16,582 and I'm gonna be introducing you to the idea of alternate picking. 4 00:00:16,582 --> 00:00:20,158 Now hopefully you've been practicing up your Minor Pentatonic Scale. 5 00:00:20,158 --> 00:00:21,327 The one that sounds like this... 6 00:00:21,327 --> 00:00:28,146 . . . 7 00:00:28,146 --> 00:00:30,944 Hopefully you've been doing loads and loads of practice on it, 8 00:00:30,944 --> 00:00:33,234 so you can start to now think about the picking 9 00:00:33,234 --> 00:00:35,492 instead of having to think about your fretting hand. 10 00:00:35,492 --> 00:00:37,585 So, what are we gonna do with this? 11 00:00:37,585 --> 00:00:42,707 Well, you probably, hopefully have just been using downpicks to play the scale so far. 12 00:00:42,707 --> 00:00:44,827 If you've been using some sort of other picking, 13 00:00:44,827 --> 00:00:47,355 that might be good or it might be bad, depending on how you're doing it. 14 00:00:47,355 --> 00:00:49,497 So what I'm going to do is give you an exercise, 15 00:00:49,497 --> 00:00:53,155 to help you work on your picking and develop this alternate style. 16 00:00:53,155 --> 00:00:54,953 So what we're gonna do first of all, 17 00:00:54,953 --> 00:00:58,451 we're gonna pick the Minor Pentatonic Scale using all downpicks. 18 00:00:58,451 --> 00:01:01,295 So it's, start there, the usual place starting at the 5th fret, 19 00:01:01,341 --> 00:01:16,155 . . . 20 00:01:16,155 --> 00:01:21,048 And once you've done all downpicks, you would then do all up-picks. 21 00:01:21,048 --> 00:01:22,562 So up-picking every time. 22 00:01:22,562 --> 00:01:35,116 . . . 23 00:01:35,116 --> 00:01:39,282 Now I should mention at this point as well for some of you speed freaks, 24 00:01:39,282 --> 00:01:43,080 it's not about doing it quickly, it's about doing it accurately. 25 00:01:43,080 --> 00:01:45,520 So make sure you're not practicing a mistake. 26 00:01:45,520 --> 00:01:50,153 If it's, you should be practicing at whatever speed you can perform this at perfectly. 27 00:01:50,153 --> 00:01:57,847 So if that means doing it this speed then so be it. 28 00:01:57,847 --> 00:02:03,686 Don't go, no point, no use to anyone whatsoever, 29 00:02:03,686 --> 00:02:07,242 especially you, do it slowly, get it right. 30 00:02:07,242 --> 00:02:09,082 Very important. OK. 31 00:02:09,082 --> 00:02:11,968 So you've done all downs, you've done all ups. 32 00:02:11,968 --> 00:02:15,426 Now you're gonna do down and an up pick on each note. 33 00:02:15,426 --> 00:02:18,824 So you're gonna go, starting with the 1st note of the scale, 34 00:02:18,824 --> 00:02:25,848 on the thickest string, you go, down up, down up, etc. 35 00:02:25,848 --> 00:02:49,606 . . . 36 00:02:49,606 --> 00:02:54,231 For this one again, don't be in a hurry, but if you want to practice it, 37 00:02:54,231 --> 00:02:55,854 if you can do it accurately, 38 00:02:55,854 --> 00:02:57,771 then by all means stick it to a metronome, 39 00:02:57,771 --> 00:02:58,925 and start going, 40 00:02:58,925 --> 00:03:07,716 . . . 41 00:03:07,716 --> 00:03:09,608 Start building up the speed of it. 42 00:03:09,608 --> 00:03:12,291 But really make sure that you're doing it accurately first, 43 00:03:12,291 --> 00:03:15,011 before you even think about starting to make it faster. 44 00:03:15,011 --> 00:03:19,127 So, incidentally, a good starting speed for all of these exercises, 45 00:03:19,127 --> 00:03:22,285 is doing stuff at 60, which is going to seem incredibly slow, 46 00:03:22,285 --> 00:03:25,617 but sometimes doing things slowly is quite difficult. 47 00:03:25,617 --> 00:03:31,827 So just here at 60 that's the kind of tempo you want to be starting off with. 48 00:03:31,827 --> 00:03:36,525 Really simple. That's all down strokes and then again your upstrokes. 49 00:03:36,525 --> 00:03:40,978 . . . 50 00:03:40,978 --> 00:03:43,400 Then your down and ups you might double it, so you'd have, 51 00:03:43,400 --> 00:03:49,657 . . . 52 00:03:49,657 --> 00:03:53,852 etc, it's important that you start slowly when you do it with a metronome. 53 00:03:53,852 --> 00:03:55,852 Remember the metronome induces a bit of panic, 54 00:03:55,852 --> 00:03:57,822 'cause it means you've gotta keep going, you can't pause. 55 00:03:57,822 --> 00:04:00,102 Which is really good, I mean, we don't wanna stop. 56 00:04:00,102 --> 00:04:03,690 We want to practice, continuing and making things work properly. 57 00:04:03,690 --> 00:04:07,287 So, your first part of the exercise is what we just talked about. 58 00:04:07,287 --> 00:04:10,051 All down, all up, then down and up on each note. 59 00:04:10,051 --> 00:04:13,943 But then I want you to have a go at doing, if you like, proper picking. 60 00:04:13,943 --> 00:04:16,736 Right, and proper picking is alternate picking. 61 00:04:16,736 --> 00:04:20,056 Which means you go down followed by an up on the next note. 62 00:04:20,056 --> 00:04:22,789 Followed by a down, up on the next, down, up on the next. 63 00:04:22,789 --> 00:04:25,821 There are other types of picking, principally one called economy picking 64 00:04:25,821 --> 00:04:29,035 which is used by kinda heavy metal and rock guys. 65 00:04:29,035 --> 00:04:31,865 All of the metal and rock guys I know that use economy picking, 66 00:04:31,865 --> 00:04:34,093 learnt how to alternate pick first. 67 00:04:34,093 --> 00:04:37,545 And they have all emphasized to me, oh, if you're trying to learn 68 00:04:37,545 --> 00:04:39,498 that technique make sure that your students 69 00:04:39,498 --> 00:04:41,417 always get their alternate picking happening first 70 00:04:41,417 --> 00:04:43,434 before they're trying to do economy picking. 71 00:04:43,434 --> 00:04:46,580 So, if you've got a friend that does economy picking, 72 00:04:46,580 --> 00:04:49,101 or you've read about it or whatever try and avoid it for now. 73 00:04:49,101 --> 00:04:51,055 Get your alternate picking right first, 74 00:04:51,055 --> 00:04:52,993 and then maybe have a look at economy picking later. 75 00:04:52,993 --> 00:04:56,183 So, alternate picking with the Minor Pentatonic Scale, 76 00:04:56,183 --> 00:05:00,426 we're always gonna be picking a down pick with the note with our 1st finger. 77 00:05:00,426 --> 00:05:07,821 So we're gonna be going, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, etc. 78 00:05:07,821 --> 00:05:16,230 . . . 79 00:05:18,659 --> 00:05:23,366 ...down, up, down, up, down. 80 00:05:23,366 --> 00:05:27,071 As you get better at this, this is what you want to stick to your metronome. 81 00:05:27,071 --> 00:05:31,169 So, just if we do it nicely at 60bpm, nice and slow, 82 00:05:31,169 --> 00:05:36,477 we'll be doing down,up etc 83 00:05:36,477 --> 00:05:54,945 . . . 84 00:05:54,945 --> 00:05:59,330 And it's this alternate picking that's a really, really, really 85 00:05:59,330 --> 00:06:01,104 cool thing to get down. 86 00:06:01,104 --> 00:06:02,746 'Cause most of the time when we're playing scales, 87 00:06:02,746 --> 00:06:04,590 especially as we get more advanced and we get faster, 88 00:06:04,590 --> 00:06:07,070 you need to be alternate picking all the time. 89 00:06:07,070 --> 00:06:09,636 So this is a great little exercise, all down picks, 90 00:06:09,636 --> 00:06:13,197 all up picks, down and up on each note, and then alternate picking, 91 00:06:13,197 --> 00:06:17,405 for your Minor Pentatonic Scale, that will definitely help sort out your picking hand. 92 00:06:17,405 --> 00:06:19,708 Don't forget to anchor, with your little finger as well. 93 00:06:19,708 --> 00:06:20,906 You'll probably find that helps a lot. 94 00:06:20,906 --> 00:06:24,303 You don't have to, but I think it's definitely worth starting with that. 95 00:06:24,303 --> 00:06:27,469 So you can kind of decide if that technique works for you or not. 96 00:06:27,469 --> 00:06:31,958 OK. Hope you've enjoyed that, and I'll see you for some more chord work in a minute.