Lesson

In the 20 years I’ve been teaching, I’ve had a complicated relationship with technique. I went from being a shredder who lived for all aspects of technique so someone who can barely pick his way out of a paper bag… but why?

Well the truth is I started to (or remembered to) focus on music and the things that paid the bills. It became clearer to me that technique is important, but only as important as the music you’re going to be playing. Back in the day, I had it all. I was a mean economy picker, I loved sweeping and tapping and I could alternate pick my way through Petrucci and Gilbert solos. But I had to look at what my students had, and the the things that got in the way of being where they needed to be. And every single time it was the same thing. They sucked at alternate picking. Usually because they would have a basic understanding of alternate picking and then they would cloud it with all these other techniques, never getting great at any of them.

So what is cross-picking?

People will argue about this. It’s commonly used to refer to rolling syncopated arpeggios played on string instruments like guitar and mandolin.

We never think of banjos as doing cross-picking, because they’re not using a pick. So it must be a plectrum thing.

And some people will tell you that it’s the fact that many of these cross-picking ideas are 3 against 4, so they “cross” the beat, but again, if you took a triad arpeggio on one string and played the same melody we wouldn’t think of it as being cross picked… so it can’t be anything to do with that.

We’re going to define cross-picking as the technique we use to play one note per string on the guitar. So it’s a string CROSSing thing.

Here’s the thing. The HARDEST thing you can do on the guitar is play everything as a one note per string pattern. There’s just no question about it. Think about it. Guitarists LOVE working on chops, and the organisation of picking patterns is huge. And when guitarists organise picking patterns it’s usually to avoid a certain string crossing movement. And when we have to play big arpeggios, what do we do? We sweep. Arpeggios and sweep picking are synonymous because most people wouldn’t dream of alternate picking arpeggios. Why? Because it’s REALLY hard!

Ok… so why would we want to do it?

Well while it’s hard to do, it is going to give you a ton more rhythmic and articulation consistency, and you’re be able to integrate any one note per string ideas into your playing without having to prepare for them. Sweeping is awesome… but have you tried to sweep with a swing feel?

The old saying is that when the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

We want tools at our disposal. Tools give us options! So why not work on the skill that you’re almost certainly the weakest on? The one that you’ll see the most gains in, and the one that will help your day to day playing the most.

(The following is one of the several routines available from the Cross Picking course!)

Routine