Hey everyone, my question is about alternate picking. I've been playing for quite a long while now and i feel that normal picking, in my case down down down, is more comfortable to me than going up down up. When i use alternate picking, the notes sound like they arent as clean. I know this is a technique that I need to master to become fast, but i need some help. If anyone has any sites or advice about alternate picking please leave them here, any help is appreciated.

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Sometimes I hit notes only dogs can hear.

Well first of all, if you're going to be playing melodies, not just riffs/rythm, alternate picking is essential, so get on it immediately. When you start, make sure that each pickstroke alternates, always. Never repeat downstrokes or upstrokes. Later on, you may want to experiment with this, or you may not, but it's good to be able to do standard alternate picking first.
There's not really a secret to it, and there's no way I can make sure that you won't do it wrong, so I suggest you get somebody who plays well to watch you. The best would be to get a teacher, are you taking lessons? A good way to improve your picking is to play stuff that is incredibly easy for the left hand or doesn't even use the left hand. Practice alternate picking on one string, practice alternate picking crossing strings. You can do this with scales too, but if you want to concentrate on developing picking ability, it's not necessary. Later on, you will definitely want to include your left hand in picking excercises, however.

Hey Luigi thanks for the reply, I mostly play heavy metal and anything that sounds good. The problem is that i can play most stuff (scales) fine using alternate picking, but it isnt as clean, and my fingers on my left hand dont want to move as fast when im alternate picking with my right. When i get up to the higher frets for solo's, my notes arent clean because my fret hand doesnt keep up, i guess thats the hand i need to work on. I'm not currently taking lessons, but i'm in a band and the other guitarist is much more skilled than i and he helps alot. Also my brothers band is well established in this area (www.eli-stone.com) and is getting ready to tour, their guitarists helps me out a lot too. I was just seeing if theres was sites to practice alt picking or if theres just some general advice. thank ya.

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Sometimes I hit notes only dogs can hear.