Using Alternate Picking for Rhythm

Wow, I haven't posted in awhile, still trying to get things back to normal after an insane holiday season.

I'm sure almost everyone has heard the benefits of alternate picking over straight down strokes when it comes to speed, however fewer people know the reasoning for alternate picking when it comes to rhythm.

The idea behind alternate picking is to down stroke the on the beats and upstroke off the beats (the “and” when counting.) This obviously will allow you to play faster but it will also greatly improve your rhythm if you get it instinctual.

If your right hand learns to “feel” the beat when you down pick, and “feel” offbeats when you up pick, then your need to count will actually diminish, at faster speeds, especially when improvising, you can heavily syncopate a line by doing it in mainly upstrokes, your hands will do the rest without thinking.


However there are a couple exceptions to the rules of down stroked beats and up stroked offbeats.

Sixteenth notes through a wrench into the system, therefore when dealing with sixteenth note rhythms you have to change the rules, down stroke the beats and the offbeats (the “ands”, upstroke the sixteenth notes (the “e”s and “a”s). Apply these rules to any phrase with sixteenth notes in them, then switch back when you're not dealing with them.


Sweep picking is done all in one direction, this technique is still perfectly valid when playing notes on parallel strings that are in such fast succession that they are impossible for you to alternate pick.

Analyzing Chord Progressions

I hope everyone had a great holiday. Mine was insane, regular posting will resume as of today, with another post about chord substitution, this should be the last one for awhile.

This time I'm going to take the opposite approach I took in my blues discussion, and take a previously written song and pick apart the chords involved.

I'm going to use Gershwin's “summertime” here, this tune has been done by a pile of Jazz Musicians, this version is in the key of A minor.

Am     |Bb7    |Am   E7|Am   A7|

Dm7    |F7     |F#m7 B7|E7     |

Am     |Bb7    |Am     |G7     |

C    Am|B7   E7|Am     |Bm7  E7|

First we're going to go through and name all the diatonic chords – that is chords that fall within the harmonized scale.

A quick note, all chord symbols will be written with upper case roman numerals, and the chord qualities will be shown, the reasoning for this is because in more complex progressions, and minor keys, it becomes more and more bizarre to use uppercase for major and lower case for minor – I'm also going to relate the chords back to the A major scale, this is so that we don't get caught up in which minor scale we're using, since none of them are more important then any others.

Im              Im   V7 Im
Am     |Bb7    |Am   E7|Am   A7|

Vmim7                    V7
Dm7    |F7     |F#m7 B7|E7     |

Im              Im  
Am     |Bb7    |Am     |G7     |

bIII Im      V7 Im      IIm7 V7
C    Am|B7   E7|Am     |Bm7  E7:||

Now let's go through it again and analyze for secondary dominance.

Im              Im   V7 Im   V7/IV
Am     |Bb7    |Am   E7|Am   A7|

VIm7          IIm7/V V7/V V7
Dm7    |F7     |F#m7 B7|E7     |

Im              Im      V7/bIII
Am     |Bb7    |Am     |G7     |

bIII Im V7/V V7 Im      IIm7 V7
C    Am|B7   E7|Am     |Bm7  E7:||

Now let's find the tritone subs, an easy way to look for these is to find dominate 7 chords not yet analyzed with the next root a semi-tone away.

Im      subV7   Im   V7 Im   V7/IV
Am     |Bb7    |Am   E7|Am   A7|

VIm7   subV7/V  IIm7/V V7/V V7
Dm7    |F7     |F#m7 B7|E7     |

Im      subV7   Im      V7/bIII
Am     |Bb7    |Am     |G7     |

bIII Im V7/V V7 Im      IIm7 V7
C    Am|B7   E7|Am     |Bm7  E7:||

The reason it's subV7/VI and not subV7/II/V/V, is simply because the latter is incredibly difficult to read, avoid multiple /s whenever possible.

This is also a delayed resolution - meaning it doesn't resolve to where it should (E7) right away, it has some other chords before.

And there you have it, using that method you can pick apart almost all if not all chord progressions you've heard. There's some stuff I haven't gotten into here, but those are LONG explanations.

Musical New Years Resolutions

My posting has been irregular for the holidays everything should be back to normal after new years.

Everyone has made resolutions before, very few people keep them, I gave up on making them quite a few years ago, however, this year I'm going to attempt them again, and hopefully making them public will be extra motivation.

#1 Log Practicing

I've attempted to do this regularly before but always fail, I start and my practicing is much more efficient but then something happens – like leaving my journal at home and practicing in studio, or vice versa. My log is a small $2 notebook that simply lists what I practice then a dot next to that for every 15 minutes spent working on that thing.

#2 That extra hour

I've said before that I pull myself out of bed at 10am to start practicing (except Saturdays I don't start work until 4). I'm going to push that back to 9am to get that extra hour of practice time in.

#3 School

This one I've been planning for awhile, but I've attempted post secondary education before, and failed – mainly due to a total lack of motivation to do the work. So this year – come September I will try going back – this time as a music major instead of a psychology, or computer science student. If I wasn't going to school before so I could play guitar, hopefully going to school to play guitar will work out, and I'll finally get my BA.

#4 Redesign this Blog

Yes sometime soon I'll be overhauling the entire Blog to a nicer design.

So all my loyal readers – if there are any of you out there, what musical resolutions have you made for this coming year?

Guitar Instruction Books

Everyone who has taken formal guitar lessons has probably worked out of an instructional book, these books tend to be boring, but the teachers give them to you for a reason, you learn specific skills and practice the skills you have in them. Even if you're not in lessons they give your playing structure. However, some of these books should never have been published, they're awful. Here's the books I use, note,that I am not earning commission from any of these sales.


Basic Skills:

I love the Zerofret series, they're written locally, and I know the author, the great thing about these books, is not only the complete lack of tab is that you are NOT playing yankee doddle, aura lee, mary had a little lamb, etc. for the duration Almost every tune in the book was written by the author, often specifically for the book, making things far more interesting.

All these books are available in E-book form, quite cheaply.

If you're a beginner obviously start with book one.

If you can't read music but have become a decent player from tabs, skip right on into book two, and deal with second position playing right away.

Book three tends to finish off the basic skills of playing, and book four is focused on getting your chops up there, it's new though, so none of my students have finished zerofret three since book four came out.

Positional Playing:

One of my few disagreements with the zerofret method is that it sticks to second position, so therefore I supplement zerofret three, with Mel Bay's Deluxe Guitar Position Studies book, as soon as they finish the A major exercises, this book moves through all the positions one at a time, (Personally I start in fifth, which is not the beginning).

Past That:

William Leavitt has some great books out, the problem is that they are fast moving, (they were used as testbooks at Berklee.) Traditionally I've started book two after zerofret three is done, I might wait until book four now that it's out, I've taught out of book one before but it moves WAY too fast for any beginner. There is a book three, and if you're past this level you probably have little reason to be reading this blog - although please continue to read, and post opinions if you are.

That being said, anyone who can read music decently can get through these books quickly the trick is playing them fast, about half way through zerofret two, everything is being done with a metronome. The first major exercise in William Leavitt – two pages of straight eight notes in C major all the way up the fretboard my students are doing at 120bpm before they get passed it.

There's More then One Way to Play the Blues

I was sitting in a bar the other day with a blues band on stage, at first I thought “hey this is pretty cool.” but after an hour, I wasn't convinced they had ever changed songs, they just took dramatic pauses every five minutes or so.

Playing the blues doesn't mean you're limited to one twelve bar progression and six notes for lead, chord tones will still give a very strong blues sound if played over that twelve bar progression, however using what we know about chord substitution we can make that twelve bar pattern very different and much more interesting.

Let's do it in C.

C7 | C7 | C7 | C7 |
F7  | F7 | C7 | C7 |
G7 | F7 | C7 |  G7|

Let's start with common substitutions, firstly the IV7 chord (F7) if often placed in the second measure. That IV7 – I7 progression is very dominant in the blues and can be brought out more.

Secondly #IVdim7 is often placed in the second measure of the second line, the only difference between F7 and F#dim7 is the root, and the root is the b5 of C, otherwise known as the “blue note.”

C7      | F7     | C7      | C7      |
F7      | F#d7   | C7      | C7      |
G7      | F7     | C7      | G7      |

Now let's throw in some secondary dominance at the end of all the phrases.

C7      | F7     | C7  G7  | C7      |
F7      | F#d7   | C7  G7  | C7  D7  |
G7      | F7     | C7  D7  | G7      |

Now let's change around some of these chords with some like function substitutions, every 7 chord can operate as a five chord, the F#d7 will operate as a VII chord off the minor scale, so we'll get something like this.

C7      | Am7b5  | C7  G7  | C7      |
F7      | F#d7   | C7  G7  |C7 F#m7b5|
G7      | Ad7    | C7  D7  |G7       |

Now lastly let's add some tritone subs into the mix.

C7      | Am7b5  | C7  G7  | F#7      |
F7      | F#d7   | C7  G7  |F#7 F#m7b5|
G7      | Ad7    | C7  Ab7 |G7        |

And we now have a VERY different progression however, you can still here the progression in there, even though this is an extreme example, now I'll list another example, without going through the process, cookie to the first one to get it right.

C7 Em7b5|F7         | C7  C#7   | C7      |
F7 Bm7b5|F#d7 Dm7 G7| C7  Ed7   | C7  Ab7 |
G7 F7   |Dd7  Bm7b5 | C7  Fmaj7 | G7      |

Again an extreme example, that is probably a little too far gone to be used, but the essence of the blues is still there.

I'm not saying all Blues should look like this, just throw in some variation if you have a lot of blues on your set list, it will keep the audience awake.

Preventing Carpal Tunnel

Today at work I had a cancellation, so like always I went into my room and started practicing, and got a sudden sharp pain down my left wrist, I stopped immediately, and was unable to play much for the rest of the night without a dull throbbing pain – it didn't hurt but I knew what it was. My younger days of practicing for hours without a break were coming to bite me in the ass.

In an attempt to get as many people as possible to not make the same mistakes I made when I was young here are some basic guidelines for preventing carpal tunnel.

Proper Technique is key, sit up straight on a chair – not on your couch don't lean on the back either., elevate the neck of the guitar and your right leg (either cross your legs, put one foot on top of the other or use a foot rest). and don't wrap your thumb over top of the neck, all these things minimize the amount of stretching you need to do to play.

If you do stand keep your guitar in the same place it would be if you were sitting, lower positions again lead to more strain on the wrist then necessary.

Warm up before you play, stretch your fingers and message them, this will go a long way, and also improve your playing.

Also, when practicing try not to go over 30minutes or so in one sitting, get up and do something else for a bit, let your hand rest. Gigging is obviously another story though.

If you do experience any pain in your wrist stop playing and give it a couple hours, better be safe then sorry here.

And unfortunately a lot of it comes down to luck, if you follow these guidelines from the start your odds of getting it are low. However some people that take all the care in the world will get it, and someone who breaks all the rules might not get it, luck is a big factor.

The illusion of "Style"

I expect a ton of disagreement on this article, and encourage anyone to voice their disagreements below.

Style doesn't exist.

The building blocks to Jazz are the same building blocks of Punk, and country, and rock, with only a little variation.

Jazz is built on using the full chords – any regular reader has seen that I always use four note chords to explain something – because it's easier to visualize and understand that way, therefore you should learn how these work anyway.

Rock music is based on a simplified version of that, usually triad or dyad chords, but the progressions are the same, and believe it or not the way you should approach improvisation is the same (the Internet is filled with shortcuts that should be ignored.)

Country is built on the same foundation as rock, only without the dyads, and the distortion, the rhythm and bass line is what drives country.

Blues is formed in the way the chord progressions happen, based around the dom7 chords.

So to truly understand music you should be able to play all style, and if you have aspirations of professionalism you'll want to know it all.

A studio guitar player won't be hired if they can only play one style – whoever is hiring you would then have to hire a pile of different musicians depending on the song, they want someone who can play everything.

A freelance guitar player will find way more work if they can be hired for any type of gig.

I tell my students you need four things to become a good guitar player.

Technique/Chops
Music Theory
The ability to read music
Good Ears

All four of these things can be learned forever – with the possible exception of reading music, until your reading can keep up to your chops (ie you can sight read anything you'll ever be able to play.) It can be improved.

The illusion of style is given by how the notes are approached, learn the notes, then learn to approach them from all the angles.

The only exception in this article comes with classical, which is a very different beast from Modern Guitar.