Guitar Dictionary Category
Picking & Fretting Technique
What Is Alternate Picking?
Alternate picking is a guitar technique that uses consecutive downstrokes and upstrokes to play single notes: down-up-down-up. It creates an efficient repeated motion for scales, melodies, riffs, solos, and fast passages. The technique is used on acoustic and electric guitar and appears in styles ranging from rock and metal to jazz, country, bluegrass, and Celtic music.
How Alternate Picking Works
Each picked note changes direction. If the first note is a downstroke, the second is an upstroke, the third is a downstroke, and so on. The pick should travel only far enough through the string to sound the note. A deep stroke creates extra resistance and makes the next movement longer.
Hold the pick firmly enough that it does not rotate, but avoid locking the thumb, wrist, or forearm. A small amount of pick exposed beyond the fingers usually improves control. Slightly angling the pick can reduce resistance, but too much angle may thin the tone or produce unwanted scraping.
Alternate Picking across Strings
Playing down-up on one string is only the first stage. Real melodies cross strings, creating two common situations:
- Outside picking: the two strokes move around the outside edges of adjacent strings.
- Inside picking: the pick moves within the space between two adjacent strings.
Neither movement should be avoided. Practise small two-string figures beginning with both a downstroke and an upstroke so that one direction does not become a hidden weakness.
Why Triplets Are an Important Test
Triplets expose whether both pick directions are dependable. When three notes are played per beat, the first group is D-U-D and the next begins U-D-U. The accent therefore alternates between a downstroke and an upstroke. If the upstroke is weaker, late, or tense, the triplets will sound uneven.
Count 1-trip-let 2-trip-let and accent the first note of each group without changing the spacing. This builds control that transfers directly to flatpicking, lead guitar, and more complex crosspicking patterns.
A Practical Speed-Building Method
- Choose a simple scale or four-note pattern the fretting hand already knows.
- Begin at a tempo where every note is clear and both strokes sound similar.
- Play for 30–60 seconds without tightening the hand or losing the beat.
- Increase the tempo by 3–5 beats per minute.
- Stop increasing when the motion becomes larger, the accents become uneven, or notes begin to blur.
Occasional rest days can help coordination settle. Returning after a break is often more productive than forcing repeated high-speed attempts with a tense hand.
Why Alternate Picking Matters
Alternate picking is not only a speed technique. It improves rhythmic consistency, tone control, endurance, and synchronization between the hands. A player who learns it early avoids having to rebuild an inefficient all-downstroke motion later.
Kalymi Tip
My best advice with alternate picking is to begin using it from the start. Practise with a metronome or tap your foot while playing a simple scale that your fretting hand already knows. This allows you to concentrate on keeping the downstrokes and upstrokes even.
As your playing becomes faster, alternate picking becomes an essential technique. It reduces unnecessary movement and allows the pick to continue travelling in both directions rather than resetting after every note.
Triplets are especially useful because the picking direction changes at the beginning of each group. One triplet is picked down-up-down, and the next begins up-down-up. Keep all three notes even while accenting the first note of each triplet. The alternating accent forces the upstroke to become as controlled and dependable as the downstroke.
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Reviewed by
Brent C. Robitaille,
music educator and founder of
Kalymi Music.