Just lay in bed and strum away. start with open notes and move to the strings you want, then start hitting notes

Well I've been practicing with the part of Hallowed Be Thy Name just before the first verse. Alternate picking that on 3 strings. I'm a little slow on it, bit it's coming. Something is bothering me though. My guitar has a little more action than I'd like. Is there any way to change that without buying a new guitar? BC Rich Warlock platinum series. No Floyd rose, solid bridge

Here is me playing a song back when I was 16 or 17 (can't remember exactly) so it was 4 or 5 years ago but this whole song I did absolutely NO alternate picking except for that little gallop in the song but I don't consider that alternate picking in my books since its just open notes and on one string.

I know its not good or anything, just showing you guys my play style and maybe I can get better pointers from that?

im somewhat slow with it also, i feel like picking speed/accuracy is very hard to improve, its not like learning to fret quickly. as far as adjusting ur action im pretty sure 99% of guitar modifications can be done at home without speciatly tools and without too much risk just takes some reading.

Alternate picking is not really that difficult to do. You jsut have to do it.

like i said before, i just naturally started doing it without even realizing it

it's just a matter of making an effort to alternate pick things that you haven't in the past.

two ways you can look at it: play songs you already know so your left hand is sussed and you can just think about your right, or learn new riffs so it doesn't feel so weird.

This post was edited by Cloudfire on Aug 25 2011 04:15am

Hmm yeah I'll probably learn something new. Something speed metal, most likely. All their material is either alternate picking, tremolo or triplets

Was just messing around today and realized that the intro of sweet child o mine would be excellent for getting the feel of alternate picking.

Try playing chapter four from avenged seven fold, i dunno what you like so you might find it a crapy song, but the little melody that uses only 2 strings was real easy to start with. Practise changing strings and is real slow