An Easy Picking Pattern For Guitar

If you want to make your rhythm guitar playing really sound interesting, let’s face it: sooner or later you’re going to have to begin using single note lines. Strumming can take you a long ways, if you’re clever, but it can only take you so far.

Single note lines need not be complicated either – in fact, simply playing through the notes in a G major chord one at a time is a single note line. Rather than strumming all the notes in the chord simultaneously, you’re playing them individually… as an arpeggio.

Well, in this lesson we’re going to take a brief look at one of the most basic picking patterns you can play on guitar, which happens to be a great one to get started with.

The R indicates the root note of the chord, and the larger numbers indicate which string number to play. Remember that the strings are numbered from highest in pitch (1) to lowest in pitch (6). By using this sort of notation, you can apply this picking pattern to any chord you choose.

This lesson is the first and most basic example in the Flat Picking section out of my soon-to-be-released Dynamic Rhythm Guitar course. If you’d like to learn more about that, please click here.

If you have questions or comments, please leave them at the bottom of this page.


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