Tremolo picking, an easier thing on guitar? I think not! Tremolo picking is a techinque that requires a good muscule memory or good timing! Now you are saying whats Muscule Memory? Short and Sweet its the way your hand remembers to play stuff that you practice and eventually builds to be used for sight reading!
Now on to the lesson, Whats Tremolo Picking? Its a "Rapid" movement of Up and Downstrokes! Now to use Tremolo picking effectively I suggest being able to Alternate Pick (Switching between Up and Down Strokes When playing). It seems un-needed because you can already Up and Downstroke at fast speeds good! Well it helps but isn't needed, I started off Tremolo picking alittle bit too before I alternative picked. But it does help!
So Now We Know what Tremolo Picking is and why it seems so easy yet during a song it can totally wreck, and ruin your timing in a song, throw you off beat and be an annoyyance? Simple, alot of guitarist don't count when tremolo picking! I have students who walk in and tremolo pick and then are so terribly off beat with the song, lagging a measure or two from it!
Now lets begin with a simple excerise!
Now Play Each Section 4 times at a set BPMs like start off at 70 BPMs. Lower if you can't play it accurate. BE SURE TO BE COUNTING! Theres 4 Notes then a Repeat of that 4 times so you are playing 16 each of E, F, G, and A notes! Play these as 32nd notes! Be sure you are Down stroking, Up Stroking, Down Stroking and Up Stroking!
Now that you can play this 100% Correctly atleast 5 times in a row raise the tempo and keep counting! Counting is key to Perfect Tremolo Picking (You should also be counting though! even on slow stuff!)
Now thats Simple now that we count yes? Now Heres a thing! We need to Know Alternative Picking and String Skipping for some More Advance Tremolo picking! I Highly Recommend knowing some Alternative picking and string skipping techinques since this is easy to mess up on here!
Now Instead of One String Tremolo Picking lets String Skip Tremolo Pick!
The Idea of this is to effectivly Tremolo pick and switch strings without hitting or ringing out wrong notes!
If you noticed this is in the Key of C, in Fours for each note and Is mainly based off the C Major Scale. Now We do this and practice at lets say 70 BPMs again, Lower if needed and slowly bring it up too 120 BPMs. 120 BPMs is your goal for here if you are serious! Be Sure to COUNT and Make Sure you are PLAYING THE RIGHT NOTES!
If you have mastered this I now say come up with your own excerises for this and effectively use it on tremolo picking riffs and runs!
Remember I Can Not Stress This Enough! Count Count Count! Counting Is Half The Battle To Tremolo Picking! The Other Half Is How Accurate The Notes Are! Speed Dosn't Matter If You Can't Even Play The Notes Right!
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