Top 10 Types of Guitar Picking
I am not a professional guitar player yet but I am learning guitar. So I have come with a new list that contains some of the greatest guitar picking techniques. It could be both picking style, using a pick or simply using fingers.Adding ten items was kinda difficult so I may have done some mistakes. If I am mistaken somewhere I apologize in advance and will appreciate my corrections.
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Sweep picking makes the most unique sound among all of these techniques. Its one of the most essential techniques in shredding. If you listen to songs of Jason Becker, Yngwie Malmsteen, Michael Angelo Batio, Rusty Cooley or Muhammed Suiçmez you will know how great is sweep picking. Non metal artists like Frank Gambale, Steve Hackett or Les Paul also used sweep picking. Beside metal and rock jazz is most famous for using sweep picks.
I agree with this at #1 - this is the most beautiful guitar sound for me. And yes, it's very hard to play.
By the way, you added great images to this list. Very good job.
Most difficult technique (or at least on top tier) and most popular.
Very close to strumming. Alternate picking is picking notes downwards and upwards. Its one of the most essential elements of metal riffs/solos. It helps to build speed. It sometimes also make brutal riffs. Like sweep picking it also is required for shredding. But its not smooth like sweep picking. Sweep picking is like continuous smooth beats while alternate picking makes different sound. I meant upbeats and downbeats.
Downpicking is also a great technique to pick the strings. When I first started I could only downpick. It means picking/strumming the guitar strings downwards. Its east to pick like this. It's the best picking style if you want to build speed but aren't good at upstrokes. Generally it makes one way sound cause it only features downstrokes. But there are great example of downpicking guitarists. James Hetfield, Johnny Ramone, Dave Mustaine are some of the greatest downpickers. Downpicking is very common in punk rock and thrash metal.
Along with tapping fingerpicking is one of those techniques where you play guitar without a pick. It can be done on both acoustic and electric guitar. But I would say it sounds better on acoustic guitars. Along with sweep picking, fingerpicking also makes less harsh sound. It's a very common technique and can be seen in genres like blues, folk, rock, southern, country etc.
Quite a difficult technique. It requires both finger and picks. Grip a pick with thumb and index finger and it leaves three fingers pinky, ring and middle finger. Pick some other strings with those fingers, usually middle and ring finger.
I didn't add it on higher cause according to some people its just a part of alternate picking, fastest alternate picking. Performing on single note, it is most popular in death metal, black metal, speed metal etc genres. Its quite a difficult technique.
I know palm muting isn't a picking style but I added based on first palm mute and then pick. Means picking with palm muting.