The Guitar Player's Resource
Welcome back! Hopefully, you have your scales down on the whole neck in all keys and on all strings, so it is now time to do some string skipping. In this lesson I will be showing you a few string skipping examples that I came up with to help you develop this technique within various scales and modes to apply to a real musical situation. This is a great way to help you master your fingerboard and help develop you alternate picking. A lot of people have a hard time with the right hand picking when it comes to string skipping. It is important to do outside picking when you string skip, so you don't hit the middle string. I have covered outside and inside picking in previous lessons. Let's get skipping!
Example 1 makes a great exercise to help you get the right hand picking technique down to do string skipping. For this example you are just pedaling the D on the G string and moving down the D major scale (D, E, F#, G, A, B, C#). Alternate pick this with a down stroke first and then follow it with an upstroke, down, up, down, up etc. You can reverse the picking, but the whole point of doing a down first to keep the pick away from the middle string so it doesn't ring.
MP3 - String Skipping - Example 1
Example 2 is a cool string skipping arpeggio riff with some pull offs from my "Chameleon" CD, from the song "Firefly In A Bottle" and this example is from the solo section beginning at 3:56. It is a C#m(M7) arpeggio (C#, E, G#, B#) and it makes a great lick you can loop or move around the fretboard in a progression.
MP3 - String Skipping - Example 2
Example 3 is a 16th note string skipping pattern that is in the D harmonic minor scale (D, E, F, G, A, Bb, C#) that blazes across the fretboard. Be sure to go slow and then gradually build up speed.
MP3 - String Skipping - Example 3
Ok, that is it for now! Be sure to make up your own patterns, which is very important to become an original guitarist with your own voice. I'm just starting you off and leading you in the right direction. Also, don't forget to check out my latest CD, "Chameleon". For more info, visit mikecampese.com.
Mike Campese is an all-around music performer, session artist and teacher competent in many musical styles, electric and acoustic. He has studied at G.I.T. (Honors Graduate), and with Paul Gilbert, Norman Brown, Stanley Jordan, Scott Henderson and Keith Wyatt.
