Copy This Picking System — Your Speed Will Skyrocket

There's a reason the greatest rock guitarists in history — Paul Gilbert, Zakk Wylde, Al Di Meola — sound so aggressive and precise when they play fast.

It's not just talent. It's alternate picking.

While legato gives your playing smoothness and fluidity, alternate picking gives it something completely different — a spiky, biting attack that cuts through everything. It's the technique behind blazing picked runs, tight riffing, and the kind of playing that makes your jaw drop when you hear it done well.

In this post I'm going to show you exactly how to build alternate picking properly, how it connects to everything else you've developed on the fretboard, and why persevering with it will transform not just your speed but your overall musicality.

Legato vs Alternate Picking — Knowing When To Use Each

Before we get into the mechanics, it's worth understanding what alternate picking actually is for — because it's not a replacement for legato. It's a different colour.

Legato creates a smooth, connected, flowing sound. Alternate picking creates an aggressive, precise, percussive attack. Great rock guitarists use both — often within the same phrase — choosing deliberately between them depending on the musical effect they want.

Think of it this way. When you want your line to breathe and flow, you lean on legato. When you want it to bite and drive, you insert the pick. The ability to move fluidly between the two is what gives advanced rock guitarists that dynamic, expressive quality in their playing.

Once your fretting hand is solid from legato work, alternate picking becomes about synchronising both hands so they work together with precision and control.

What Alternate Picking Actually Is

Alternate picking means picking every note with a strict down-up-down-up motion, alternating direction on every single note. No sweeping, no economy picking — just a consistent alternating stroke that produces clean, even articulation at any speed.

The key word is consistent. Many guitarists think they're alternate picking when they're actually defaulting to all downstrokes when they slow down or changing direction randomly when they speed up. True alternate picking maintains the down-up pattern regardless of tempo, string changes, or phrase length.

This consistency is what makes it reliable at speed. Once the pattern is internalised, your picking hand can essentially run on autopilot while your fretting hand focuses on the notes.

How To Build It Properly

Start with what you already know

The most effective way to build alternate picking is to take the same scalar fragments you practiced with legato and add the pick. You already know the fretting hand movement — now you're just adding a new dimension to it.

Take a three note fragment on two strings. Play it cleanly with legato first, then add strict alternate picking. The goal is to get both hands perfectly synchronised so the pick attack lands exactly with the fretting hand movement — no early picks, no late picks, complete unity between the hands.

Practice with all four fingers

Just as with legato, your alternate picking development needs to involve all four fretting hand fingers equally. Practice your sequences starting on different fingers, in different positions, and in both ascending and descending directions. This builds the kind of comprehensive technical foundation that works in real musical situations, not just in exercises.

Go vertical and lateral

Once you've got a fragment clean in one position, take it through the same two approaches we used with legato — vertical and lateral.

Vertical means working through scale shapes up and down in one position. Lateral means taking the same idea across the neck through different positions. Both are essential. Vertical builds position-based precision. Lateral builds the fluency to navigate the whole neck at speed.

Connect it to your fretboard knowledge

Here's where alternate picking becomes genuinely musical rather than just an exercise.

Take your three notes per string scale shapes — which you developed as part of your fretboard knowledge — and plug alternate picking into them. Now you're not just practicing a technique drill, you're practicing actual musical vocabulary that you can use when you improvise.

For example, in A Dorian you might play a fast alternate picked run through three notes per string in one position, then exit into a musical phrase that resolves on a chord tone. The technique serves the music. That's always the goal.

Why It Helps Your Timing

One of the most underrated benefits of developing solid alternate picking is what it does for your sense of time.

Because alternate picking requires absolute consistency in your picking hand motion, it forces you to develop a rock solid internal pulse. Every note has to land exactly where it should in relation to the beat. There's nowhere to hide behind the smoothness of legato — every note is articulated clearly and precisely.

Guitarists with well developed alternate picking almost always have better timing than those who rely predominantly on legato. The technique develops your internal metronome as a side effect of building it properly.

What Comes Next

With alternate picking in place alongside your legato technique you now have two complementary tools that cover the full spectrum of articulation in rock guitar playing — smooth and aggressive, fluid and precise.

In the next lesson in this series we're moving on to sweep picking. A lot of guitarists avoid it because they associate it purely with shred guitar played at impossible speeds. But sweep picking is fundamentally about playing arpeggios and triads musically — one of the most important skills in all of rock and fusion guitar. And you don't have to play them at the speed of light to make them sound incredible.

If you want to study all of this with me directly rather than waiting for the next YouTube lesson — the Cutting Edge Guitar Institute is where that happens.

As my student you get access to:

• A complete course library — 25+ courses from beginner to advanced, built around fretboard knowledge, technique and musical vocabulary

• A monthly rock guitar solo study programme with Guitar Pro files, PDFs and backing tracks

• Monthly live sessions with me — part structured lesson, part open Q&A

• A private Discord community of serious rock guitarists with me actively involved every day

• Optional monthly 1:1 lessons for students who want the most direct route to results

No travel. No disorganised approach. Just serious, structured rock guitar education with a real teacher behind it.

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Anthony George is a Guitar Institute (ICMP) graduate and professional guitar teacher with 20 years of experience. He founded the Cutting Edge Guitar Institute to bring music college level rock guitar education to players everywhere.