Every serious drummer practises rudiments — standardised stroke patterns that build the muscle memory, timing, and coordination needed for everything else. Guitarists have largely ignored the equivalent idea. This course fixes that.
Picking Rudiments is an ongoing course — meaning it will be updated regularly as the material expands. Rather than covering just alternate picking and economy picking (the two patterns most guitarists ever practise), this course builds a full repository of picking combinations: doubled-up downstrokes, doubled-up upstrokes, triplet groupings, and a range of less common patterns that can unlock entirely new kinds of phrasing and fluency. Think of it as a catalogue of picking vocabulary, growing over time.
As a snare drummer practises rudiments — specific stroke combinations — to develop versatility and control, guitarists can do the same. Most players restrict themselves to alternate picking and economy picking, leaving a huge range of possible patterns unexplored. Each new picking combination you internalise adds a new texture and rhythmic possibility to your playing.
“What this course is about is picking rudiments, similar to how a snare drummer would, or a drummer would practice rudiments, practice drum strokes and different patterns of drum strokes. As guitarists, we typically just do alternate picking and economy picking. But there’s so many other combinations we can do involving all kinds of doubled-up downstrokes, and doubled-up upstrokes, and triples, and different types of things.”
You can dip into any lesson that catches your interest and return regularly to see what’s been added. There’s no strict order required, although working through the material systematically will give you a more complete foundation. Apply each rudiment to real music as soon as possible — the exercises are a means to an end, not the end itself. If you’re looking for a more general starting point for alternate picking technique, the “How I Built My… Alternate Picking” course is a good companion resource.
