Inside & OUTSIDE picking Technique For guitar
Inside picking is a form of alternate picking where you pick in-between two adjacent strings. For example, you might downstroke on the D string and then upstroke on the G string, with both strokes happening between the strings—hence the term "inside."
Like inside picking, outside picking is another form of alternate picking, but this time instead of picking in-between two adjacent strings, you would pick on the outside of both of them. For example, you’d downstroke on the G string and then upstroke on the D string, with the pick moving around the outside edges of the strings.cBoth techniques are essential for building precise, efficient picking mechanics and can drastically improve your ability to play cleanly across strings at high speed. Developing control over both inside and outside picking will give your playing a more balanced, versatile foundation, especially for scalar runs, arpeggios, and technical riffs.
Check out the video masterclass below to see examples of both and how to practice them effectively in your daily routine.
⬇Inside & Outside Guitar Lesson⬇
Approaching inside and outside picking as a beginner
Here are a few steps you can follow to learn inside and outside picking on guitar as a beginner:
- Start with alternate picking: Before attempting inside and outside picking, practice alternate picking, which involves playing consecutive downstrokes and upstrokes. This helps to develop the basic motion required for both inside and outside picking.
- Study the concept: Inside picking involves playing notes on consecutive strings with a downstroke, while outside picking involves playing notes on consecutive strings with an upstroke. Read and watch tutorials to understand the basic principles of each technique.
- Practice exercises: Start with simple exercises that involve playing two or three notes per string using inside and outside picking. Increase the difficulty as you improve by adding more strings, faster tempos, and more complex sequences.
- Apply to songs: Once you've mastered the exercises, start incorporating inside and outside picking into songs that you already know or are learning. This will help you develop the technique in a musical context.
- Focus on accuracy and consistency: As with any technique, the key to mastering inside and outside picking is to practice slowly and accurately, focusing on developing clean, consistent motions.
Remember that inside and outside picking are intermediate-to-advanced techniques and require time and patience to master. Keep practicing regularly and you will see improvement over time.
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GET RESULTS WITH A metronome
As with everything you practice make sure you use a metronome and start super slow to make sure you are playing the lick correctly with the right fingers, technique and attack (it's fine to not use a metronome at first while first learning it).
I recommend starting at 60pm and use 8ths notes until you can play the lick without mistakes three or four times in a row then speed up the metronome by 5bpm. If you are really struggling playing the whole lick break it down to a bar or two. CLICK HERE to get a metronome.
The best way to really get any licks under your fingers is to practice them over a backing track and this may help inspire your own lick ideas as well. I have a free backing track channel http://www.killerbackingtracks.com
