Pick Madness

An exercise to explore all possible right hand picking and arpeggiation.

This is a brute force exercise to develop picking agility. These exercises are not necessarily the “best” ways to pick. To learn proper picking technique, access the Efficient Picking section of the method. If you are a beginner and have not mastered alternating picking, you may wish to stop now and put this exercise away until alternating picking style is natural on perfectly on time with the metronome.

One String

With one string, the only possible picking pattern is down (d) on string 1 and up (u) on string 1.

Practice playing down and up dddduuuu on each of the six strings four times

Play with strings muted and then open strings.

Match the tempo of the metronome exactly or slow down until matched.

Two Strings

On two strings, we have four possible picking patterns.

Play each pattern four times on a single string (see yellow row below), and then switch to all strings.

Practice the following picking patterns on the indicated string permutations.

“12” indicates strings 1 and 2 played separately, not twelve.

All strings are open or muted with no fretting.

Repeat each group four times before moving to the next group.

Pick	dd	dd	dd	dd	du	du	du	du	du	ud	ud	ud	ud	uu	uu	uu	uu
String	12	12	12	12	12	12	12	12	12	12	12	12	12	12	12	12	12

Then switch strings

Pick	dd	dd	dd	dd	du	du	du	du	du	ud	ud	ud	ud	uu	uu	uu	uu
String	21	21	21	21	21	21	21	21	21	21	21	21	21	21	21	21	21

Substitute these combinations of strings for the “12” pattern and repeat.

1st 2nd (shown)	1st 3rd	1st 4th	1st 5th	1st 6th
2nd 3rd	2nd 4th	2nd 5th	2nd 6th
3rd 4th	3rd 5th	3rd 6th
4th 5th	4th 6th	5th 6th

Three or More Strings

For three or more strings, download the Pick Madness Table from the website.

The table shows picking patterns in the yellow then string order permutations repeated in green.

Play the picking patterns four times each on a single string, and then switch to all strings.

Read the green table either horizontally or vertically.

1. Reading horizontally in the green area repeats the yellow picking pattern over all string permutations.

2. Reading vertical in the yellow column changes picking patterns with constant string order.

Repeat each pattern four times with muted and open strings before moving to the next group.

3. Substitute string combinations from the beige combinations table and repeat steps 1nd 2.

4. Choose a yellow picking pattern and green permutation and work the beige combinations.

ddd	123	132	213	231	312	321
ddu	123	132	213	231	312	321
dud	123	132	213	231	312	321
duu	123	132	213	231	312	321
udd	123	132	213	231	312	321
udu	123	132	213	231	312	321
uud	123	132	213	231	312	321
uuu	123	132	213	231	312	321

String combination substitutions.

1st 2nd 4th	1st 2nd 5th	1st 2nd 6th
1st 3rd 4th	1st 3rd 5th	1st 3rd 6th
1st 4th 5th	1st 4th 6th	1st 5th 6th
2nd 3rd 4th	2nd 3rd 5th	2nd 3rd 6th
2nd 4th 5th	2nd 4th 6th	2nd 5th 6th
3rd 4th 5th	3rd 4th 6th	3rd 5th 6th
4th 5th 6th

ddd	123	132	213	231	312	321
ddu	123	132	213	231	312	321
dud	123	132	213	231	312	321
duu	123	132	213	231	312	321
udd	123	132	213	231	312	321
udu	123	132	213	231	312	321
uud	123	132	213	231	312	321
uuu	123	132	213	231	312	321

ddd	123	132	213	231	312	321
ddu	123	132	213	231	312	321
dud	123	132	213	231	312	321
duu	123	132	213	231	312	321
udd	123	132	213	231	312	321
udu	123	132	213	231	312	321
uud	123	132	213	231	312	321
uuu	123	132	213	231	312	321

ddd	123	132	213	231	312	321
ddu	123	132	213	231	312	321
dud	123	132	213	231	312	321
duu	123	132	213	231	312	321
udd	123	132	213	231	312	321
udu	123	132	213	231	312	321
uud	123	132	213	231	312	321
uuu	123	132	213	231	312	321