Good picking skills are certainly hard to come by. I think that many players underestimate how useful it is to be able to pick well and I think many underestimate just how hard it is to get these skills together.

This first article is dedicated to looking at methods for building up a strong picking technique and while I can't guarantee any overnight transformations into Al Di Meola or Steve Morse, I am sure that your general playing will improve as a result

Finding which is the right plectrum for you is always a fairly subjective issue. Personally I would say that most good lead players favour a medium to heavy pick. This gives you a strong connection with the string and generally a better tone as a result.

Personally I would say that the best way to get started it simply by practising picking down and up on the open strings. You can use the heel of your right hand to mute the strings slightly to give them a crisper sound. This really allows you to focus on your picking before you get into any problems coordinating your two hands together.

Like most teachers I would recommend that you try using a metronome and really practise keeping in tight with the beats. Metronomes allow you to quickly guage how fast you can play something whilst staying in control and playing it cleanly. We have a natural tendency to speed up and slow down when we play so this stops us from doing that. I would say that it is worth tapping your foot and making sure you try to get a good sense of rhythm internally. After all, most of these pieces of advice will transfer over to your rhythm playing very well.

I think that there are advantages to practising with clean and distorted sounds. To sound good you should ideally practise with both of these. If you just use distortion then its easy to get lazy and rely on the high gain to cover up mistakes, however if you just use a clean sound you tend to find that your muting can become sloppy.

Well, a good place to start is with scales. Don't worry if you don't know any scales because I will be putting some on my theory pages soon. I recommend this because these scales will be invaluable to you later on so you might as well get them under your fingers while you are working on your picking. Pentatonic scales are useful because they are easy to pick with two notes on each string. Diatonic scales are often laid out with three notes on each string which can make them harder to pick, at least initially. After that, it's worth considering sequencing scales and playing intervals, but I'll cover those in later lessons.

OK, here's something for you to practise, but it's no walk in the park. This kind of lick is the kind of thing that Steve Vai or Paul Gilbert use to amazing effect. They would play it faster than I've stated here but even that tempo might give you a bit of trouble. You should play four notes on each beat of the metronome and concentrate on picking clearly and evenly and hitting each beat with a strong downstroke. You should always use your first finger for notes on the 13th fret, your second for notes on the 15th fret, your third for notes on the 16th fret and your pinky for the note on the 18th fret. If you find that stretch is too much for you then simply move the whole exercise a bit further up the neck where the frets are closer together.

Well that closes things for this first lesson. I'll try to get some new stuff up here within the week.