Paul Gilbert is the most sensible instructor of this kind of stuff out there. He is almost the only one who says anything about the left hand. No matter how fast you can pick, if your left hand can't fret the notes as fast as the right can pick them, then Bob's not your uncle.

7K likes, 1 million views. Same 7K guitarists saw it back and forth 1 million times

PG has done more for my playing than pretty much anyone else. Intense Rock 1 is a must own for serious shredheads out there.

1:46 ''After 8 years of that...'' I've been playing for 2 years, and I find tedious to re-visit and change my technique. A true example of discipline and improvement in Paul.

Great to se that such a immense guitar icon as Paul Gilbert can also be a amazing teacher.

thats exactly how i hold my pick... everything goes down hill from there

You, Sir Gilbert. Are, without a doubt, the best guitarist and Teacher in the world!

Still in 2019, I've never seen anyone do the legendary Gilbert exercise with more ease and power!

*Video starts* WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON!!!!!!!!!!!

The first alternate picking exercise 0:10 was printed in music notation with Paul in an ad for Musicians Institute in a 1985-86 Guitar World mag with Vai on the cover. I saved that mag not only for Vai's lesson, but for this exact alternate picking lesson. This lesson, along with one particular warm up exercise in Steve's original 10 Hour Workout that appeared in Guitar World (Steve on cover after he joined Whitesnake) and the aforementioned mag with Pablo are still right here on my theory and all things music (from Machaut to modern music) shelf. Timeless and priceless. (As are Paul's instructional videos from the 1980s and 1990s. Buy them... even if you don't listen to Paul. He's a great teacher when it comes to pick dynamics.)

He really thinks about every aspect, no matter how small it seems. I have learned so much from him and am sure I will continue to have much to learn from him.

Each Paul Gilbert's picking is like a hammering 🔨

Last 10 seconds of him teaching is my last 10 years of playing!

Nicest seeming guy in the world; craziest riffs I ever heard.... Also totally gonna synchronize my hands, despite my body memory..

Such an awesome demonstration of picking technique with an emphasis on tone above all else. Thank you Paul Gilbert. You’ve always been a Huge inspiration.

Paul is really a great teacher. I remeber starting out long time ago with his intructional vhs, really good information for exercising alternate picking. Paul is the man!

True story about Paul Gilbert, circa 1986-87 at GIT: We heard that Paul Gilbert would be giving a workshop on speed picking. Of course at that time, Metal was huge, and everybody wanted to learn how to pick as fast as Gilbert. The auditorium was packed. Gilbert came out, went through this long build-up spiel. Finally, pulls out a power drill! Attached to the bit are three picks. He guns the drill to full speed, and applied the spinning picks to the string... It was hilarious! Of course he was making a point about gimmicky playing. But it was pretty funny. I'm still amazed nobody has tried to market something like that. A handheld power picker....

5:04 I love how he can get that chunky sound with alternate picking that you usually only hear with downpicking

This is THE best picking video I have ever seen and refer to it often as well as encourage newer guitar players to watch as well.. Thanks so much.

The Master of speed picking....he's so perfect !....ad just with a light modification of pick direction his sound is totally different. Learning speed picking with Paul is Learning with intelligence because he always explain all the détails, from the big to the tiny one....Thanx a lot Paul.

Watching this, knowing Paul's philosophy on picking nowadays is hilarious. He'd most likely tell you to forget what he said in this video. Not about the tone part, but about "For fast things I prefer alternate picking"

So interesting to see his approach. Personally, I cannot stand the pick scraping sound, but he makes it work.

This is MINDBLOWING. Love him! best guitar player ever.

Paul is a treasure to aspiring guitarists everywhere. So humble and open to explain his techniques.One of the few guys who breaks down his own songs for others to learn. Love this dude

My god I just started on acoustic three days ago and I don't think I could ever move my hands that fast!

cooooooool

Why is it that Paul seems to be the only bad ass player out there that actually SHARES knowledge and what he does. So many other elite players do NOT seem to give two shits about any of us, but they have their videos too.

Paul Gilbert is bad ass. I've never seen another guitar player share so much insight into their own picking technique before. What a great lesson.

I really like that swooshy guitar pick tone.

His alternate picking chops are insane! I can only hope to one day pick that fast without everything sounding like a jumbled mess.

Haven't come across another picking technique as good, stable, & consistent as this one.

He's totally passionate about his music -- it's really cool to witness!

why cant i get this shit down after like 4 years -______-

dont try to hold your pick like anyone else, just do what feels comfortable to you, as long as its functional, and if you want proof of that look at how marty friedman holds his

Paul's really the best tutor out there for picking. I wish more people would look at his vids for advice.

he's united with the guitar.............AMAZING

The fuk this guy can play drums on his guitar

7:07 - don't do what a lot of beginners do. Well, Herman Li does this all the time, his two hands are totally unsynchronized on the fast stuff. I guess he's still a beginner, just a sped-up one...

If anyone on earth knows how to move the pick it is Paul Gilbert. Paul is clear on concepts and this is one of the many reasons he is the awesome technician that he is. This is good information.

God damn! seeing Paul shred like this really reminds me how amazing of a musician he really is. one of the best guitarists of all time!

New video... "How Paul Gilbert deals with equipment failure live" kzfaq.info/get/bejne/frqmldRkrb7Rp2Q.html

There's something called economy picking and thats what he means by a better and more efficient ways of picking.But economy picking does not give you emotion and soul alternate picking can give you.

PG was a teacher and Buckethead was a student. Paul is realy a great guitaris, he knows how to do it and learn it out!

Very skillfully, bright, masterly! Bravo!

73 dislike is a lil wayne fans

the beginner that he is talking about is asking gayaxandria and bring me the gayrizon..ok gays this dude is the real metal ..hail paul!!

no one can pick as intense as paul gilbert;))...he has the most perfect and scariest control ever:))

Paul is a true guitar freak, crazy as hell.

I was sure that Steve Vai was the best guitar man that I had seen... No....

His picking feels like he's melting my face. Awesome !

Hey thank you for replying and making a nice comment Sacha, and I hope that you will make great gains in your playing. May I suggest another practice tip that has also helped me a lot. When getting warmed up I break my hands into two categories...left and right hand mechanics. My left hand I will run legato exercises to get warm and I start acclimating my mind to the guitar. I work on ergonomics, how I am sitting, breathing techniques everything. I really approach this in a way that martial artists approach their training sessions when getting focused. When warming up my right hand I do the same thing but everything is alternate picking related. I set the metronome to 100 with the goal being 200-215, and I subdivide the notes, 1/4,1/8,1/16, and groupings of triplets. I lay my left hand over the fret board at the 12th fret so all I hear is slightly muffled string. All I care to hear is that dynamic aggressive sound the pick makes nothing else. Once I have met my goal on one string I then move to the others so that I can duplicate the sound and proper technique on all of the strings...but there is a catch. On the E,A,D strings your hand is going to be angled different because of the anatomy of your hand and the way it moves. Once you hit the G,B, E strings your wrist will naturally want to move towards the bridge, and so you have to tilt the pick just a little more as your hand moves in that direction. The amount of power and fineness that you use on the G,B,E strings are also going to be different as well, and we all need to take that into consideration when trying to figure these things out. Different gauge strings require us to play with more control and we will have to spend the time as guitarists analyzing those things in our own playing in order to overcome those road blocks in our musicianship. Play on the low E string with 16th notes for 4 measures, then try it on the high E string and notice the difference in power, approach, pick angle, palm position, and anchoring points. In conclusion breaking our hands into two categories and focusing on what each one does by themselves is really powerful, and allows us to slow down our thinking and focus on proper mechanics.

The most useful alternate picking lesson ever

he is awesome...you can tell he honestly just loves to play and create a true passion for the instrument

My top 5 guitarists of all time

This is great! In these days you hear a lot of guys talking about playing fast as a bad thing, be he doesnt care. I LIKE BIGGER, ROCK AND LOUDER! He is an inspiration.

Paul really makes me re-evaluate my entire approach to playing, amazing

one of the best lessons on youtube.

This picking was badass

I miss this

I have never been a fan of Paul Gilbert but in this video, he pointed out some things about alternate picking that are logical and technical and real good.

He sure is. Besides, I love how he explains everything so clearly and tries to convey as much information as possible in as little time as he can. Besides, he always knows what he's talking about. PG is just such an inspiration.

Make sure you get to see him live. It's a crazy rock and roll fest, all kind of covers, shredding, prog aweseomeness.

"let me slow that down for you real quick." Proceeds to play at close to my max tempo. Paul is a guitar god

Thank you Paul! Pick at a backwards angle! The only useful advice i've gotten after watching ten or so picking videos was here.

I was literally taught the exact "backwards" pick grip Paul showed in the beginning, and I played like that for YEARS! I had good overall control, and was decent at pulling artificial harmonics, string skipping, and trills, but I tensed up during faster pieces, and had to readjust my grip in order to pull squeals spontaneously. I used to look at my buddy's grip, and every other guitarist's pick grip and think that was such a weird "backwards" way to play lol. I honestly think it was about 9-10 years ago when I first encountered this video and listened to Paul talking about having to undo this method of picking, and relearning how to alternative pick, I decided to do the same (and in turn realized how much of a douche my original teacher was lmao). Once I acclimated to the more conventional "correct" pick technique, I noticed my overall wrist control increase, and I was all of a sudden able to bust out pinch harmonics on any string, anywhere on the neck with ease and fluidity! It was so cathartic to listen to someone like the Paul Gilbert explain a situation that I personally identified with, that it inspired me to take the leap and relearn how to hold a guitar pick! What's interesting is I actually still like the tone the older grip gives me for certain clean chordy arppegiated style sections, that I find myself switching between grips to alter and vary my timbre in my playing, thus, giving me more overall diversity in my approach. I honestly owe a ton to this video!

6:09 Paul taught that alt picking practice technique in the early/mid 1980s in GIT (now MI) advertisements in Guitar Player & Guitar World (plus, it was in one of his 3 1980s guitar instruction vids. But that little technique in the GIT ad was a life changer. I still have one copy of the ad in a GW from 1986!

That's what we all try and do Paul. We are all searching for that magic lick, riff and inspiration. Paul Gilbert is an insanely awesome player. He kept the metronomes clicking at GIT.

Paul gives the best lessons...

i like paul gilbert. great music and great lessons. rock on gilbert!

the best teacher of all the guitar gods...pual will improve your playing in no time

Great lesson Paul! You are very clear in your instructions and break it down into precise sections. This is getting me closer to getting that electric that I want :)

the only guy that can get by w/o economy picking, this guy is a freak of nature

That's the Low D Paul!!! 😂😂 Love this guy, such an amazing player.

Jesus Christ that playing at the start of the vid is insane. Best lesson by far aswell .

this is probably my fav. instructional dvd

Maaan! I love how much hes's getting into it at the beginning its awesome

I know Paul got fast when he used to use his old picking technique, which was similar to Benson picking, which Shawn Lane used, except Paul gripped the pick with three fingers instead of two. That method of picking used the oscillation motion, which is the best form of picking. Its probably why Paul is one of the top pickers, and why Shawn Lane had such great speed in his picking hand. It's an interesting thing to take note on, even though they never mentioned it.

i love his distorsion tone and picking......

Great video! He seems like a super nice guy!

As far as I know, he uses 10's for his shorter scale guitars, such as the Fireman; for his longer scale PGM's he uses (or at least used to use) 9's. For picks, he now uses 0.60 mm Dunlop Tortex, the standard orange ones.

Learn it now and always use it. I started playing 20 years ago and picked up bad picking habits that I have to work hard at now to break

good tip with picking is to completely ignore pitches and notes and group evens and odds and arrange them rhythmically and view it as a percussion exercise. The notes take care of themselves. Rhythm is the template in which notes occur. Have to be able to play the notes with precision.

love the style..... really really like him...

always a pleasure to learn form this guy

well, paul actually said that he was struggling with his picking when he first started playing, so he developed his left hand (i.e. legato), and only THEN did he focus on alternate picking so...it worked for him the other way around. Though I suppose you have a certain point there.

I've been at this for a while now, & I'm finding that one of the secrets is to start off picking as lightly as you can by only using the very tip of the pick against the string. It's a totally different feel to regular picking!

“That’s when you head starts movin’ “ Goddamned right, it does.

Holy crap this is too mind blowing

@GeneralDO0m He meant the 7th fret on the A, which is an E note, and opposed to the low E is higher so in this context it's the high E.

What a great teacher. Seems like he'd be such a cool guy to sit down with and trade licks with...

i agree. i used to pick parallel to the string. changed my style and now can play faster and cleaner.

Good stuff! I already do all this in my playing, but they are things I've learned to do almost instinctively. This lesson is great because I'm starting to teach a couple of people how to play like this, and dissecting, interpreting, and explaining techniques to others isn't something I'm very good at yet.

dude, thank u mr gilbet. i'm now holding my pick different and already show results. gilbert ftw!

Had a masterclass with Paul back in 2009. He actually praised me for my alternate picking technique, saying it was more efficient than his! It's called economy picking (google it). I've seen other guitarists use it since but not sure if its caught on in the mainstream!

He uses the 60mm Tortex Picks (the orange ones). He prefers the lighter picks because he prefers to have more sound from his pick's attack. Thicker picks give you less attack. It's all in preference.

@minivirus I agree, it's all in what you like. Pick attack is often overlooked as a way to get different sounds from your playing. I prefer a cleaner pick attack with not so much angle but it's all personal preference.

@MetalHeart8787 They put a turtle on them because the picks are meant to emulate the turtle shell that picks used to be made of.

omg i'vw been playing legato for 5 years because i could never get it right this helps allot i can see an improvement with my picking already thanks for uploading this

Im self taught for the most part and as much as Ive tried to improve my pick holding & trying lots of angles & methods ..... I to this day dont feel I hold it the best way. May that is just what my brain is telling me, but reason I say it is...... I never sat down & listened to anyone say "this is the correct way to hold your pick" ... Also theres players who have almost no Arm movement & its all in the hand/finger movement .... and theres thos that do use arm movement & less picking hand movement . Never knew which is actually correct or if there IS a correct method. 30 years & these basic things still puzzle me at times.