Improve Picking and Accenting

This isnt a complicated lesson really.

Lets take the modes (if you dont know the modes there should be a lesson on the site for them)

Anyway take any mode or all if you want to work them all.

Try accenting different beats. It sounds easy, but its not. This means to hit one note harder or more accented then the rest. If you want to challenge yourself and honestly the best way to do this is to play softly besides the accented note, and on the accented note you... accent it :)

Note: ALWAYs use alternate picking for this excersize, and ALWAYS use a metronome for this excersize. Pereferably one that accents the one (you know like its louder on the 1 or a different sound, so you can differentiate your 1 of the beat and dont get lost)

I start the metronome at 60 bpm and do 16th notes. 4 Notes per beat. So its "1-y-and-uh" Go up and down a major scale (ionian) or any other scale mode


1. Accent the 1 or the beat. (Accent the click, this should be natural and easy)

2. Accent the 2 of the beat or the "y"

3. Accent the 3 of the beat or the "and"

4. Accent the 4 of the beat or the "uh"


This is very useful for making simple common licks sounds awesome and interesting, and making awesome and interesting licks sound evern more awesome and interesting. YEAAA

If your master of all excersizes and really want to challenge yourself... Put the metronome so it only ticks on the 2 and the 4. A common practice method. This would mean that the 1 and the 3 on the metronome dont tick. This is much harder.

Great lesson,and nicely explained.

I do have one comment about #4, Reggae guitarist
often only play and accent on the 2 and 4 beats in a song
so essentially,its a good exercise for reggae (:

+2 +4
\M/(*-+)
gs2112

Where did you get the 1, y and uh from? Good lesson.

I am not sure about the "y", I have always been tough the second part of the beat is "e". nullnaught, I think this is common terminology for breaking down the parts of a beat.

ive always thought of a 4 beat pattern as 1, 2, 3 and 4.

Not 4 beats - 4 parts of a beat.

1-e-and-uh, 2-e-and-uh, 3-e-and-uh, 4-e-and-uh would be 4 beats, each with 4 sixteenth notes.

People learn it different ways i guess but i was teaching subdividing once and wrote "1-e-and-uh" and he was like "1-eh-and uh" so i just switched to y. But the way you probably learned it was 1-e-and-uh. Its basically the common method for subdividing a beat into 4 beats, or 4 16ths notes

i meant 4 individual sounds. isnt that right?

That's pronounced "E" in Spanish as in 'Cerveza y tequila por favor'.

DOH! XD I was totally gonna make a spanish joke about the y too... Should have just clicked 'post' when I had it typed haha