Hybrid Picking
Updated: Feb 4
Greetings!
So... Hybrid Picking... It's not a "common" technique, but it's a really practical one. and more and more Guitar Players are starting to use and master it.
Basically, Hybrid Picking is when you not only use you pick but also your fingers to pluck the strings. Just like finger-style Guitar, but instead of using your thumb and fingers #1, #2 and #3 to pluck the strings, you use a pick and fingers #2, #3 and #4.
You can use this technique to play pretty much anything. For me, it works specially well with all sorts of string skipping exercises and melodies. I mainly use it for string skipping arpeggios. (See my other posts for tips on those)
To be honest, I'm not the best with this technique. If you really want to see a Hybrid Picking Master in action, go see Kosta Vreto's (Wardrum) YouTube channel. To be clear, he is 100% a fingerstyle player so he doesn't use a pick at all. You might have to adapt his exercises to your playing, but his posts and videos really helped me a lot to develop a good Hybrid Picking technique. Here are some exercises: Play the lower string with your pick and the higher string with your middle finger. 1. Start with this exercise to get used to plucking the strings with your middle finger while using a pick. The volume you get from your finger should be the same as the volume you get from your pick.
2. A similar exercise. Same idea with some string skipping.
Continue playing the same pattern until you reach the 1st string and then go back down (read the exercise from right to left) 3. This is where things get funny. You will have to stretch your left hand for this one. Try to hold your fingers down so that you don't "jump" up and down with your hand. Remember, move you fingers, not you hand.
4. Lastly, here's an exercise where you also use your ring finger. It's the same pattern as the first exercise we did, but with an extra string. You want to play the lower string with your pick, the middle string with your middle finger and the higher string with your ring finger. Here it is:
All this exercises should get you up to speed with Hybrid Picking. Don't forget to check out Kosta Vetro and if you have any questions, let me know in the comments section! Cheers! Eric