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Guitar 101: Heavy Metal Hybrid Picking

By Greg Harrison March 02, 2018 News  

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Hybrid picking—the practice of interspersing atpicked notes with notes plucked by your middle or
ring nger—is a technique that many metalheads mistakenly believe is just for country, blues and
jazz players.

The fact that it remains underutilized by the shred guitar community means that hybrid picking can
be smartly employed as a shredder’s “secret weapon”—just ask Zakk Wylde, John 5, Jason Becker,
Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal, Greg Howe, Michael Lee Firkins, George Bellas, Dave Martone, Marshall
Harrison or the scariest hybrid picker known to man, former GIT instructor Brett Garsed.

Hybrid picking involves using your plectrum along with your pick-hand ngers to articulate certain
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notes. This ngers-as-extra-plectra approach is especially handy for string skipping. Suddenly, notes
 on adjacent or non-adjacent strings are a cinch to play in quick succession, without the laborious
movement of “airlifting” the pick back and forth.

Let’s get this lesson started with an E minor pentatonic exercise (FIGURE 1) that begins with a
middle- nger pluck (m) on the high E string, followed directly by a pick downstroke on the B string.
(To nish o each four-note grouping, use a pull-o followed by a hammer-on.) FIGURE 2 is nearly
identical, the only di erence being the highest note, G, which is fretted as part of a ring- nger mini-
barre across the top two strings.

In FIGURE 3, we take the concept one step further by applying all four fret-hand ngers to the E
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natural minor scale. Use your index nger on the 12th fret, your middle nger on the 15th, your ring
on the 17th and your pinkie on the 19th fret. FIGURES 4 and 5 are Paul Gilbert–inspired licks that use
the same concept as the previous examples but with three-notes-per-string ngerings.
 For our hybrid picking shred nale, I present FIGURE 6. This extended run makes ample use of the E
blues scale and E Dorian mode. For the opening barrage of notes (bar 1), you’ll need to use all four
fret-hand ngers and make some wide stretches. For bars 2–6, three-notes-per-string ngerings will
su ce. Watch out for the wide-stretch, string-skipping pentatonic mayhem that runs from the latter
part of bar 3 all the way to the end of the lick.

I hope these examples provide some inspiration for your own unique ideas. Take these concepts and
mutate and twist them into your own demented licks. Also, YouTube the heck out of the names I
mentioned earlier and strive to steal their mojo. For more twisted shred-ucation, check out my book,
Shred Guitar: A Guide to Extreme Rock and Metal Lead Techniques (Hal Leonard).

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 GREG HARRISON GUITAR 101 MUSICIANS INSTITUTE BLOGS LESSONS COLUMNS

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