Chromatic Picking Exercises

I thought for today’s lesson I would take a look at some chromatic picking exercises for guitar which have really helped me with my technique. Although they are not particularly the most exciting exercise from a musical point of view, chromatic picking exercises are a great way to improve your alternate picking on guitar. Because jazz is such a technically demanding style of music these kind of exercises can really help improve your jazz playing.

As well as just playing the 1234 sequences shown below you can mix and match different patterns to really work your fretting hand.

Exercise 1

Exercise 2

You can play these chromatic alternate picking exercises on one string or across the fret board. I would probably recommend playing these patterns on one string to build up your speed and then start applying them across the fret board. As well as the 1234 sequences here try playing some of the following chromatic alternate picking exercises.

1324

1432

1242

1243

Take your time with these chromatic picking exercises because they can really do wonders for your guitar picking technique.