In this lesson I am using 4-2 Voicings to show you how to practice Hybrid Guitar Picking. Enjoy!

Hey guys, Charl back again with another video, and this is the third video in our look at hybrid picking.

CHAPTER 01 – Hybrid Picking Over 1-4-6-5 Progression

So what I thought I’d do here is just show you what you can do when you have a backing track to jam along with and when you choose some specific chords.

Let me play the example right now and then afterwards, I will break it down.

All right, a very, very simple part, but quite effective.

We are playing here, I believe at 80 beats a minute, and we’ve got a 1-4-6-5 progression. What does that mean? Well, it’s G, C, E minor, D.

[Charl plays]

Okay, for this, I’m using hybrid picking.

[Charl plays]

And basically what I’m doing there

[Charl plays]

I have two things that are happening at the same time.

[Charl plays]

For my lower notes I’m playing one and two and three and four and one and two.

[Charl plays]

All right that wasn’t the chord – I basically stayed in that note but that’s my rhythm.

[Charl plays]

One and two and three and four and. And then for my high note I’ve got one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and.

[Charl plays]

So I’ve got quarter notes with my high notes

[Charl plays]

One and two and three and four and. And I’ve got eighth notes for my picking note

[Charl plays]

One and two and three and four and. I’m doing those together

[Charl plays]

One and two and three and four and. One and two and three and four and. One and two and three and four and.

So even just as simple as that I’ve defined my rhythm that I’ve just shown you, I’m using my technique, which is hybrid picking, I’ve got a 1-4-6-5 progression, played over a backing track at 80 beats a minute.

CHAPTER 02 – Hybrid Picking Embellishments

So now I can really take this technique and I can apply it in a musical fashion, right. So I’ve got a G to C to E minor to D.

[Charl plays]

I can also play G to C to E minor to D or I can play G to C to E minor to D.

[Charl plays]

Let me do that for you now with this track. I’m going to play through the different parts of the guitar neck, and I’m going to throw in some embellishments and I’ll show you afterwards how to play those.

Here we go…

All right, nice and simple, let me quickly show you what I did there.

This was a G.

G – Root Position

[Charl plays]

But when I went to the C, instead of going…

[Charl plays]

I played the G chord first, and then I Hammered on.

C – 2nd Inversion

[Charl plays]

Then I went to E minor.

Em Root Position 2

[Charl plays]

To a higher E minor and then to D.

Em -1st Inversion

D – 1st Inversion

[Charl plays]

Then I went to this G.

G – 1st Inversion

[Charl plays]

But I’m sliding from the F sharp to the G.

[Charl plays]

I went to this C, but I’m sliding from the B note to the C.

C – Root Position

[Charl plays]

Again the same for E minor.

Em – 2nd Inversion

[Charl plays]

Similar Hammer-On from the A chord to the D chord.

D – 2nd Inversion

[Charl plays]

And then we had G…

G – 2nd Inversion

[Charl plays]

And then that slide…

C -1st Inversion

[Charl plays]

That E minor slides to a D.

D – Root Position

So you can do so much with embellishments. Basically an embellishment, instead of just playing G or let’s say C like this.

[Charl plays]

Instead of going from this E straight to a D, I can go from E minor…

Em Root Position 2

…to a higher E minor…

Em -1st Inversion

…and slide into the D.

D – 1st Inversion

[Charl plays]

Instead of just playing G, I’m sliding into G.

[Charl plays]

I mean there’s so many cool things that you can do once you start adding in embellishments.

Closing Thoughts

Alright guys, so hopefully you enjoyed that a little bit of a practical look at how you can take the shapes that we’ve looked at in previous videos.

You’ve taken the technique I’ve broken down in the previous video, and then put that over a backing track, along with some embellishments to kind of spice things up.

So if you enjoy this way that I’m teaching, as you can see, the things are connected to each other – we use the shapes that we’ve looked at before, we’re using techniques that we’ve looked at before and we’re putting this over a backing track, along with some additional things that you can do to spice up your playing.

Have a good one!