Pedal Tone Alternate Picking

Aim of the exercise: Practice a pedal tone lick on a three note per string scale.
Exercise type: Alternate Picking
Starting tempo: 60 beats per minute
Duration: 5 minutes

a.k.a. neo-classical metal licks

Pedal tone licks are licks where you constantly alternate between a note (or melody) that stays the same and a note that changes. What this sometimes means for the right hand is that it must often skip some strings to do this, so it's pretty cool to practice it every so often! Since that often is now, here's the gist of it:

The melody will just be descending and ascending notes from the scale, and the pedal tone will be the highest note in the pattern. The melody will throughout this exercise always be played with downstrokes, the pedal tone will be always played with an upstroke.

Start off slow and clean!

F - Lydian

Here is the three note per string scale you'll be playing on! The pedal tone is colored blue!

F
G
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
A
B

It's very hard to play this in the lower octave so the tabs are shifted one octave higher - otherwise you'd have to stretch your finger from the 2nd to 7th fret. You can, of course, try this as well!

4th mode

As you can see - the melody is the whole scale descending from the high a (17th fret, 1st string) to the middle a (3rd string, 14th fret), and then ascending similarly. You can repeat it for as long as you want!

« Select a different variation!

Start practicing! How much time do you have? In minutes.

GO!