Uploaded May 2022 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Here are some fun shapes I like to use for pure alternate chop building. The core concept is to find arpeggios that you like that stay in a single position and use the easiest possible fingering. No big stretches to get more notes on a string, and no string skipping. Just comfortable one- or two-note per string shapes. Let the picking hand take the brunt of it, that's the idea. When you do this you'll find that tons of great arpeggios work out to 212 or 2112 fingerings. Anything beyond a triad will end up with two notes on certain strings, and the somewhat random pattern of this will find all your alternate chop weak spots. Best advice is to start fast. Don't go super slow and try to get all the notes right. That's the long tail of the process. Instead, go fast first to find your smoothest motion and then slow down gradually over time as to get more notes right, and become familiar, by feel, with which pickstrokes need to hit which strings. Sorry for the noisy snare!
Here are some fun shapes I like to use for pure alternate chop building. The core concept is to find arpeggios that you like that stay in a single position and use the easiest possible fingering. No big stretches to get more notes on a string, and no string skipping. Just comfortable one- or two-note per string shapes. Let the picking hand take the brunt of it, that's the idea. When you do this you'll find that tons of great arpeggios work out to 212 or 2112 fingerings. Anything beyond a triad will end up with two notes on certain strings, and the somewhat random pattern of this will find all your alternate chop weak spots. Best advice is to start fast. Don't go super slow and try to get all the notes right. That's the long tail of the process. Instead, go fast first to find your smoothest motion and then slow down gradually over time as to get more notes right, and become familiar, by feel, with which pickstrokes need to hit which strings. Sorry for the noisy snare!
