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String Crossing/Skipping

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The previous video course in this series covered basic alternate picking. If you’ve successfully worked through this course, you should now be comfortable with the basic mechanics of this technique. Of course, not all basslines move neatly from string to string, and you won’t always have the luxury of starting on a new string with a downstroke. In fact, you will often be required to play only one note – or maybe three notes – per string, meaning that the next down or upstroke will occur on a different string. To become fluent with the plectrum it is very important to become comfortable crossing strings in this way. This video course is devoted to helping you do just that.

As you work through this material, you might find the following courses useful (all included in the monthly subscription cost):

Don’t forget to hit the Download Resources button above to get the PDF worksheet and audio files for this piece (available to subscribers only).

This course is 1 HOUR & 3 MINUTES long and contains the following videos, each of which can be selected from the video player above:

1. Introduction to String Crossing

This video will demonstrate the basics of string crossing. As you’ll discover, a good way to do this is by playing through a major scale in intervals of a fifth.

2. String Crossing/Skipping (Part 1)

This lesson expands on the previous one and will get you started with the string skipping technique. This is where you'll be moving to a non-adjacent string.

3. String Crossing/Skipping (Part 2)

This video introduces a more advanced form of string crossing/skipping. In these exercises you'll be playing a downstroke, followed up an upstroke on a lower string.

4. More Work with Scales

Now that string crossing/skipping has been covered, you can use the technique to play scales. You’ll find that scales are perfect practice material for this.

5. Exercise #11

This exercise is a simple rock bassline that features a descending A minor pentatonic phrase - perfect for working on string crossing.

6. Exercise #12

This bassline is in the key of G minor and is also based on the minor pentatonic scale. This line requires you to play across all four strings of the bass.

7. Exercise #13

This is a funk bassline that uses a lot of space. It also features a particularly challenging in the final bar, one that puts the string skipping technique to good use.

8. Exercise #14

This is an up-tempo punk rock bassline based around octave phrases. There are some potential string crossing pitfalls in the fourth and eighth bars.

9. Exercise #15

This is another funk bassline. The second half of the line is slower and simpler but features some challenging string skipping figures.