Unit 3: Picking Hand Development

Chunky Riffs 101

John Frusciante is famous for his chunky strumming... But what exactly do we mean by chunky strumming? Well, it's a technique that allows you to play a single note or double note riffs, but still hit the strings with the full force you would if you were playing a 6 string barre chord (for example). It's all about delivering the same level of hard-hitting aggression, but playing only a single note melody line. It's awesome, but a tough thing to master.

first, accept that it will take some time to make this sound right. Accept the mess, accept the noise, and learn to keep making micro-adjustments to the hand as you go!

With that said, let's take a look at the first part of our learning, a simple melody line that we will practise the technique with. Take a look at the Guitar Tab section for the tab.

The first step is to learn the basic melody in 16th notes, as Dion guides you through, then start to add the muted notes around it, keeping that right hand in a strumming pattern motion.

Developing The Riff

With the basic idea and a relatively simple riff covered, let's now take a look at developing that riff even further using the same principles. The riff can be found in the Fretboard Diagrams!

At this point, it's worth mentioning that we're in the key of E minor, and we're basing the riff on pentatonic box 3. We're also using a very cool chromatic note, which we've highlighted on the fretboard. This is to add a bit of extra colour and funkiness to the riff!

Once again, just as with the previous riff, we almost want to think of this as a rhythm pattern with a melody! So your first step is to get the melody using 16th note picking, then expand that to the 16th note strumming. Dion guides you through this task on camera, helping you absorb the riff into your playing!

Final Riff

We're now upgrading once again, to a full-blown, Frusciante style funk-rock riff! We're using our chunky strumming technique to really bring this to life. This awesome riff can be found in the Fretboard Diagrams!

The first thing to note is that the riff is a lot faster, which really gives you a target to work towards (absolutely no rush there though!). The riff is once again based around the key of E minor, and using the pentatonic box three. However, we now use the b5th (could be considered the blues note) and the 7th (which is a simple chromatic movement to the root note). Take a look at the Fretboard Diagrams to see the shape!

Once again, just as with the previous riff, we almost want to think of this as a rhythm pattern with a melody! So your first step is to get the melody using 16th note picking, then expand that to the 16th note strumming. Dion guides you through this task on camera, helping you absorb the riff into your playing!

Arpeggios Part 1

At this point, we have a lot of work to do to develop our chunky strumming! That's just ruddy good fun, and will keep you occupied for a while! In the meantime, it's a great opportunity to develop another Frusciante core technique, called "arpeggios". This means picking notes within a chord individually, paying careful attention to the picking direction. Check out the little exercise in the Guitar Tab section.

The chord we are playing is an A major chord, as an E shape barre chord. Just in case you can't quite visualise it, check out the shape in the Fretboard Diagrams

So, your first task is to get this small piece of tab absolutely nailed. The speed really doesn't matter... The consistency does. Try to loop it 10 times round as well as you can. When you can do that at one speed, up the speed a little more and keep pushing it.

Arpeggios Part 2

Now we have a bit of a grasp on the idea of picking across strings, let's try to add these new skills to a chord progression. First up, here is the chord chart:

We'll be using very specific CAGED chords for this, to try and stick around a similar area of the fretboard. This is important, as when you're playing something that changes strings as often as this you want to try and avoid jumping around the fretboard too much. The chord shapes can be found in the Fretboard Diagrams

Use the tab in the Guitar Tab section to guide your way through this epic quest of arpeggios. Remember to focus on the picking directions, and that the accuracy and consistency are far more important than the speed at which you play it. That will come later, very naturally!