5 Guitar Techniques That Sound Hard But Are Actually Easy

Have you ever heard a guitar lick that sounded crazy complicated? Guitar teacher Christopher S.  explains how some of the hardest sounding techniques can actually be easy once you try them…

We’ve all seen those guitarists on YouTube who make seemingly impossible-looking moves look easy. 

But are they really as simple as they seem? 

In this blog post, we’ll take a look at five of the most commonly misconstrued guitar moves and break them down into easy steps that anyone can follow. So grab your guitar and let’s get started!

What Are All Techniques on Guitar?

A few guitar techniques that sound hard but are actually quite easy to master are:

• Power Chords (Drop D Tuning)
• Fingerpicking
• Alternate Picking
• The “Pick Squeal”
• Sweep Picking

Ready to start mastering these guitar techniques? Get yourself signed up for guitar lessons – fast. Your guitar teacher will tell you everything you need to know.

In the meantime, watch as many videos about guitar playing as you can. This is one of the best ways to improve your skills as a guitarist. Here’s an example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tKEkV7bB1E 

What is the Hardest Guitar Technique to Learn?

One of the most difficult guitar techniques to learn is sweep picking, which we’ll tell you about in more detail later in this article.

The cliff’s notes version is this – sweep picking involves using a combination of downstrokes and upstrokes to play consecutive notes on different strings in quick succession. 

This can be very challenging for beginners, as it requires a high degree of coordination and precision. 

Another difficult technique is alternate picking, which involves picking the strings in an up-down-up-down motion. Alternate picking can be extremely fast and fluid, but it takes a great deal of practice to execute it correctly. 

Both sweep picking and alternate picking are essential techniques for any serious guitarist, so if you’re just starting out, be prepared to put in some long hours of practice!

What is the Proper Right Hand Technique Guitar Players Should Know?

Many guitar players tend to play with their left hand on the fretboard and strum with their right hand. 

While this may feel natural at first, it is actually more difficult to play this way and can lead to bad habits that are hard to break. The proper right-hand technique is to hold the pick between the thumb and first two fingers, with the point of the pick facing down. 

The third and fourth fingers should be curled under the hand, so that they are not used to hold the pick. When strumming, the wrist should be relaxed and the arm should move from the elbow, rather than the shoulder. 

This may feel strange at first, but it will ultimately lead to better control and a smoother sound. With a little practice, any guitar player can master the proper right-hand technique.

Cool Guitar Techniques That Look Hard – But Really Aren’t

When taking up the challenge of learning to play the guitar, I strongly recommend finding the skills and techniques that you are best at and using them to create the music you love.

There is an endless amount of sounds which you can create with the guitar, and if you have the skills to produce them, you will have so many options literally at your fingertips!

Below, I will discuss different techniques that sound hard to play on the guitar, but with time and discipline, they are actually quite simple. I want to emphasis that some of these techniques may come naturally to you, and some may not. In my experience, it is better to take the ones that come naturally, as you will make the best music with them, and to give the others more time for practice.

For example, you may be great at fingerpicking guitar licks on the guitar right away. Or, you may be incredibly fast at picking with a pick after just a few hours. Whatever the technique, I say learn as many songs as you can using that technique. Make the music that works best in your fingers, and don’t fret too much over a technique that is giving you frustration.

So, let’s buckle up and get ready to do some “wood-shedding.”

1. Power Chords (Drop-D Tuning)

A power chord is one of the most common chord shapes on the guitar. It is easy enough to create, it is easy to move on the neck, and it sounds good in almost any style of music. The shape of the power chord looks like this, with your index finger on the low E string and your ring finger on the A string.

This happens to be a G power chord. You can also put your pinky on the D string, right below your third finger to give it some more “power.” The rest of the strings are muted.

This chord shape is important to learn on the guitar, because it is used to play millions of songs. However, your fingers can get tired in some kinds of music (such as punk rock or heavy metal) when trying to imitate and play the songs of these experienced guitar players. To help you in playing those quick power chord changes on the guitar, here is a trick that you can use to make changing power chords a breeze.

Known as “Drop-D tuning,” you literally take the low E string and “drop” or tune it down a whole-step, so that it becomes another D string. By doing this, you can play your power chord shape with one finger instead of three! The shape now looks like this.

On the recordings of bands that use this tuning, such as The Smashing Pumpkins, Rage Against the Machine, or The Foo Fighters, these chords sound complicated. However, little did you know that they were actually playing all of those chords with just one finger!

An example of a song which uses a power chord shape with this drop-D tuning is the song “Hollywood” by Nickelback.

This song would be quite difficult if it were all played in standard tuning; however, in drop-D tuning, it is really quite easy to play! Here is the tab to help you learn it.

2. Fingerpicking

Fingerpicking is something that always boggles people. It is really not as hard as some make it sound; however, it does take some disciplined practice if you want it to sound good. To develop this technique, I often recommend to my students to learn songs by The Beatles. Although sometimes they say, “Oh, that song is way beyond my skill level,” the songs are really quite simple to play.

Take the song “Blackbird,” for example. The tune sounds like it is quite a difficult fingerpicking pattern; however, because you rarely change the strings that you are picking, it is actually quite simple to play. The majority of the song is picked on the A, B, and G strings. The right hand always uses the pattern of thumb and middle finger together and then index finger after. That is the whole picking pattern throughout the entire song. Beyond that, all you have to do is move the left-hand position.

Here is the tab to “Blackbird.” Try the picking-pattern, and see how it works throughout the entire song.

3. Alternate Picking

This is a technique that will take some time to really master, but after you learn it, you will be playing the guitar faster than ever! The technique is basically how it sounds. When you are picking a crazy-fast solo on the guitar, your notes will come out much faster if you pick alternatively, rather than picking in one direction all the time. When you pick one note in a downward direction, the next note you should pick in an upward direction. See the diagram below for a representation of this movement.