I had never heard of the phrase "string skipping" until I purchased an instructional video by Paul Gilbert. I was immediately hooked from that point on. I always get excited when I learn a completely new technique. The thing I enjoy the most about string skipping is the surprise factor that it causes. The wide interval(s) that string skipping introduces throws a listener for a loop and makes them realize that they have just heard something interesting. It is a pleasant surprise to the ear (for me anyway!). The exercises in this lesson will get you well on your way to skipping it up! Practice these with alternate picking as well as with legato.

Once you have sweep picked enough arpeggios, and once you have heard enough sweep picked arpeggios, you tend to get tired of the sound of the pick raking against all those strings (well, I do anyway). Paul Gilbert is the one who opened up my eyes to playing arpeggios this way. In this example, I demonstrate how to play one of my personal favorite arpeggio types - the Dominant 7. There is just something addictive about the sound - don't you agree?

Here we see the extent of the notes along the fretboard. It is not as bad as it looks...

I prefer to play this exercise using legato. It just sounds so smooth that way. Playing it with alternate picking just sounds too aggressive to me. Sometimes, I don't even bother picking the lonely C note on the A string. I just hammer onto it. The toughest part is making your fingers do those 2 whole step stretches on the E string.