There is a special kind of humility that only comes from a metronome at 80 bpm quietly informing you that no, your down-up-down-up is not actually even, and yes, your upstrokes have been slacking off this whole time. Welcome to alternate picking, the technique that looks like nothing and feels like everything.
This is a very short clip: one focused alternate picking exercise for guitar, built to be looped. No song, no solo, no ego — just a repeatable drill you can throw on and grind until your picking hand stops arguing with your fretting hand and finally agrees to show up on time.
How this alternate picking exercise actually works
The whole trick to alternate picking is strict alternation: every downstroke is followed by an upstroke, no matter which string you land on. That sounds obvious until you cross strings — that's where 90% of the mess lives. The fix is boring and beautiful: keep the picking motion tiny (drive it from the wrist, not the elbow), keep the pick roughly parallel to the string, and obsess over making your upstrokes sound exactly as loud as your downstrokes. If you're curious about when each stroke earns its keep, my breakdown of downstrokes and upstrokes pairs nicely with this.
The concrete takeaway: don't chase speed, chase evenness. Set a metronome slow enough that every note is clean, one note per click, and only nudge the tempo up when it's genuinely flawless — then, once in a while, overshoot your target for a few reps to trick your hands into working harder. Accuracy first, and the speed sneaks in behind it. This drill loops for a reason: it's a warm-up, not a party trick. Once your picking hand behaves, the same motion powers string skipping and everything faster.
Fair warning: your wrist will file a formal complaint somewhere around minute four, and it will be right. If you want the PDF and Guitar Pro file so you can loop this properly (and hear me count while pretending it doesn't hurt), it's all on my Patreon.