String Skipping

[pagemalicious]

Hey guys, i'm playing along with John Petrucci's instructional DVD and he's playing some string skipping licks in some of his examples. I know what the technique involves, but i would like to know some theory behind it.

What is the purpose of string skipping? what intervals are you surposed to play to make it sound right?

[kmanick]

Re: String Skipping

Another way to play arpeggios, you can get some cool intervals with string skipping to.
I don't do a lot of it myself, but probably because I
never think about it.

[maddog]

Re: String Skipping

As kmanick said it is a way of achieving big intervals or "compound" intervals (greater than an octave). It allows you to achieve these intervals without tapping or position shifting and you can maintain alternate picking too.

About sounding "right", I don't know what sounds right to you. But If you have a certain scale or tonality in mind then you can select the notes you want to hear and make them into some kind of string skipping lick.

For starters you could try it with some pentatonic in a box shape. In an A minor box shape at the 5th fret you could play the A and C notes on the low E string then skip to the D string and play the G and A notes. Then go to the A string and play the D and E notes etc etc. The possibilities are endless!

[shredmonster]

Re: String Skipping

You actually can run them from the high e string in the open position all the way up to the 24th fret extremely fast.

[KevinDguitar]

Re: String Skipping

YOu can use string skipping to make huge intervallic leaps as opposed to playing straight up a given scale in order..1,2,3,4,5,etc.. as well as arpeggio playing without having to sweep or tap.. it'll help open up ideas to new patterns and sequences that don't sound so much like finger exercises, as some scale patterns can after a while.. some of the jumps made with string skipping can allow you to stay in one positions as opposed to making huge lfret hand jumps up and down the neck.