Guitar technique
Alternate picking is a picking-hand technique where downstrokes and upstrokes strictly alternate, allowing fast and even single-note runs across one or more strings.
Free for the first 3 songs.
What it is
Alternate picking is the default picking pattern for most lead guitar styles. It gives even attack volume across all notes in a run, which matters for clarity at high tempos. Players develop alternate picking as a baseline technique and then layer other styles (economy picking, sweep picking, hybrid picking) on top of it for specific musical situations.
How to read it
Tab notation may include pick-direction symbols above the staff: a down-bracket ⊓ for downstrokes and a v for upstrokes. In most tabs the alternation is implicit and not explicitly marked.
See the full guide to reading guitar tab for the complete symbol reference, or browse the glossary for related terminology.
How audio2guitar detects it
Alternate picking patterns produce slight but consistent timing asymmetries between consecutive notes because of the time it takes the pick to return for the next stroke. The pipeline does not currently mark alternate-picking as a distinct annotation; instead, notes are written as picked notes by default and only explicitly annotated when a non-alternate technique (legato, sweep, tap) is detected.
Where it shows up
By convention, no. Pick direction is left to the player unless a specific non-default pattern (sweep, downstroke-only) is detected.
Every alternate picking our pipeline detects gets marked in the tab automatically. First 3 songs free.