Video Review: Creative Speed-Building Picking Techniques by Mike Campese

This instructional video is an old one from 2005 available at the Chops From Hell website. This the 2nd of three videos that Mike created for the website.

Essentially it’s a collection of exercises that Mike Campese shares to help develop your picking technique. In addition to the exercises, Mike also shares excerpts from his songs that are relevant for this topic.

The video is divided into these sections:

• Artful Picking
• Excerpts from Mike’s Songs
• Developing Scale Patterns
• Intervallic Lines Pt. 2
• Paganini’s “Caprice #16” Pt. 2
• Getting The Most Out Of Your Scales Pt. 2
• Sweep Picking
• Chordal Licks
• Shred Licks

In addition to the video, you get a 27-page PDF file with the music transcribed, notated in both standard notation and tablature.

In general Mike doesn’t really explain his picking technique for the exercises so you will need to watch Mike play in the video if you want to get his exact approach. The video however does clearly show Mike playing each of the exercises so that you can see what Mike is doing for both left and right hands. Just for pure quality exercises, Mike gives A LOT of great exercises to help build your picking skills.

All in all, even though this video is 19 years old now, it still is a valuable resource for the guitar player that is into this kind of shred style guitar playing. There’s definitely more available in the market now, and probably a lot with higher resolution video, but purely from a content and instructional perspective, this video still gives a lot of value.

Pros: Lots of good exercises, clearly demonstrated on the video with accompanying notation.
Cons: No real breakdown of picking technique, picking direction – only demonstration of the exercises.
TLDR: If you like Mike’s playing, this video is worth studying to help improve your own playing.

Get the instructional video here: https://chopsfromhell.com/product-catalog-a-g