String Skipping on Guitar: Wide Intervals and Unique Patterns

1 What Is String Skipping?

String skipping is the technique of bypassing one or more adjacent strings when picking, creating wide interval leaps that are impossible to achieve with conventional linear scale playing. Instead of moving from one string to the next in sequence, you jump over a string (or two) to reach a note that is much higher or lower in pitch than the previous note.

This technique breaks the predictable stepwise motion that characterizes most guitar playing. When you play a scale in a standard position, the notes move smoothly from one pitch to the next. String skipping disrupts that smooth contour and introduces dramatic leaps that grab the listener's ear. The result sounds angular, modern, and rhythmically dynamic.

String skipping requires precise right-hand accuracy because the pick must travel a greater distance to reach the target string. This makes it more challenging than adjacent-string playing, but the payoff is enormous: you gain access to melodic intervals and patterns that simply cannot be produced any other way on the guitar.

Players like Paul Gilbert, Nuno Bettencourt, Steve Morse, and Eric Johnson have made string skipping a signature element of their styles. It appears in rock, metal, jazz, and country playing, and mastering it will immediately expand your melodic vocabulary beyond what pentatonic boxes and standard scale runs can offer.

2 Why String Skipping Sounds Different

The guitar's standard tuning creates a unique situation: skipping one string typically produces an interval of a 5th, 6th, 7th, or octave, depending on the fret positions involved. These are much wider intervals than the 2nds and 3rds you get from playing adjacent strings in a scale pattern. Wide intervals have an open, dramatic quality that sounds almost vocal or horn-like.

Compare playing a C major scale straight across adjacent strings versus playing the same scale notes with string skips. The linear version sounds smooth and familiar. The string-skipped version sounds like an entirely different melody because the pitch contour is full of leaps and dips instead of gentle steps.

The technique also creates natural rhythmic accents. The physical effort of skipping a string tends to produce slight emphasis on the notes before and after the skip. Skilled players exploit this by placing string skips at rhythmically important points in a phrase, using the inherent accent to drive the groove.

Understanding the interval relationships created by string skipping helps you use the technique musically rather than randomly. When you know that skipping from the 5th fret on the A string to the 7th fret on the G string produces a minor 6th, you can target specific intervals for specific emotional effects.

3 Basic String Skipping Exercises

Start with the simplest possible string skip: playing alternately between two strings with one string in between. This trains your pick hand to accurately target a non-adjacent string while maintaining rhythmic consistency.

Exercise 1: Two-String Skip (strings 6 and 4)
D|------5---7---5---7---5---7---5---7--|
A|-------------------------------------|
E|--5---7---5---7---5---7---5---7------|
   D   U   D   U   D   U   D   U

Exercise 2: Moving Two-String Skip
D|------5---7---8---10--12--10--8---7--|
A|-------------------------------------|
E|--5---7---8---10--12--10--8---7---5--|

Exercise 3: Three-String Skip (strings 6 and 3)
G|------5---7---5---7---5---7---5---7--|
D|-------------------------------------|
A|-------------------------------------|
E|--5---7---5---7---5---7---5---7---5--|

Exercise 4: Alternating Pattern
e|------5-------7-------8-------10-----|
B|-------------------------------------|
G|--5-------7-------8-------10---------|
        

Use strict alternate picking for all of these exercises. The challenge is maintaining even timing when your pick hand has to travel farther between notes. Start at 60 BPM with quarter notes, and do not increase the tempo until every note rings clearly and evenly.

Pay attention to muting. When you skip a string, the skipped string sits between two vibrating strings and can ring sympathetically, creating unwanted noise. Use a combination of left-hand finger muting (resting unused fingers lightly on the skipped string) and right-hand palm muting to keep the skipped strings silent.

Once the basic two-string patterns feel comfortable, add movement: shift the pattern up and down the neck, or change the fret positions on each string to create intervallic variety. The goal is to make the string-skipping motion feel as natural and automatic as playing on adjacent strings.

4 Pentatonic String Skipping Patterns

The pentatonic scale is perhaps the most rewarding scale to combine with string skipping because the intervals it creates are so musically useful. A standard box-shape pentatonic played linearly sounds like every blues-rock solo ever recorded. The same notes played with string skips sound fresh, wide, and modern.

A Minor Pentatonic - Standard vs String Skipped

Standard (linear):
e|---------------------5--8--|
B|----------------5--8-------|
G|-----------5--7------------|
D|------5--7-----------------|
A|--5--7---------------------|
E|---------------------------|

String Skipped (skip one string):
e|------8---5----------------|
B|---------------------------|
G|------7---5---7---5--------|
D|---------------------------|
A|------7---5---7---5--------|
E|--5---8---5----------------|

Pentatonic 4ths Pattern (Paul Gilbert style):
e|--5-------8-------5-------8------|
B|----------------------------------|
G|------5-------7-------5-------7--|
D|----------------------------------|
A|------5-------7-------5-------7--|
E|--5-------8-------5-------8------|
        

The Paul Gilbert-style pentatonic 4ths pattern is one of the most iconic string-skipping licks in rock guitar. By playing two notes per string and skipping one string between each pair, you transform the familiar pentatonic shape into a sequence of perfect 4ths that sounds wide open and powerful.

5 Arpeggio-Based String Skipping

Arpeggios are a natural fit for string skipping because chord tones are spread across non-adjacent strings. Playing an arpeggio with string skips instead of sweeping or rolling through adjacent strings produces a more angular, articulated sound where each note has its own distinct attack.

Am7 Arpeggio - String Skipped

e|----------5--------------------|
B|-------------------------------|
G|------5-------5----------------|
D|-------------------------------|
A|--5-------7-------5-----------|
E|-------------------------------|
   A    E    C    G    A    E

Cmaj7 Arpeggio - Wide String Skip

e|------8-----------8------------|
B|-------------------------------|
G|------5-------9---5------------|
D|-------------------------------|
A|--3-------7-------3------------|
E|-------------------------------|
   C    G    E    B    C    G
        

The advantage of arpeggio-based string skipping is that every note is a chord tone, so the lines sound harmonically strong regardless of how wide the intervals are. You are essentially playing the notes of a chord in a melodic, spread-out fashion. This is particularly effective over slow-moving chord changes where you want to outline the harmony clearly.

Try connecting different arpeggio shapes with string skips as the chords change. For a ii-V-I in C major, you might play Dm7 arpeggio with string skips, then G7 arpeggio with string skips, then Cmaj7 arpeggio with string skips. Each chord change maintains the wide intervallic character while clearly following the harmony.

For a more advanced approach, combine arpeggio tones with scale tones in a string-skipping pattern. Play a chord tone on one string, skip a string, play a passing tone from the scale, then skip back. This creates flowing lines that blend the harmonic clarity of arpeggios with the melodic movement of scales.

6 String Skipping in Solos and Riffs

In actual musical contexts, string skipping works best when used as a contrast to conventional playing. A solo that uses string skipping throughout can sound exhausting, but a few well-placed string-skip phrases between linear passages create dramatic high points that make the solo memorable.

One effective approach is to use string skipping for ascending phrases and linear playing for descending phrases, or vice versa. The change in contour keeps the solo dynamic and unpredictable. Another approach is to use string skipping to build intensity toward the climax of a solo, where the wide intervals create a sense of reaching outward.

Riff writing benefits enormously from string skipping. Many iconic rock and metal riffs use string skips to create hooks that sound larger than a single guitar. The wide intervals fill up more sonic space than riffs confined to adjacent strings, making them sound bigger and more powerful even without effects or double-tracking.

String skipping also works exceptionally well for shredding techniques at high speeds. Because the pick is already committed to traveling a larger distance, the momentum of the skip can actually assist the picking motion. Many advanced players find that certain fast patterns are easier with string skips than with conventional adjacent-string picking.

7 Building Accuracy and Speed

Accuracy is more important than speed with string skipping because a missed string is immediately obvious. Start every exercise at a tempo slow enough that you never miss the target string. For most players, this means beginning at 50-60 BPM with quarter notes. It takes patience, but your accuracy at faster tempos depends entirely on the precision you build at slow tempos.

Practice with a clean tone first. Distortion masks picking errors and sympathetic string noise. A clean amp setting will expose every unwanted string ring and every slightly muffled note, allowing you to identify and fix problems early. Once the technique is clean, adding gain will sound much better.

Muting discipline is half the battle. Develop a systematic approach: your left-hand fingers should lightly touch strings you are not fretting, and your right-hand palm should rest gently on strings below the one you are playing. This double layer of muting keeps the skipped strings silent even at high gain levels.

Use the burst method for building speed. Play a short string-skip pattern (four to six notes) at a tempo slightly above your comfortable limit, then immediately rest. Repeat in bursts of three to five repetitions with rest between each one. This trains your muscles for the fast motion without the tension that accumulates during sustained playing.

Finally, create your own string-skipping licks rather than only practicing exercises. Take a melody you know and rearrange it using string skips. Take a pentatonic lick and "spread" it across the fretboard by moving notes to non-adjacent strings. These creative applications will make string skipping feel like a natural part of your musical vocabulary rather than a separate technique you bolt on.