Alternate Picking

[Newc]

Re: Alternate Picking

Q: Uhhh, so when you inside pick, if your first stroke is from the bottom of one string to the top of that string, what's your second hit?
A: Top of the same string.

[paulbag]

Re: Alternate Picking

the thing about inside v.s. outside picking, just experiment on everything you try to play by starting with an upstroke or downstroke, depending on what you are playing one will be less movement than the other. this will depend on how many notes per string etc. [img]/images/graemlins/band.gif[/img]

[Soap]

Re: Alternate Picking

Also, a big help to me was and made a huge difference.
Never ever hold or grip the pick itself too tight. Just hold the pick enough so it doesn't fall out. Gripping it tightly only limits ones playing. I learned once I held the pick lightly my alternate picking improved tremedously.
The inside vs outside? Do whatever is comfortable and then stick with it. Consider, Marty Friedman, his picking looks sooo strange, but thats comfortable for him. Don't get caught up on how you look just focus on whats comfortable.

[Newc]

Re: Alternate Picking

[ QUOTE ]
the thing about inside v.s. outside picking, just experiment on everything you try to play by starting with an upstroke or downstroke, depending on what you are playing one will be less movement than the other. this will depend on how many notes per string etc. [img]/images/graemlins/band.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

But you're only doing one-note's-worth of "less movement".

Using the Alternate Picking exercise I posted above, if your first note is on the 4th string and your second note is on the 3rd, then with "inside picking" you would upstroke the 4th, cross back over the 4th string and downstroke the 3rd (remember, it's an Alternate Picking exercise). This is just as much motion as using "outside" picking.
Even if you sweep it, you're still doing the same amount of movement with inside picking. You might at most save one motion throughout the entire exercise (one note out of a dozen?), but it won't be enough to matter.

Technique and technical studies is all well and good, but don't get bogged down in the minutiae. If you feel you must study technical aspects, at least study them thoroughly to determine if they're truly economical or if they just present the same method from the reverse (mirrored) angle.

[Cryothrasher]

Re: Alternate Picking

I agree, alternate picking is more efficient, but you gotta downpick "Master" to get the real effect

[Newc]

Re: Alternate Picking

How do you figure?

[mpigott]

Re: Alternate Picking

Thanks for all the help guys..........ive been workin on it for a while and its getting better. I used to use inside picking (economy picking) but i found that when i really wanted to speed up the notes just werent there like with alternate. It also gave me a real triplet sound with three note per string picking licks, so i decided to start the long uphill battle towards strict alternate picking and i gotta say i find it better for me........thanks again for all the tips.

[jjw]

Re: Alternate Picking

lol mate you need to do do economy picking and alternate picking-for tonal reasons-so learn both

[paulbag]

Re: Alternate Picking

[ QUOTE ]
How do you figure?

[/ QUOTE ]

he's just saying your gonna get more crunch with all downstrokes. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[jjw]

Re: Alternate Picking

a lot more power too

[GodOfRhythm]

Re: Alternate Picking

Downpicking emphasizes the bass-sound in all, or at least most of, the chords and structures you're playing. Downpicking a song like Master Of Puppets will as such sound 'crunchier and more powerful'.

((Sorry, I just paraphrased the above couple of posts, but it's basically how I feel as well)).

[jjw]

Re: Alternate Picking

you copy cat [img]/images/graemlins/poke.gif[/img]

[Newc]

Re: Alternate Picking

I'm still not seeing the logic behind that, so let's see if we're all on the same page:

This is (roughly - might have the 0's wrong) the main rhythm to MoP:
(P is Picking - ^ is downstroke, v is upstroke)

E||--------------------------------||
B||--------------------------------||
G||--------------------------------||
D||--------------------------------||
A||------------------5--7--8-7-5-7-||
E||--0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-3--5--6-5-3-5-||
P----^-v-^-v-^-v-^-v-^--^--^-v-^-v--

So you're playing it like this?:

E||--------------------------------||
B||--------------------------------||
G||--------------------------------||
D||--------------------------------||
A||------------------5--7--8-7-5-7-||
E||--0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-3--5--6-5-3-5-||
P----^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^--^--^-^-^-^--

(The board's font won't let it line up correctly)

[GodOfRhythm]

Re: Alternate Picking

Yep, I'm playing it the second way. However, the powerchords are slided between, so I only (down)pick the first of each couple.

And I play the entire song downpicked, everything, except for the clean interludum and the main solo.

By downpicking (especially in chords) you'll emphasize the rootnote, the bass note, instead of the fifth or the octave. Which will give you a bassier, and 'crunchier' sound, at least that's my philosophy.

The straight-up pm'ed 0 0 0 0 0 stuff, I downpick that as well, eventhough you'd have it sound the same if you could hit it on an upstroke in the exact mirrored angle than you'd normally hit it on the downstroke, resulting in the same sound.

It's also not so easy to get the same rhythm in alternate picking as you do with fast downpicking. And a final reason for me to downpick is, sometimes instead of just 0 0 0 0 (E, pm'ed) I use an E5 pm'ed. To add some chunkyness. or I'd go up two octaves to the 19th fret or so, just to play around.

[Newc]

Re: Alternate Picking

I normally slide between the G5-A5 chords as well, and pick the others, but there's no difference in tone when playing just the muted open low E with alternate picking.

Maybe it's just the way I pick? [img]/images/graemlins/scratchhead.gif[/img]

And since I only use two-finger chords, upstroking those doesn't affect the tone (of course it's meant to be played by two guitarists also, so that adds to the thickness and further masks the alleged "incorrect" picking)