Alternate picking

DLM

I honestly think that one was intentional. Like "orifice" for "office".

Sauce: I'm a poofreader myself.

joeW

Chris Brooks book arrived today.  I’ll report back when I’ve had a chance to work thro it 

topdog91

M1ck said:

Anyone offer any help with alternate picking? I’ve had a look through previous threads and Troy Grady seems to be ‘the man’ but maybe that’s too deep for me and it certainly isn’t cheap with a recurring subscription. 

I don’t know anyone with enough experience or knowledge to ask, those I do know will say ‘I just do it like this’ whether it’s right or wrong. 

I’ve seen a Fundamental Changes book by Chris Brooks and was wondering if anyone had used it or is there something better? And of course with a book it’s a one off purchase that I can dip in and out of without worrying about subscriptions. 

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated 

I think if you share exactly what you need help with we can probably help a fair bit between us...

Axe_meister

Frank Gamble's Chop builder (I believe it may be re-released soon without the 80s cheese and scantily clad women)

digitalkettle

Axe_meister said:

Frank Gamble's Chop builder (I believe it may be re-released soon without the 80s cheese and scantily clad women)

...but how will we know what the reward is for reaching the shred-goal?!!

ElevensLouder

I'm not going to go into a lot of detail because everyone has covered what I was going to say.
One thing I will add though:

You need to get organised in the picking hand. Most of the really good pickers have developed their lines, either knowingly or subconsciously, to have the string changes arrive on a certain pick stroke. 

Some favour changing strings after an up stroke, others after a down stroke. Some can do both. 

For most people I think becoming aware of which escape motion you favour, then developing lines as discussed will dramatically improve your success with alternate picking. 

An example from my own development:

For years I was baffled as to why I could blaze up the chromatic scale 4 notes per string, but when trying to descend it would feel stiff.
Well it turned out that on the way up I was changing strings after an up stroke (some call this downwards pick slanting), but on the way back I was ending up changing string on a down stroke, which requires a change on the angle of picking to be free from between the strings. 
I just simply can not do this cleanly. 
To fix this, I adjusted the pattern so that whatever happens I'm playing even numbers of notes on each string, to keep the picking the same when I change string. 

Hope this makes sense. 

There's lots more to all this. 

For example, don't feel bound to purely alternate picking. A sneaky little hammer or pull off makes all the difference! 

M1ck

Thanks to everyone that took the time to reply - as usual The Fretboard has delivered some really useful advice. 

I’m really not interested in becoming a shredder, those days are long gone, but I know there’s holes in my technique and I felt I was in a rut just noodling the same old stuff avoiding anything I considered out of my comfort zone. 

I bought some of the Chris Brooks books, and am currently working my way through them, it’s too early to say if they are going to make a difference but I’ll plug away at them. There’s also some videos that accompany the books which seem pretty good too. So, no more excuses going to get my head down and see what happens. 

digitalkettle

At the risk of some repetition...

I think pretty much everyone (even non-players!) can demonstrate the ability to tremolo pick a single string really quickly, e.g. the CtC 'knocking on a table' test. Remember: every knock is worth two notes.

So the main problem is changing strings...if you want to play faster/longer/cleaner, you need to have:

• naturally found a technique that works for you (I think this applies to many of the idiosyncratic "I don't even know I did that...I was busy making records!" legends)
• a strategy...this sounds complicated but you probably already have a natural slant on your picking hand so, it's working for you when you play an even number of notes per string: every second stroke you're above the plane of the strings and ready for a transition. You can always overcome stuff that doesn't quite line up by sneaking in a legato note or an economy pick stroke or brute force (swipe) or alter your slant (but that would be digging into more advanced areas)

Perhaps posting a genuine passage that you're struggling with would invite a bunch of replies with valid approaches.

Lewy

ElevensLouder said:

I'm not going to go into a lot of detail because everyone has covered what I was going to say.
One thing I will add though:

You need to get organised in the picking hand. Most of the really good pickers have developed their lines, either knowingly or subconsciously, to have the string changes arrive on a certain pick stroke. 

.......

There's lots more to all this. 

For example, don't feel bound to purely alternate picking. A sneaky little hammer or pull off makes all the difference! 

Yes I think this is very overlooked - the fact that in a lot of cases the great alternate pickers have made musical choices based on physical preferences/predispositions. It's a slightly jarring concept at first.

And the odd sneaky hammer and pull goes a very long way - just ask Yngwie! 

What I've found personally is once I got alternate picking to a certain level, I then felt confident not to do it - in other words, play expressively and deploy some alternate picking if that's the effect or texture you want. See it as a sound, not a method of execution.

PAL

I would stop buying books everything is out there on the internet for free if you want it !
  Learn a song with basic alternative or hybrid picking something like Hello Mary Lou ( guitarist James Burton ) Solo
  this will help you to get your fingers working independently.
  Here is a link for you....  good luck.

topdog91

There is obviously a lot of free content out there. But sometimes a good book provides structure and reduces option paralysis. I've just gone back to a very few books, going to try to see them through to the end rather than jumping all over the place and not sticking to the harder stuff. If anyone cares:

• Connecting Pentatonic Patterns (a nice way to raise my lazy pentatonic game as I'm not learning famous solos right now, most of my learning is full songs for bands and they aren't usually songs with blazing solos in)
• Guitar Fretboard Workbook (again as last time I fell off the wagon)
• Guitar Aerobics (my technical fix, love the approach, a bit of everything on a regular basis)
• Harmony & Theory (some way through but stopped a while ago, getting the picture?)
• Music Reading for Guitar (would enable me to join higher-level bands)

chrisbrooksguitarist

joeW said:

Chris Brooks book arrived today.  I’ll report back when I’ve had a chance to work thro it 

M1ck said:

I bought some of the Chris Brooks books, and am currently working my way through them, it’s too early to say if they are going to make a difference but I’ll plug away at them. There’s also some videos that accompany the books which seem pretty good too. So, no more excuses going to get my head down and see what happens. 

Best of luck, gents. 

sweepy

Like most techniques, its economy of motion, if you film your picking hand you’ll be surprised at how much wasted motion there is 

topdog91

sweepy said:

Like most techniques, its economy of motion, if you film your picking hand you’ll be surprised at how much wasted motion there is 

Username checks out.