Alt Picking and rock/metal solo-ing advice needed

viz

Yep - you're right! I think maybe what he says and what he does aren't always the same thing!

Sambostar

I donno, that is the first time I have heard of him.  I guess he was big in the 70's?  The bit in your vid above when it faded to an edit after he lost time when his foot tap went wrong...after explaining that his foot tap keeps him in time kind of did it for me. I guess he is more of an artist than a teacher huh.  LMFAO. 

If he was refering to picking fast on one string AKA Van Halen style that might have been a valid comment. or maybe he's changed his technique a bit or took too much Acid.  Who knows.

I much prefer to listen to Malmsteen or Matt Raines, as they are more open and honest about explaining what they do and if they don't understand what they do they say so or better still just watching people play.

I only developed this technique myself because I was stumbling, I set the webcam up and noticed that when I stumbled my thumb was bending, also my thumb was hurting.  I did try SRV, but it doesn't work at a million miles an hour.

It's gotta be an all paths eventually lead to Rome kind of thing for the majority of players and I think Marty Friedman has got to be double jointed or something.

Jason Becker was amazing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHownON8heE

mike_l

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=C0Y3aEXb6qk

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=t9My61NJTxo

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=C_fqkNglmGA

viz

Sambostar said:

I donno, that is the first time I have heard of him.  I guess he was big in the 70's?  The bit in your vid above when it faded to an edit after he lost time when his foot tap went wrong...after explaining that his foot tap keeps him in time kind of did it for me. I guess he is more of an artist than a teacher huh.  LMFAO. 

If he was refering to picking fast on one string AKA Van Halen style that might have been a valid comment. or maybe he's changed his technique a bit or took too much Acid.  Who knows.

Yep he was big in the 70's, 80's, 90's, 2000s, and still is! But the jazzers and the malmsteeners don't collide that often so a lot haven't heard of him. But if you can tune your ear to the fusion / world style, it will open you to a whole new world of possibilities - I love his music. I remember the day I was first introduced to him, someone said something very similar to me so I gave him a go and see where it got me! - http://i865.photobucket.com/albums/ab217/Vizzage/Mobile Uploads/image_zps4914cf40.jpg

Sambostar

I like Classical players and some Spanish, I will check him out, although I get to feeling like he is a bit of a Santana....

Steve Morse has a 7" thumb and first finger, I have short thumbs and thick knuckles and fingers.

I now play with the side of my finger against the joint of my thumb with my fingers relaxed and not in a tight fist,  I don't experience pain in my finger or a wobbly finger movement.  I still get thumb pain from time to time, but at present I have this anyway from holding the throttle full bore and the vibes with chainsaw/polesaw/hedgecutter work I do all day and relative to the rest of the pain I feel in the rest of my body on a regular basis these days, it is insignificant.  My picking hand thumb muscle is twice the size of my left hand.  I try and relax as much as possible and can only speed pick when relaxed but I still get pain in my thumb from time to time playing, but I can't see how I can improve that, or if the pain is actually from work and comes out when playing guitar.  I could never play with my hand in a fist like that though and sometimes like to flail my little pinky about with my right hand.

However you do it, whatever your fingers are like, I think the general point is that you make tiny movements with your wrist and don't move your thumb or finger at the knuckle.  Although I have seen people pick purely from their fingers, by reflexing their thumb joint and first finger joint and there is a name for that technique, it seems mad to me and is most commonly not advocated.

 

 

 

viz

Yeah i can't do that themb knuckle method at all. Al di Meola is deff not a bit of a Santana, not at all! Really he isn't. He's a totally different kettle of fish.

thisisguitar

Jetfire said:

So has anyone used a song or riff to help with alt picking? Is there a section from a tune which is awesome to help actually utilise alt picking? 

You could do worse than the instrumental run at 7m10s into Scarred by Dream Theater. Also 2m38s into Pull Me Under is another good one (I have those couple of pages of tab with a couple of corrections in the last bar, if you want to PM me your email I'll send them to you).

thisisguitar

Al Di Meola, Paco De Lucia and John McLauglin

As Al was mentioned I thought I should draw attention to this ridiculous piece of live performance :-)

McLaughlin is in the full show later on… Friday Night In San Francisco

Catthan

There are obviously many ways to practice alt. picking, with 3 note per string patterns being a much used work out. Then using other patterns to help maintain the accuracy of each technique and then building one's own licks based on those is the next step and it's all good and tested. But I think that's only part of the process. Playing everything in patterns which basicaly rely on muscle memory is restricting after a while. Look at Guthrie Govan; he can pick anything anywhere if he likes and that helps as his licks contain chromaticism, trils in adjacent strings etc. So the trick and the way to get more out of practicing imho is NOT to practice in patterns. It is good in the beginning for strengh and coordination but there's not much value in it if all your licks are permuations of patterns that facilitate good use of muscle memory. So, my view is to practice scales using patterns and shapes and then play them without the patterns. Take a scale and play it across the neck using alt. picking only. shapes and patterns are only part of the picture.