Anybody use Hybrid in favour of alternate or other

Barney

Iv been working a lot on my alternate picking for the past 6 months or so...i can get up to a certain speed and fluency probably about 250bpm 8th notes with it but Hybrid seems a lot more natural to me ..also legato and i can get to much quicker speeds 

Whats everybodies prefered method and why ?
And what drawbacks are there to each method

I know a lot of the reples will be to mix them all up depending on what kind of effect we want and i agree but it will apply more to rock or blues style but maybe not as much with jazz or fusion ...

Ideally it would be great to switch seamlessly from Holdsworth style to mclaughlin ...gambale ect in within say 4 bars iff need be  ...so you have best of everything at whatever tempo needed i dont know iff thats possible though on that level

octatonic

I started playing hybrid some time in the 90's and it has become my default approach.
I get it to do most of the stuff that I like the play and then deploy other techniques as required (alternate, economy, sweeping, slapping etc).

For alternate 125bpm is a good tempo (you should think in 16th's, not 8ths) but try to get it up around 160bpm.
It will take a lot of work.

On switching styles- work on it- it is doable.

Barney

octatonic said:

I started playing hybrid some time in the 90's and it has become my default approach.
I get it to do most of the stuff that I like the play and then deploy other techniques as required (alternate, economy, sweeping, slapping etc).

For alternate 125bpm is a good tempo (you should think in 16th's, not 8ths) but try to get it up around 160bpm.
It will take a lot of work.

On switching styles- work on it- it is doable.

Just out interest why do you think playing 16ths...i think thats Wayne Krantze approach im not sure though 

Just out of interest with Hybrid how do you do the tremelo thing on a single string ..say iff you had 4 consecutive notes or more ....i have been going between alternate and hybrid  ...the hybrid way felt odd at first with it being the same string..but its sort of feeling ok now but so does alternate ..i know the single string can be done as legato but sometimes its not the sound needed and sometimes hard to execute depending on where you are and how you start or go ..

close2u

I would say that alternate is the technique to learn.
Hybrid is the technique to use as and when once you have mastered and can transcend the alternate technique.

It's like many techniques.
Learn it.
Practice it.
Master it.
Apply it.
Transcend it.
Make it your tool of choice so you define it rather than it defining you.

ElectroDan

I have worked on blending alternate and economy picking over the last year or so and it has really paid off. When I started to hear it work I found new ideas were jumping out at me and I was inspired to practice more than I have in ages. I am actually having an enforced rest at the moment because I think I've overdone it a bit.
I use hybrid picking too but more to get that specific spank, or when i deliberately want to bleed notes together on different strings, or play double stops.
Tom Quayle said he tries to make the hybrid notes sound identical to the picked ones and it sounds amazing when he does it.

TheBlueWolf

Alternate picking has always been my default, with a few hybrid picked blues licks thrown in.

I'm on an enforced rest from playing but I'd  like to get into economy picking at some point.

fendergibson

Yes hybrid has become my main picking style, probably achieved by never having a pick lying around and having to manage with fingers knopfler style ! 

So now when using a pick and up to 3 fingers it seems natural and certainly helps me with speedy blues/country stuff. 

I could do with improving my alt picking though as its a real fundamental skill imo and has that classic sound/feel

Barney

close2u said:

I would say that alternate is the technique to learn.
Hybrid is the technique to use as and when once you have mastered and can transcend the alternate technique.

It's like many techniques.
Learn it.
Practice it.
Master it.
Apply it.
Transcend it.
Make it your tool of choice so you define it rather than it defining you.

Yeah i agree alternate picking should be learned regardless...cos its needed before economy or hybrid ...

ElectroDan

Agreed. You have to have a good Alternate picking ability to make Economy picking work properly.

Barney

ElectroDan said:

Agreed. You have to have a good Alternate picking ability to make Economy picking work properly.

yeah definitely ...but iv been working quite a bit on hybrid on a single string rather than using it to jump to the next string ...i would like to be able to pluck every note sometimes using hybrid alone ...its doable and paying off...rather than when you come to a group of notes on the same string use either alt or legato ...

ElectroDan

Definitely doable. It depends what you want to hear when you play doesn't it.
I remember watching Frank Gambale's 'Monster Licks and Speed Picking' a long time ago and almost totally abandoning the Economy picking soon after.
I bought Troy Grady's 'Pick Slanting Primer' (back when it was the Season 2 pass) thinking it would help me hone my Alternate picking (which was already quite fast).
I started looking at some of the Economy stuff there and decided to work at it until I could do it properly. Once I discovered a few things about 2 way pick slanting, I was hooked. It feels and sounds like less effort... prettier for want of a better expression.
There's still the Alternate palm muted picking for when pretty isn't appropriate. 

Barney

ElectroDan said:

Definitely doable. It depends what you want to hear when you play doesn't it.
I remember watching Frank Gambale's 'Monster Licks and Speed Picking' a long time ago and almost totally abandoning the Economy picking soon after.
I bought Troy Grady's 'Pick Slanting Primer' (back when it was the Season 2 pass) thinking it would help me hone my Alternate picking (which was already quite fast).
I started looking at some of the Economy stuff there and decided to work at it until I could do it properly. Once I discovered a few things about 2 way pick slanting, I was hooked. It feels and sounds like less effort... prettier for want of a better expression.
There's still the Alternate palm muted picking for when pretty isn't appropriate. 

I think i need to check out the Troy Grady stuff a bit ...with economy i mainly use it high to low strings ...i find it a bit awkward going from bottom to top ...i usually use Hybrid or alternate for that...i maybe need to look at my technique regarding going up the scale/run ect ....
 

sorefinga

Barney said:

I think i need to check out the Troy Grady stuff a bit ...with economy i mainly use it high to low strings ...i find it a bit awkward going from bottom to top ...i usually use Hybrid or alternate for that...i maybe need to look at my technique regarding going up the scale/run ect ....
 

The best thing about Troy's stuff is that it give you an approach and vocabulary to analyse your picking technique. Even if you don't use any of the techniques in there, you will come out knowing why you can or can't pick something, and have a bunch of options you can apply.

Hellwig

I would just say each has their own place, sound, advantages & disadvantages, etc. Of course, you're gonna find less use for hybrid picking than the other styles just because of the nature of the style & it's uses.