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There is no strict "right" or "wrong" as long as the music comes out at the end. Bear this in mind. Having said that, obviously you can generate technical exercises to emphasise a particular technique, and if you did it differently than planned then the objective of the exercise is not met - even if the music comes out properly at the end....
I'd have said there's 2 ways of playing "alternate picking", one where its strictly alternate, and one where the downbeats are down and the upbeats are up. For the second way, your picking would want to be (in the piece example):
down down down down up down down up down down down up down
(apoligies if it looks messy - I should really rewrite the music and put the marks in)
Another way to explain it would be to imagine the piece is counted (rhythm) as
1 e & a 2 e & a 3 e & a 4 e & a | 1 e & a 2 e & a 3 e & a 4 e & a
The 'e' and 'a' are the offbeat 1/16th notes - these would always be played "up". And the rest, the on beat 1/16 notes (ie all/any 1/8 notes) would be played down. Your hand would be regularly going up and down in a consistent way, but you'd only play when the notes occur, other times you'd lift your hand slightly to "fly over" the strings.
Having said that, while in theory it could give a more even rhythm, in practice lifting clear of the strings (and the timing of doing so) is in itself a difficult challenge. I'll see if I can find an example on a video, David Byrne used to do it a lot when he played rhythm guitar.
at 14:30 or so. Its not quite right, since (I think) he is playing deadened notes if not a sounded note.
Its so damn fast its hard to be sure!!! But I think at the end of each bar, he plays an upstroke too (in the verse, something else occurs in the chorus).
I'm a huge Placebo fan so the example video was very easy to understand!
So am I right in assuming that if a piece has a few semi-quavers thrown in I'll be playing a lot of downstrokes (or upstrokes if its syncopated) but if there are are NO semi-quavers then the quavers will become the alternated notes?
Is there a name for the weird alternate picking style I've been currently doing or does it just come under 'bad technique'?
http://i.imgur.com/s4I1QUl.png
Once I've worked out which notes are the "big" ones, I just work out a picking pattern that gives me a) the right emphasis, and b) the least number of times I skip over a string with the pick (which is wasted effort). This usually results in a hybrid of alternate and economy picking.
Then I practice it until I can't get it wrong.
yes it's all based around super shreddy guitar soloing, but those principles can be moved to pretty much any style using a flat pick.
just don't watch too much, or you will forever get lost in exercises and never play actual music again!!!