2NPS Economy vs. One Way Escape

Which one do you think has more speed potential, or do you think they’re equal?

Unless I’m missing something, economy with one way escape aren’t mutually exclusive.

Particularly with USX. Both Eric Johnson and Yngwie’s solutions won’t work without both.

Sorry, I meant for a two-note per string lick exclusively.

So, for this pentatonic lick:
E: 15–12---------15–12
B: ---------15–12---------15–12

Alternate picked, or economy?

As long as you never have to leave those 2 strings, economy should in theory be faster. That was how I used to play the ascending pentatonic lick in the No More Tears solo

I think for the sake of versatility, pure alternate is the way to go. That is my opinion though. Frank Gambale would disagree with me and I can’t argue with his results.

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I don’t know!

Probably 2NPS economy but all of the fastest pentatonic players I can think of do it with one way escape, for example Shawn Lane when he does pentatonic stuff, Zakk, EJ, Bonamassa :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

Personally, I would use one way escape because I find the frequent hand position shifting in 2NPS economy annoying and the alternate picked version easy but that’s just me!

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Played USX, I would play that all alternate starting with a downstroke. USX with an up.

An even number of notes on all strings makes alternate simple.

I don’t see where economy would be applicable.

In theory, economy should be faster, for that particular lick. The issue I find with that though, is having to flip flop the arm a little for the direction changes.
I don’t play that way anymore and prefer doing that with single escape.

I think the way I played it was just “trapped”. No flipping required! Also, not particularly “reusable” elsewhere though…

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I’d say they’re probably about equal for speed potential here. 2 way economy might feel easier at first, but I’d wager it’d be quite difficult to keep strict sync with it, versus single escape alternate.

I could never get it to work without flip flopping, not sure where I was going wrong. I used to play two way economy for most of my playing life, but never felt like I had great control over it.

For realistic music you won’t be able to do everything with 2 NPS economy, so you’l be forced to have lots of (say) one-way escape as well. Therefore, the metronome has to be set at the slowest speed between these two techniques—and not the fastest—or you’d just abandon the 2 NPS economy entirely.

The only benefit that I can think of about 2 NPS economy is that it seems less error-prone than single-escaped motions, hence somebody like me would likely make fewer mistakes.