Still trying to grasp the “half rest stroke!
Maybe i will never understand….
But why do we need to (Do all downstrokes)? lol No… that makes zero sense to me. Great if it works to him, but nope not for me! hahaha
The guy sounds fantastic but that makes no sense to me to only hit on a downstroke, I mean, might as well hit it on the way back up, right? Likely be twiece as fast…
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It gives a different sound with all downstrokes.
And, good luck playing it twice as fast with down, down , up! For me it is doable to get it at his speed with an upstroke on the G string. But playing it faster…no.
With alternate picking you could go crazy fast.
I can do that, but not yet super clean. Have to work on that.
I meant just alternate pick stuff instead of doing all downstrokes my man. Sweeping would likely be 4x as fast hahahaha
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You can’t sweep this lick. It is 2 down on the D string and one down on the G string
It’s a tone thing. There’s another thread about it on here:
I used to do a lot of heavy metal rhythm playing and got decent at it. Ironically it came very naturally to me. Anecdotally, I don’t recall EVER practicing it slowly. I was probably 13 years old and saw James Hetfield just killin’ it and I went for it. The hands tend to figure things out for themselves when they’re put in a certain position and you make them play specific patterns. I do remember if I did it for too long I’d tense up, but I could play phrases that required the all downs picking when playing either Metallica songs or stuff my band did. I quit the band almost 15 years ago and haven’t tried that technique since. I know master of puppets is sort of the litmus test for the technique. Curious if I’ve still got it…
I sort of do!
Not as fast as Eric obviously but at least it’s in the ballpark
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Alternate picking this one is very tricky though because it’s a three note phrase.
I remember this! To me this was just a testament to his stubbornness of not wanting to economy pick. He even called playing that pattern, at the speed he was doing, “impossible” to do with pure alternate picking. We’ve seen people play at those speeds and alternate pick it all. He even toured with Steve Morse while he was in his prime, and steve could easily handle stuff like that. What’s more, Al is a great wrist player, so he had all the raw materials to do the exact thing himself that he said was impossible lol
Great player, hugely influential/inspirational. Unfortunately, spreader of dogma.
Yes, it can be played with alternate picking, but it sounds quite different and not as percussive as Al does it.
It‘s the same with this Eric lick, You can play it with alternate picking but it has a totaly different sound to it and it’s not so percussive.
I always sucked at it. Funnily enough, I can do all upstrokes a lot faster than all downstrokes… maybe I’ll start an upside down thrash metal band
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You’re on to something here… 
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how about down up then middle finger; ie swybrid. I got it extremely fast my man.
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That’s cheating lol!!! (just kidding)
Of course that‘s possible but sounds totaly different.
That‘s exeptional for being able to do upstrokes faster then downstrokes.
Okay, well sorry man - I was just trying to offer some suggestions. I didn’t find it too difficult to go DU on the D string then Down again on the G as well. I had to kind of supinate to get that one, felt a bit gangly.
I was able to get it pretty quick with U D D, and also U D U but that’s just me. 16ths @ 162 for about 10 min or so of practice. Could probably get a lot faster if I worked it, and I’m sure a supinated USX player would do the opposite DUD really fast.
But if it’s gotta be only downstrokes, then that’s just the way it is I guess!
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Thnx for your input man!
But the purpose of my initial post is to show how fast Eric can play all downstrokes and to find out some of you guys can do this, because i can‘t.
It gives a specific sound and has this strong percussive attack.
Of course there are different ways to play this line, i would have do do it in a different way, but that’s not what i was interested in.
YES YOU CAN! And if you aren’t as fast, NEVER GIVE UP THE DREAM!
Haha! Maybe…but i have other (more important) things to practice 
Oh jeez, sorry if I derailed the conversation, not my intent! You got this, rock it!
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