Hi there folks, just a quick question on something I’ve noticed today.
I am currently at sea working and am unable to access my content on cracking the code, so to replace this I am using some lick library stuff for licks, malmsteen licks by Andy James.
Instantly I’m confronted with an anomaly, one of the first licks has Andy play starting on a down stroke, high e 16-17-16-13 to b 17-15-13-15-17-15-13 ends on a down stroke and switches to g 16-14-12-14-16-14-12 again ending on a down stroke before switching to the d string.
My question here being, Andy is obviously an accomplished axeman and very fast player, he has taken these licks from the yngwie lexicon no doubt but does not seem to be using the techniques layed out in the seminar here, yet accomplishes this with fluidity I wish to obtain. I wonder how this could be as the whole yngwie system is built on upward escape strokes and the escape hatch legato or economy picking, but theres none of that happening with Andy 
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Following… My picking “system” is a lot closer to Andy James’ and Andy Wood’s, but all my favourite players use downward escape strokes. Nightmare…
AJ is a DSX player. In that system you can only change strings after a downstroke. This means that in order to play the YM lines smoothly he has to re-order them a little. The most straightforward way for him to do this would be to just alter the starting pickstroke of every line he lifts from YM, i.e when YM starts on a downstroke he’d start the line on an upstroke.
If he, for whatever reason, prefers to start all the lines on a downstroke he’s going to have to add a single hammer-on or pull-off somewhere in order to flip the picking around before he has to change strings. Or in some lines where YM has already inserted one of these devices, to get an USX string change, he can just take it out and use strict alternate picking.
I don’t know how aware AJ is about this stuff, so he might be saying one thing at slow speeds in the video and then doing another thing entirely (without being aware) when he’s playing really fast. E.g. there might be 6 notes on a string that he says he alternate picks, but if you put the magnet on him and slowed down you’d see that 5 notes were picked and 6 fretted because that’s the way his body solved the problem of changing strings as he practiced it.
I understand your point but this particular lick has no hammers or pull offs, all alternate picked and begins on a down first string change after an up next string change on a down and seems to alternate between switching on an up or down after that, can remember and dont have the guitar handy. Will try tab it out and follow with a message.
Well, there’s only so many alternatives here:
- He’s swiping.
- He’s using a mix of USX and DSX (least likely I think)
- He’s not doing what he says he’s doing (e.g. fretting 6 notes and picking 5 without knowing)
In any event it’s not really important how AJ has managed to solve this problem. What matters is that you know which tools are available so you too can play this line.
Type yngwie malmsteen - licks lesson into YouTube for a first hand look, this will help more than my half assed explanation 
Its lick number 4. Nothing about that looks to be pull offs or anything other than straight down up down up to me and when tabbing it out it adds up for him to end on a down as you can see
TBH its sad to see that those “lessons” are no better than what we had back in the late 80s thru the 90s etc. Its sort of like the Vinnie Moore vids where he uses one technique to actually play the lick but then when he shows it slowly its a totally different technique…naturally with no explanations etc
Same here. Starting with a downstroke he does 4 notes on the first string. So far so good because that means he goes to the next string with a downstroke.
But then he does 7 notes on that string. So that means he would need to go to the next string with an upstroke…yet when he actually shows the notes on that string he starts with a downstroke lol.
if you slow down the fast versions, setting youtube at 50% or whatever, the notes sound like mush. Very blurry and indistinct.
Im going to go out on a limb and say he isnt picking every note lol. (unless someone wants to invest the time to see if he is going to the G string with an upstroke…otherwise the pickstrokes simply dont work out)
or, what he actually plays isnt what he thinks he plays and doesnt match the explanation given
No offense to the guy personally but IMO its a pretty worthless “lesson”
Edit: slowing it down to 25% it actually does look like he goes to the G with an upstroke then goes to the D with a downstroke etc.
So I dunno if we can say he is a strictly “dsx” player. Looks like he uses some thumb and finger manipulations etc to go to some string with downstrokes.
Dont hold your breath for him to explain it though, I doubt he is awared lol
Yeah that’s what I’m seeing and have tabbed out, starts g with an upstroke then d with a down and then a and e with ups, I’d really like to know if anyone here can play this lick beyond say 160-170 bpm 16ths, I’ve only started on it and am at 110 bpm.
This is a circular sevens lick. You won’t find this pattern in Volcano, but you will find it in Antigravity:
…and also in the old “Magnet” Kickstarter video from way back:
Played with pure alternate it requires both escapes. If your best picking motion is USX or DSX, you can easily mod this to fit either one of those single-escape picking styles by just making the last note on each string a pulloff. That makes it a six-note pattern, in actual practice. If you want to get this happening right now, and you’re a single escape player, definitely add the pulloff and see if you can get it clean.
As @lars is pointing out, Andy James is primarily a single-escape player, and primarily downstroke escape. His most “crispy” lines are those where you only have downstroke string changes. He blazes on pentatonic phrases starting on an upstroke, for example. The line you’re pointing out isn’t his finest moment, but I wouldn’t read too much into it. Similar occurrences in the latest Joe Stump interview when Joe goes for odd-numbered type lines that don’t match up with his even-numbered picking technique. Happens. Both players, when they’re doing lines that fit their mechanics, are blazing and sound as good as you could want.
The more we do this kind of work, the more I realize that being wrong or not getting stuff is simply the way of things. The Yngwie REH tape is maybe the most derided instructional video of all time for its lack of “instruction”. And yet, before I watched it, I had no idea his fours pattern was done on a single string. The simple fact that they filmed that got me playing even-numbered patterns that start on a downstroke. And that led a few months later to the Pop Tarts breakthrough. And here we are. Had the REH Yngwie tape never existed, it’s quite possible that we wouldn’t be sitting here, right now, typing on this forum.
If you think the “Antigravity” seminar is a good lesson on “two way pickslanting”, it’s because at least we pointed out something nobody even saw or knew to look at before. But I gave basically no instruction on how to make the actual hand motions I was using, and what little I said about them was mostly wrong.
Here’s to the future instructional filmers, who will be wrong about stuff in a way that moves the world forward!
This is why I think for myself and dont have idols or heroes lol. I take peoples opinions for what they are…opinions that are likely to be changed at any time.
The Yngwie tape had its limitations…but that was 1991 lol. This is 2019. The bar should have been moved forward quite a bit more than what we are seeing from lick library IMO
Tip top reply @Troy much appreciated, as I’ve said in previous posts I’m relatively new to this style of playing and have only dabbled in the last couple years here and there before taking the plunge to subscribe recently.
Your work Is most definitely appreciated by this Joe schmoe.
I’ve posted a few poor clips thus far not correctly showing my picking technique as it truly is ( I have no way to mount my phone) do you sell those magnet things? I believe from what I see of my picking hand and having watched a few of the primer chapters that I have a double escape technique, my pick strokes seem to angle ever so slightly away from the guitar body be it up or down stroke and clear the next string but only very slightly I feel this would become swiping I believe is the terminology used here at higher speeds. This lick intrigued me as I had begun on the volcano seminar while still at home and after seeing this lick ( again forgive my limited knowledge I am not so steeped in this stuff as yourself sir ) made me wonder if learning the yngwie system proposed might lead to limitations in what I eventually feel comfortable playing. Again many thanks for the reply your words of wisdom are greatly welcomed by me 
this is something youll have to sort of wade your way thru when looking at licks online. Us CTC folk are aware of “the Yngwie system” but that doesnt mean that everyone is lol. So when you see many “Yngwie” licks being taught online, they dont necessarily follow what we know as Yngwies system.
Obviously the lick in question doesnt follow Yngwies way of doing things. Hence, the lick actually doesnt sound anything like Yngwie at all lol
guys like Paul Gilbert, Joe Stump, Michael Angelo, Vinnie Moore etc were all influenced by Yngwie but they found their own way of doing things. Of that group that I named (off the top of my head) id say Joe Stump comes the closest since he was also influenced by those who Yngwie was influenced by (Uli Roth, Blackmore, Schenker etc).
if u want to see a real technical clone of Yngwie, id say Cesario Filho is about as close as it gets. total beast