Thank you very much! I think I naturally had some finger motions going on but suppressed them for two reasons, first because of certain advice of certain players on the internet recommending against it, of course then I saw Takayoshi Ohmura and LEDA, and then thanks to Troy noticed guys like Yngwie and Eric Johnson use finger motion aswell so there’s really nothing wrong with it, but in second place and more recently because I realized I was subconsciously trying to use finger motion to get some sort of escape motion which wasn’t being effective for me, so in that sense it was helpful to supress it, but for getting a trapped motion instead it might be a different story and might be just what I need. So this could be a good opportunity to start playing around with finger motion for economy picking and sort of let it happen naturally and kinda see what happens. Thanks! I will also use your advice of getting a DBX type motion to get a feel for isolating the finger motion technique.
Apparently Takayoshi has some truly scary big brain moves that I never knew about it. Have you browsed the forum, and found that video where that guy shows the technique in great detail?
Takayoshi sometimes will combine the two motions you can do with the thumb index during 4 and 6 note groupings to go so fast it looks unreal. i still haven’t really worked on this, but i would wager if you did for a few months you could lock it in as well.
This just shows don’t underestimate the thumb/index, it is very powerful because it can be used in so many different ways.
Oh actually I completely missed this, Takayoshi technique up until this point remains a mystery to me. Glad to see someone has found out how he does it. I think a lot o Japanese guitarist use some super weird mix of motions all the way from finger motions, to forear-wrist, to elbow, to RDT form and they just switch through them.
I’ve never been too much into finger motions since most of my favorite players are either wrist or elbow, or a mixture of the two with forearm, so do you have some resources I can check out specifically on this “thumb index slice” technique?
I think that technique in particular could be useful for me, I think a lot of guitar players that have developed economy picking use some sort of finger motion, Eric Johnson, Yngwie, Michael Romeo, Joe Stump. So if I’m looking at economy picking it might be worthwhile to learn at least the thumb index slice technique, since I have a feeling it might be kinda natural for me.
I know there’s other players that don’t use finger motion for economy picking but I have no idea how they get their economy picking like Jacky Vincent or MAB, I’ve seen some other guys on the internet that use elbow extension to get the sweep, but that feels super weird to me.
Even in the Gypsy Jazz realm I see it often. They probably don’t even realize it is happening either because it will happen during a phrase for a few notes.
Here is the slice technique that I use mainly although I could probably really develop any motion with the thumb/index. If I was to give you some advice though if you are going to develop these I would suggest that you try to perceive the movement coming from the thumb in your mind in case if you ever want to try your hand at classical or flamenco you will have that mental connection already built up.
Nice! I’ll check it out thank you!
Thanks! Here’s a video of me doing alternate picking then trying to do economy picking, I can’t get any speed going on and it just gets very uncoordinated when doing economy picking, feels super weird compared to the alternate picking approach. I feel it’s the string switch with economy picking where it really slows me down and where I lose coordination. This is me using my regular motions so to speak, not trying anything new, like adding finger motion
I am also a natural DSX player (inverted yngwie haha). My natural tendency is to economy pick ascending runs and to alternate descending ones. For 3nps economy, I think I use my elbow to push/pick on string changes kind of like “punching” the next string while simultaneously changing my tracking position.
Here’s a tiny clip
man if i was dsx i would be abusing the musically descended stuff and picking right through that upstroke to another upstroke.
Wait, I thought you were DSX? This is just what feels natural to me. I think the way I practiced 3nps scales and 3 string sweeps in my early days solidified starting with a down on everything when possible.
It looks and sounds a little bit like you might be getting stuck with the pick, (Garage spikes), when doing ascending sweeps. Does it feel like the pick is getting a bit stuck to you?
Just throwing it out there: if your goal is primarily to play ascending scales faster, a much shorter road, one that might work instantly, is just to play up down hammer for every string. Andy James does this a fair amount nowadays, and Andy Wood demonstrated it on mandolin in one of the vids here. I’m not trying to dissuade you from pursuing ascending economy, I just think it might be an uphill battle for how your hand is working right now and this could be a quicker solution.
I do the opposite and I have no idea why. Or rather, I can do the opposite and don’t know how. I don’t recall ever working on it and considering how smooth it is, it seems weird to me that I can’t even come close to doing it ascending. I’m also not entirely sure it’s not something I started doing when I started playing again earlier this year. It’s hard to remember 15+ years back something I never payed attention to. My descending alternate isn’t nearly as relaxed as smooth as my ascending either, so maybe there’s something to consider there.
Thank you for the clip, it indeed looks like elbow motion to get the sweep economy picking. Could be another approach to try out, would you say you are using elbow extension to achieve it? I noticed for people that use elbow extension their hand kinda starts tracking a sort of diagonal line towards the fretboard as they ascend.
Being a DSX player for me the descending economy picking is much easier than the ascending, funny enough same with alternate picking. As you can see in my clip, on the alternate picking parts, I have to use secondary motion to do ascending alternate picking but when descending I kinda can get away with some swiping so it’s not as complicated, my brain doesn’t have to work nearly as hard. But I think you have found a good solution here with economy picking ascending runs for the most part, that’s kinda what I’m looking for at the moment. I couldn’t quite get it from your clip, I noticed you also descended a bit before ascending again, how exactly did you do that, I can’t really see it, is it again DSX string change for the descending part, then how do you approach going back to ascending after that?
it could be, thanks maybe I was pushing too hard down trying to force the sweep, maybe it also has to do with my motion change to make it a trapped motion, but how would you approach solving this garage spikes issue?
This is actually pretty good advice, like a reverse Yngwie kind of thing. It would certainly change the sound a bit but I think most people won’t notice it anyway. But at least in regards to playing live and covers this could definitely be a very reliable way of approaching this, specially since my secondary motion is not that reliable atm, and for some of these covers I do need some serious speed going on. Thank you this is definitely something to add to the toolbox. Like you said pretty quickly too, just gotta work on the coordination a little bit to get used to it. I say maybe this could be even faster than the metronomic rock dsx solution, but each one has it’s advantages of course, the metronomic rock would maybe sound just a bit more aggressive.
i just don’t like the line of thought that it always has to be downstroke, upstroke, pull off, maybe during extreme shred instances where it is better to just use one tactic. i think knowing and being able to do both ‘down stroke, upstroke, pull off/hammer’, and ‘downstroke, pull off/hammer on, upstroke’ will take you much further as well as your playing will sound much cleaner with better articulation during phrasing. but i have only come across this style of training with gypsy jazz rest stroke where they will do both of these kind of fragments, simply because the rest stroke helps with the timing of the trickier one. but again during a 3nps scale run probably down, up, pull off/hammer on would sound better than the other.
Yes I think i’ve seen some guys that play more aggressive styles like metal, use the downstroke, upstroke, pull off/hammer on type of combination, the other one is definitely a lot more rare for metal soloing, maybe tends to sound a bit more “legatoish” which is why some people might avoid it if they are looking to get a more aggressive sound, since in the first one you have two pick attacks in a row but the other one they are separated by a different articulation, probably a bit harder to coordinate aswell, but in terms of getting speed, it should be about the same. I think also comfort might play a part here, what comes more natural depending on a phrase, yeah maybe for straight up scalar playing option 1 is a more obvious choice, but the other one could work for other stuff aswell
they are both legato’ish, depends on where you are on beat if it will fool the ear.if that pull off falls on the beat, or where an accent (this is where compression will help tremendously as long as you are whipping that upstroke loud enough when the time is right) would help project the phrase, it will be harder to hide the legato sound of either fragment. if compression is used this becomes harder to discern for either fragment as long as that pull off doesn’t fall on the beat, well and if you are cruising fast enough, and if your wall of marshall plexi’s are dialed at 11. 
Not that I’d fault anyone for not reading my long-ass posts lol! But I did sort of mention this here 
Yeah, but I gave specific instructions. Therefore… WINNER!
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