Breaking SWYBRID Rules

Playing Technique
#1

I’ve been practicing a bunch of SWYBRID Pentatonic licks at the moment, combining SWYBRID with some DWPS based ideas as well. As I understand it, Marshall likes to sweep when descending after an upstroke but with DWPS your above the string anyway, so couldn’t you just alternate pick the next note?

I guess Marshall designed his technique to be as effortless as possible but I would argue this doesn’t take much more effort and I’ve been able to get it reasonably fast so far.

An example would be this descending fours Pentatonic lick where I use a down, up, down, up, middle, down, up, down, down picking pattern:

e|–8-5--------5-----------------------------------------------|
B|--------8-5------8-5------8-5---------5-------------------|
G|------------------------7---------7-5-------7-5------------|
D|-----------------------------------------------------7--------|
–|-D-U–D-U-M–D-U-D–D-U-D-U–M--D-U-D--------|

Have I misunderstood something about SWYBRID? And Troy, if you’re reading this, do you think you can only Hybrid pick at high speeds after an upstroke? When Zakk Wylde Hybrid picks after downstrokes is he just using an inefficient picking motion?

Thanks!

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#2

Hey Jacklyr – I’m a frequent SWYBRID picker, but I’m primary DSX (UWPS) so I might do it like this:

e|–8-5--------5-----------------------------------------------|
B|--------8-5------8-5------8-5---------5-------------------|
G|------------------------7---------7-5-------7-5------------|
D|-----------------------------------------------------7--------|
–|-D-U–U-D-U–U-D-U–M-U-U-D–U–U-D-U--------|

More and more often, however, I’m finding that I’m able to do the wrist turn thing (most associated with 2WPS) and replace that “M” with a downstroke. It feels pretty natural. On the other hand, I find economy linear ascents difficult with the USX (DWPS) orientation and end up with some swiping going up alternate or sometimes cross strings with the middle or ring finger. Kinda weird but pragmatic!

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#3

I dont think you misunderstand anything about Swybrid. It doesn’t have to be exactly the way Marshall or Zakk might do it, if it works for you.

#4

Hi! I’m not familiar with the rules of SWYBRID as Marshall has outlined them, so if you’re asking is there a reason in his system that you can only use fingerpicking after you play certain kinds of pickstrokes, I don’t know the answer to that. Anecdotally, I have no problem playing Zakk Wylde type lines where you do a downstroke on a lower string and finger pick a higher string. Albert Lee does a lot of this in our interview with him too.

Re: alternate picking, you can pick any sequence of notes on any combination of strings, including one note on a string or more, with no fingers at all. And you can do it with a wide range of motions, from finger motion to wrist, forearm, and so on. There are really no “rules” there in the sense of what is possible versus not being possible. There are just motions that can do some string changes and other motions that can do other ones. You can learn as many as you like, and use them in any combination you like. The resulting mishmash is your “style”, if you will.

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#5

Point of information. I believe Marshall spells his approach “SWYBRYD.”