Can I use only DWPS?

Playing Technique
#1

Guys, I’m about to make a decision that will impact my playing for the next years, so I’d like some advice from you.
I’ve been playing the guitar for over 20 years, and I’m a downward pickslanter.
1- I use Yngwie’s economy picking technique (i.e., sweeping on the way up a 3 notes per string scale, and using 2 pick strokes + 1 legato on the way down).
2- I’m very comfortable with outside picking. In passages such as Paul Gilbert’s sixes, I use sweep picking to begin it with an up-stroke, and then, with outside picking, it’s a breeze.
My alternate picking with downward pickslanting works fine when going up a scale. However, on the way down, i can only I can only maintain speed with Yngwie’s style 2 picks for 1 legato. If I try to fully alternate-pick these passages, I get sloppy.

Question 1: Should I go down the rabbit hole of TWPS at this stage of my life, or should I keep honing my downward pickslanting technique?
Question 2: If I decide to master TWPS, will the Antigravity series going to help me doing so? The Inside the Volcano, which I own, did wonders for my DWPS.

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#2

Are you happy with what you’re playing? When you do the descending down-up-legato thing, does it sound awesome? Do you come up with cool ideas and ways to use it? If so, you’re done! If you told me I was not allowed to use anything but dwps ever again, honestly, I’d probably be a better player in the musical sense because I would just focus on music all the time and build a killer improv vocabulary, writing awesome tunes, and so on. You can imagine how much time “mechanics” has subtracted from my purely musical time over the years. Personally, I’m fine with this - I’m not a traditional working musician or even hobbyist, and this little journey of mechanical learning is what I do around here.

In other words, there is no “should”. It is very clear from filming and interviewing all these great players that the physical mechanics and the creativity evolve together. Marty Friedman says straight up in our interview that never went the way of learning how to “pick everything” because he likes sounding different. Up to you!

If for whatever reason you want to learn two-way pickslanting I would actually recommend a subscription because we are adding more material all the time on how to execute the basic movements. And many of the interviews contain expert examples of how 2wps works, especially all the recent Andy Wood stuff. You can probably get what you need to know in a few months and that’s about the price of any of the seminars, but you’ll be able to watch all the other stuff too.

In general, I have been recommending that everyone start here first:

https://troygrady.com/channels/talking-the-code/introduction-to-picking-motion/

And then move on to the more application-specific stuff in the seminars and interviews.

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#3

Hi, Troy!
Thanks for the speedy reply. It was very elucidating.
I will keep working on my current technique for a while before i dive into 2wps. After all, if Yngwie can do what he does with nothing but dwps, why should I feel bad about being “limited” myself?
Moreover, I’m getting the membership (even though the exchange rate is killing me in Brazil).
Finally, congrats for the AMAZING job you guys have been doing. You’re making history here.
Best regards,
Flavio

1 Like