Changing direction and strings formula - Gambale

Playing Technique
#1

Hi are there any formula/examples of pick slanting when changing direction and string in Gambale’s style?
I watched al the videos but stil unsure of best approach in some cases. For instance here I would sweep the first 3 and keep the pick slanted Down to escape up on the 5 down on the 4 again but how do I play the the last two notes from 4 to 5? If I play down on 4 and up on 5 it means we have two two escapes in different directions…is this where we are supposed to move the pick in a semi-circle motion over the string?
Thank you

—————————————
—————————————
—————————————
————3—5——4————
——4———————5——
—5———————————
D D D U D ?

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#2

Welcome Fabrice! Are you planning to cycle through this pattern? If so, I don’t think this is something Gambale would play at high speed, because of the 1-string turnaround on the low E.

@Troy have you ever seen him play an example of this sort? Would be very interesting if so.

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#3

Yes in any case this is a possible solution :slight_smile: note also that you have 3 notes on that string so you can also switch from upstroke escape to downstroke escape at an earlier time. I am still curious whether Frank would actually play something like this!

#4

It’s not common, but he does have a couple of stock patterns where he does it. Here’s one of the patterns, when you have two notes on a higher string and you try to cycle it with one note on a lower string. You can sweep the first string change but not the second one:


The reverse is also fairly uncommon, where you have descending inside alternate picking embedded in a phrase. So the bit in the here where you have 354, where 4 is a downstroke, and then you have to hit the 5 on an upstroke. That’s very uncommon in Frank’s playing.

In other words, when you have an economy type line that’s moving in a continuous direction, and you have a mix of inside picking and sweeping, you really don’t see much of that in Frank’s playing, even though in theory it should be common. If you look at George Benson for example, he’ll do DDU on two strings, like the A and D strings, then DDU again on the next pair of strings, like the G and B. Obviously the connection between them is inside picking but it’s no problem because it’s still one-way economy. Lots of jazz type lines work this way because of all the 212 type fingerings. I really had to look around and I wasn’t really able to find any examples of these kinds of lines in the interview.

The closest would be something like this:

Measure 7 has the first pattern we’re talking about, and measure 18 has it again with a transition to two notes per string, which is inside picking. It’s not quite the same thing as doing a 212 type line, but it’s sort of in the ballpark.

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#5

For this type of phrase, I think Gambale might play something like:

DDUDUU

Here’s a couple of examples from “Improvisation Made Easier” that are similar to this pattern:

image

At the red points, Frank uses double rotation get outside alternate picking to continue an ascending sweep on the next 4-note arp.

image

This one is almost the exact inversion of your example. After the first upstroke rest stroke, there’s another double rotation to setup for DSX alternate picking string changes. If he were to loop the first 6 notes I suspect it would be: UUDUDD.

Gambale is a tricky one to create “rules” for - he’s so flexible in combining sweeps in both directions, alternate picking inside and outside, using both pickslant/escape directions in the same phrase. There’s few limits on what he can do technically - but he has certain preferences as Troy points out in the analysis vids.

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#6

Brillant …thank you for your answers Troy as well as other contributors!