Crosspicking question - alternate picking

Playing Technique
#1

Ok, so after trying the sideways guitar thing last night I quickly got sidetracked and the technique inspired some writing. I found myself playing a series of chords using the following picking pattern, which I found I was kind of struggling to play:

|---0-----0-----0-----0---|
|-----6-----6-----6-----6-|
|-5-----5-----5-----5-----|
|-------------------------|
|-------------------------|
|-------------------------|

(I THINK that was one of the patterns I was playing, and one that really made the picking clear due to that half-step between the open E and the F)

I found that at speed I wasn’t playing that consistently in the same manner, that some repeats were G-E-B while some repeats were G-B-E, and I suspect the major reason was that, if you’re alternate picking this, the picking pattern reverses every repeat:

  d u d u d u d u d u d u
|---0-----0-----0-----0---|
|-----6-----6-----6-----6-|
|-5-----5-----5-----5-----|
|-------------------------|
|-------------------------|
|-------------------------|

If I slow it down I can make my hand follow these picking articulations without trouble, but at speed I find myself flip-flopping more often; this could just be a matter of needing to spend some time burning in the muscle memory though (this is the kind of stuff I’ve never really practiced in the past).

However, it’s theoretically possible to I guess sweep this a little more than alternate pick it:

  d u u d u u d u u d u u
|---0-----0-----0-----0---|
|-----6-----6-----6-----6-|
|-5-----5-----5-----5-----|
|-------------------------|
|-------------------------|
|-------------------------|

I’m thinking that the correct solution here IS alternate picking it, and it’s just a matter of running it at a lower tempo until I get used to the two shifting picking patterns. Looking at some of the lessons, it looks like this is basically a reverse roll pattern, and it SHOULD be something I should be able to alternate pick. It’s just, for some reason, this is a hell of a lot harder than a forward roll picking pattern for me… Thought I’d kick it to the group for input. Thanks!

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#2

Troy discusses this in his X-picking examples. It’s just a descending rolling 3… I think it’s a good part of a warm-up routine.

Yes, it can be swept, but it doesn’t sound very good… and the timing & dynamics is never is quite right… at least for me it wasn’t.

As far as alt-picking it, I also had issues doing these rolling 3’s (in either direction) It didn’t start sounding good until I really relaxed and stopped looking at what I was doing.

If you are getting sorta ‘mind-twisted’ on these ‘3 patterns’, one thing that can help is thinking of it as 6’s. It kinda makes it easier to follow at times.

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#3

Yeah, that’s how I’ve been looking at it, and at slower speeds I can do it, but as the speed comes up it’s not really locked in. Sounds like the answer is just more repetition!

#4

Super common. Any time you are learning any sort of new motor skill, you will find yourself flip-flopping between different versions of it. This is your motor system trying to figure out what the one you want feels like, and zero in on that over time. If you have any similar version of the thing previously learned, this can also exert an influence. If you’re already great at the forward roll for example, you may initially find your hands playing it even though you don’t mean to.

As usual, massive repetition is not the way. Short sessions, multiple varied attempts trying to do it correctly, and stopping on a high note when feel like you get it. Then you come back a few minutes later, try to replicate that success. You’re trying to replicate as many success attempts as you can in a short amount of time, thirty minutes or so, and then put it down. You’re done.

Then you put the guitar down and make sure you sleep at night and come back the next day. You’ll probably be a little better. It takes anywhere from 24 to 72 hours to start to consolidate new motor movements and the practice is just a catalyst for that.

Edit: I should note that this is all predicated on making the motion correctly in the first place. It’s not just the notes, it’s the motor movements. No sense in running this process on stringhopping.

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Optimal time per day for practice
#5

Yeah, it may be a purely mechanical issue. Some specific movement that cannot be sped up.

As @Troy says, repetition of a bad mechanic or a mechanic that can’t be sped up will just cause frustration.

For me, the key to speeding up anything has always been ‘bursting’. Trying something REALLY fast for a second or so… so that you know how it feels at that speed, and doing that several times a day. But that’s difficult when dealing with 3 note patterns.

So maybe try and do bursting with 4 note descending rolls, both inside and outside. That was actually how I made the ‘jump’ passed the 135 bpm barrier 1NPS picking. Once I felt really comfortable with that… the 3 note rolls were a matter of getting in the groove.

It may not work for everyone, but it worked for me.

#6

Thanks Troy, that’s all great advice.

I think the actual pickstroke is ok, its just the string-tracking side of this is throwing me because my arm keeps wanting to default to a different motion.

The other cool thing about this I’m finding is if I can get the picking pattern down, played on an acoustic, kind of dynamically swelling into and out of some of the chord voicings I was messing around with sounds awesome, and there are some really cool compositional possibilities here.

#7

I know what you’re getting at, but that’s sort of like my footsteps are ok but my moonwalk is uncoordinated. From a learning perspective, I think it’s likely that the moonwalk, or the roll pattern, is a single entity. It’s a single repeating sequence of things you learn to do. Knowing the individual motions doesn’t get you super far to learning the sequence of them. And until you get it, it can flip flop between different things or you can forget what it is and not be able to do it at all.

That’s how I would look at this. I don’t think anyone really plays “pickstrokes” when they play guitar, otherwise, lots of people would instantly already be able to play all sorts of things. They play little learned sequences / chunks of motions, and often those sequences don’t feel anything like playing individual notes, even if logically under the camera you can look at those notes and see “pickstroke”.

1 Like
#8

Fair point. :smile: I guess what I was trying to say is I think I’m getting an acceptably good escape in both directions that in theory it’s a movement I should be able to pull off at speed, I just have to integrate them in the right manner to pull this particular pattern off.

Either way, I’ll bump this in a couple weeks time with hopefully some good progress to report.

#9

…and, go figure, I left work, met a buddy for a couple beers, came home, picked up a guitar, and nailed this flawlessly, lol.