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!