Descending pentatonics problem - DWPS

yeah, great for playing nasty blues licks 4 sure

1 Like

Hey there - thanks so much for the pics and insight into your muting technique! I think I am most interested in what the tip of the index finger can do for muting. It seems like it is best to not fret with the very tip of the finger (how I practiced when I was a kid) but to fret between the tip of the finger and the joint (distal phalanx?) so that the tip can fret a lower string. So, if I were playing the B string , the tip of the finger would mute the G string. Also, like someone else mentioned the other could mute with the tips too?

I picked up on this too - your pick definitely becomes more vertically aligned in the descending phrase than the ascending one. I’m not sure how much of an issue this is, though, since you very clearly don’t seem to be getting hung up on the strings anywhere.

I’m wondering if the difference is even simpler - in the ascending pattern, your last pickstroke on the high E is an upstroke, moving towards the bass strings. You don’t need to change direction, your pick is already naturally traveling back to the bass strings for the first downstroke of the pattern. On the descending pattern, however, your last pickstroke is still an upstroke, heading towards the bass strings… But you now need to switch directions and move the pick up to the treble strings.

Could this need to switch direction be the main reason this is trickier to do? If so, that should be independent of pick escape. I’ll say anecdotally that I’m not a natural DWPS player, yet I have the same problems as you do on patterns like this, that they’re way easier to play ascending than descending.