Anyone ever try this? Just seems like economy to me and he has a downward slant right?
Looks like an upward slant as per the terminology on CtC. Eric Johnson has a downward slant, this guy is doing the opposite of that. But yeah, to call this directional and differentiate from economy picking seems odd to me.
To me, this is just a 2nps lick or pattern, and though efficient, inflexible. I used to use this when I played the No More Tears solo (ascending pentatonic run at the end). Itās great when you stay on 2 strings the whole time, but it breaks down when you need to play more complicated patterns that change from those 2 strings.
okay sorry i probably just get confused. So upward slant is a more pronated grip but doesnt have to result in an upward escape preference right?
AND DUDE youre so right! The No more tears pentatonic run on 2 strings is why I developed using economy picking (or directional) for fast repetitive runs on just two strings
I know there are exceptions, but generally if you slant upwards youād have escaped down strokes. Naturally pronating would put you in that posture. If you slant downwards your upstrokes will be escaped. This is natural from a supinated posture. It gets murky because you can do a lot of mixing and matching but with various āhelperā movements end up still escaping either direction.
Iāve been practicing that No More Tears run with downward pickslanting/upward escape a lot lately. Iām still faster with economy, but at least I can finally play it at his tempo with pure alternate picking lol! Back in the day I couldnāt get itā¦because I used upward pick slanting. I had no chance, unless of course I would have begun the phrase on an upstroke. I just didnāt get it. That God for CtC!
Thats what i thought. I guess itās hard for me to distinguish his slants and wrist placement in that video
Check it out around 8:40. Great camera angle there. Clear upward slant.
Recently there has been much discussion on watching the path of the pick, rather than the slant just because sometimes what appears as a slant (or the lack of a slant even) is deceiving. The way the pick is teaveling and the escape that occurs is what matters.
This pattern can be played with zero slant. Just pushing straight through the strings with a trapped motion would yield the same results
I also dont think I can really play like Zakk, i have to change it up. Have you learned the Miracle man solo yet? I cant do that the way he does without a lot of extra practice. I have to go U D U U. Can link a video if you need
Sure! Curious what slant/trajectory you use that facilitates that.
honestly not much of a slant but my preference for string changes after an upstroke really comes out in those fast licks. Itās inside picking with a sweep from the last note of the high E to the B
I was a member for 3 yrs. It helped some, but did not give me the results I wanted. I am just wondering since I am new to CtC, if some of the skills I learned can help me advance faster?
Hey there! Were you a student of Tom Hess? I never looked at his lessons, but read some of his material, and they didnāt click for me. How good were his students?
The things you learned may help; however, you need to keep an open mind and keep experimenting. Any time anyone says āthis is what you need to doā, is time to start questioning. Best of luck! z
Yeah, I was a student. To me there was just too much shifting from directional picking to my downward picking style I used to play rhythm guitar. So, I went back to doing legato based lead guitar. I never thought about using my rhythm style picking for lead guitar.
Iāve run a couple guitar forums with a few buddies now, and while thankfully it hasnāt happened in a while, weād perpetually get spam purporting to be from Tom Hess himself but from accounts like [email protected] offering us the limited time opportunity to sign on to be part of his affiliate program, and put up a bunch of ad banners and in return get a cut of any lesson revenue from any of his subscribers who happen to click through our banner - āodds are you already have my students here, you might as well get a cut of it, right?ā or some such. The whole thing was insanely sleazy, and this is before you even get into the fact he has a āGuitar Sexā lesson plan, whatever that means.
At this point, i think the onus is on convincing me Tom Hess is not running a giant pyramid scheme of sorts with dubious-quality lessons underpinning the whole thing, than that he is. 
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Very dodgy figure, canāt believe people still fall for his scams.
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Yeah, I mean, generally I try not to speak ill of people, and I suppose technically itās not fair to joke about his program being some sort of pyramid scheme (though I really donāt get the revenue share/affiliate thing, I suppose maybe itās how he advertises, by basically paying people for referrals on an ongoing cut-of-subscription basisā¦?), but I CAN say that his advertising or recruitment or whatever tactics were pretty sleazy.
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Okay, Iām a bit dense - whats the difference between economy and directional picking?
Pickslant just refers to what the pick looks like ā it doesnāt say anything about how you actually do it, as far as your arm being pronated or supinated or whatever. It also doesnāt affect the motion / i.e. escape. Thatās caused by whichever joint you are moving, and which direction you are moving it.
When the part of the pick you hold on to appears to slant toward the ceiling, thatās upward pickslanting. It just affects the attack of the pick as it hits the string.
Short story I recommend not worrying too much about the pickslant by itself. Mainly with all these techniques youāre just trying to do some kind of joint motion, and very often the āslantā is automatic given the common grips people use and the arm positions they use on the guitar.
The terminology of whoever you are speaking to
To me, any picking style which combines alternate picked string changes and swept string changes, I would call economy picking, and thatās how we use it in our lessons. If the approach uses sweeping in both directions, I call it two-way economy. If itās one direction, I call it one-way economy. So this guyās approach is two-way economy picking, Frank Gambaleās approach is two-way economy picking, Eric Johnsonās approach is one-way econonmy picking.
That said there are variations in what these players do at a technical level, even among two-way sweepers. For example, Frank generally does not play Eric Johnson- or George Benson-style lines like the āfivesā pattern, where you do downstroke sweeping and alternate picking together. Thatās the āDWPSā side of his two-way approach, where you generally only see sweeping string changes in Frankās playing, and not the kind of fast alternate string changes you find int the fives pattern. However he does do that upside-down, in UWPS mode. This is when you will see complicated combos of alternate and swept string changes. Also, whenever Frank is alternate picking anything fast, itās always DSX motion. Itās unclear to me if he actually does a fast USX alternate picking motion, again like an Eric or a George. Which may explain some of these preferences.
TLDR terms. What do the terms mean in terms of the motions the player is doing? Thatās what that player means when that player calls their style whatever they call it.
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Crazy thing about this universe, you can become a whiz at getting digital content in front of as many eyeballs as possible, and it can be completely independent of the quality of that content. In fact, if itās controversial or suspect, itāll likely get shared/discussed more often, resulting in more traffic, more eyeballs.
Sorry for OT.
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If looking for a slant in this players technique, keep in mind, he uses his picking hand thumb to mute the strings lower than the one he is playing, and not the palm. He uses it all the time for lead playing, but not rhythm. Iād highly recommend not doing this as it comes with a lot of limitations. I spent a long time, longer than Iād care to admit, with this technique and in the end found I needed to retrain and get that out of my playing. Also, muting with the thumb will only really work with a strict two way economy style.