Economy/Sweep Playing and Single Escape

Playing Technique
#41

I have been aware of that video series since it came out; I loved it. In my opinion it is one of the best bits Troy and the CTC team have done, I always go back to it, lots of great information and Frank is just bloody awesome, badass guitarist in every respect and a true innovator.

I think that in regards to my original post, I was having some trouble with sweeping/economy stuff when going in a certain direction, usually ascending. I wasn’t sure if it had anything to do with my pronation, or previously my “elbow” motion or possibly it’s just not in the cards for me to really nail that down… One or two things in particular, which I could solve using hybrid picking or a hammeron or something but I wanted an all pick strategy - you know how it is!

So I took a bit of a break, worked on some fingers stuff for a bit, and then came back to it. I discovered that my Herring style rotation is a very handy escape hatch. I also thought that maybe, just maybe I still have way too much background tension. What happens if I dial the effort way down and focus on the advice Tommo kept harping about in my TC’s - smooth, effortless feeling. And it works like a charm! The sound is really light, like it just sort of flutters, not nearly as intense as an alternate picked thing, buuuut it will do. So keeping it light, smooth and effortless feeling (dump the tension) and try not to impose accents or rhythmic values in the early stages. Just steady notes, keep it clean, light and easy.

Thanks for the advice, Tommo.

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#42

(Continued from previous post)

Also, I have a lot of stuff I can do that I am already successful at, so really my intention (as always) is to not lose that, but hopefully leverage it into some sort of technical ummm strategy so that I can play whatever I want with a lot less practice time wasted on “how”. I would have liked to have had a “one and done” method of solving stuff, and of course double escape of course seems like the most appealing! But I have probably beat myself to death trying to attain it, hahaha thankfully with Troy, Tom and Tommo’s help I did get a DBX of sorts; it escapes and basically functions but it’s a real chore to use for everything, and honestly for me it’s just quite simply an act of futility trying to use that as a viable strategy to solve all of my picking needs. I have just had to accept that technical guitar playing is going to be a mixed bag for me.

Here’s what I’ve learned thus far;

1) Motion first. Fast, smooth and relaxed shouldn’t be too much of an effort to pick repeating notes on a single string.
2) Determine and understand one’s escape, proclivities of one’s setup. Each one has it’s various pros and cons… That’s okay, because each pro/con will lead to different advantages and strategic requirements resulting in an individual approach and sound.
3) For strict alternate picking, CTC has provided concrete evidence about two things that ALWAYS work. Either just stay on a single string, or even notes per string. For me this means that without employing sweeping or hybrid or legato, I can generate quite a vocabulary with just that. 8, 6, 4, and 2 notes per string and I will have fast, accurately picked, rhythmically controllable notes at my disposal. Concepts like chunking really come together with this stuff; it’s easy to get synced up and then get to work and see/hear tempos increase.

4) Odd notes per string stuff that’s rhythically controllable; DBX. My “Herring” rotation covers this nicely. I can get pretty quick with it and I have a lot of control, but it requires a bit of maintenance and there’s definitely a ceiling on the tempos - This is an ongoing study, but from what I have experienced thus far with lots of failure and a little bit of success is that it’s all about optimizing the movement, constant tweaking for efficiency as opposed to beating one’s self to death with endless repetitions… Ongoing work on this, slow but very steady improvement.
5) Sweep/Economy. Here’s a strategy that works beautifully for super-duper fast lines and it’s quite a bit less effort. Good enough for Frank Gambale, Marshall Harrison, Yngwie Malmsteen, then it’s good enough for me. It’s a different sound, a lot less aggressive than the alternate picked stuff (for me) and the big practice thing here is minimal tension with a very light and fluid pickstroke. Downstroke needs the most work here as I tend to really escape the strings on the downstroke, so when I am in “sweep mode” I need to reighn that in. Again, not about endless repetitions just changing a few habits is all. Magnet view shows this plain as day and for my downstroke sweep tangles, 90% of the time it can be resolved by using my Herring rotation move.

6) And then when I stumble across some sort of tangle that feels like it’s bloody impossible to pick I can “pick what can be picked” and then add a strategy of either hybrid picked, legato, tapped or whatever to achieve it. Escape hatch it.

  1. Swiping and displacement - I try to avoid these, BUT I am aware of the situations where I am most likely to do either of these and recognize that both concepts could be a tool if any of the previous strategies fail.

So while I am not nearly as good at sweep/economy as Rick Graham or Marshall Harrison or Frank Gambale, it’s in my toolkit and I can get some stuff done with it - I feel like I solved the problem that I was having with it and that’s what’s important. Some of it technical, but lots of it was mindset and attitude. Ah well, dumb kids like me need to learn the hard way! lol

Steady, unimpeded progress from my practice was the goal. Took a while, but I got there - thanks everyone!

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