Fast Downstrokes for Thrash Rhythms

Playing Technique
#85

Hello fellow guitar players

I’m new here, I discovered CtC 3 days ago.

I really feel like I’m the odd one since my experience with down strokes seems to be very different from almost every one else. I never had a problem with it, of course it took some practice to build speed an endurance. But to be consistently good at it you have to practice it regularly, otherwise you do lose some endurance.

I’d even say that my natural tendency is for downpicking as much as possible. Alternate picking a riff I’m capable of downpicking just feels unnatural to me. I think that must be why James and Kirk have different picking habits. I suspect that James downpicks almost every 8th notes. Kirk only downpicks the riffs that he needs to, because some riffs are more melodic and sound great when alternate picked.

I’m not much of a lead player, and my challenge for the past few years is playing fast alternate picked heavy metal riffs across strings. I tried to look for videos on youtube that could help me overcome this challenge, if I look for “how to play fast metal rythmn”, it seems like everyone’s just talking about downstrokes or “triplets”.

To me the real challenge is playing straight 16th notes across strings. I really don’t understand what’s the difficulty with downpicking 8th notes, it does give you plenty of time to play across strings. And by playing “triplets”, which in reality is 3 16th notes, you just skip the upstroke on the 4th note, gives you all the time in the world to switch strings.

I’ve been struggling for a long time to properly play the main riff from “Holy Wars” by Megadeth. It’s always that last upstroke on the 6th strings that my hand just subconsciously skips to give me enough to pick the next note on the 5th string. Songs like “Master of Puppets”, to me, are much much easier to play. And as far as Metallica is concerned, the riffs that give me a heard time usually aren’t the downpicked ones.

Now that I have discovered the CtC series, I’ve made some changes to my picking technique. I<m seeing huge but inconsistent improvements with my alternate picking. I’ve found that it’s much easier to play fast when the palm is about an inch away from the strings. Palm muting makes it difficult to keep that speed.

Yesterday I was able to play with ease a section from “Suicide Machine” by Death, it’s 16th notes at 200 bpm across the 5th and 4th string. This is monumental progress, considering that the old “play is slow with a metronome and slowly increase the speed over time” took me to 165bpm after practicing this for months. However, still can’t play “Holy Wars” up to speed, which is a much slower song.

I’m watching the pickslanting primer series right now and I was wondering if there was any video covering palm muting while speed picking?

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#86

Hi! It would be cool if you make a video of your downpicking so we can check what movements you are using that make it so easy for you :slight_smile:

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#87

Ok I can put that on my to do list, I need to figure a way to film my picking hand.

Were you guys having problems with speed or stamina?
When I started out I think I had to practice for not so too long to hit the Master of Puppets speed. The real challenge was building up stamina to play the whole song. I haven’t really practiced playing whole tunes for a long time now so while I can still downpick pretty fast, I don’t have as much stamina as I used to.

Here’s the riff that gives me a hard time in Master of Puppets:

e|----------------------------------------------------------|

B|----------------------------------------------------------|

G|----------------------------------------------------------|

D|-----------------------------0-2-4-5-5--------------------|

A|-----------------------0-2-3---------3--333-2-3-5-3-2-----|

E|-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-000-2-3--------------------------------3-2-|
                  V                        V

Those two downstrokes are killing me. I’ve perfected the downpicking motion to a point but have trouble mixing in some alternate picking. Someone earlier said that the alternate motion to play 16th notes is easier than the motion to play 8th notes. Well that’s not my case, at least when my hand is positioned to downpick 8th notes. Removing those two notes from the riff would make it much easier to play for me.

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#89

tldr, but yes on analyzing fast downstrokes and the problem of string escape on the return.

Putting it out there that it’s useful to tight rhythms in pop music too. The ability to finess dyads as a drummer would single stroke.

And it seems the gateway to 32nd note playing as well.

Love to see some focus on the topic in a monthly MiM segment. Thanks.

(and will read the thread too)

#90

Hey all! I see this thread is kinda dying, so let me liven it up a bit.
I Just came across a new clip for you all to study (I found 2:16 and 6:17 to be the most interesting parts). Downpicking in 290 bpm is insane! Although he seems to be very tense while doing so.

Also, I would like to hear CTC’s thoughts on the previous clip I shared. It seems to me that it has everything you might want as far as technique and camera angles (especially the part at 1:21):

@Troy Got any insights on the footage?

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#91

To quote the guy - “HOLY SH*T!!!”:astonished:
Tense or not he seems to have no problem sustaining that speed for a relatively long time. As far as I can tell for downpicking he uses a combination of wrist extension/deviation + a little help from the elbow. Do you guys agree?
Also, I wonder - do we need such biceps to reach these speeds?:smile:
JK, of course we need them!
heading to the gym now

#92

Cool find, thanks for posting!

Yes, in general this appears to be wrist motion. Which combinations of wrist motions is sort of academic. The bottom line is you’re basically using the wrist to make a small circle in the air, so that the bottom of that circle hits the string. It’s like a tiny windmill with just the wrist! I know I’ve posted this somewhere before, but here’s a quick clip from the Brendon Small interview (which we will get to) where you can see the tiny circles in slow motion:

Re: the buff-ness, I think muscle mass increases endurance for high-powered activities. This is why bodybuilders can do more reps at heavy weights than powerlifters, and why you can find powerlifters with higher single-rep maximums than physically more massive bodybuilders. I don’t know if guitar playing really counts as an activity requiring lots of power the way, say, squatting 75% of your maximum for reps would. If it does, then maybe a more buff player would be able to do this for longer. But I don’t think big muscles are strictly required to reach high speed to begin with.

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#93

Sorry for the delay. Happy to comment on this, but is there a “Technique Critique” thread for this elsewhere? If not, let’s make one and keep this thread on track with the downstrokes conversation. Let me know!

#94

Wow, I did not know about that! Can’t wait!

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#95

I’m pretty sure there isn’t one since I don’t think he’s a member, just a good player I found online.
And isn’t the video relevant to the topic? :thinking:

#96

Hey guys I know I’m late to this thread! I’m a Hendrix style player and so this topic is completely different from my style of playing. I’m going to start working on this from today.

I just wanted to add a +1 for a request for a video/interview/seminar on this subject. :metal:t3:

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#97

I’m curious: what’s your motivation if your style is completely different? Do you need it for a particular song that you like?

My philosophy/fear at the moment is that repeated fast downstrokes are a recipe for tendinitis, so I always try to alternate pick rhythm parts. (Even MoP - blasphemy I know :wink: )

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#98

But are repeated 16th notes at double the speed somehow better? You’ve got the same number of “cycles,” regardless.

Also, Kevin Frasard is a monster. Some of his older stuff (I don’t know where it disappeared to, I had subbed to his old channel) was really intense. Lots of MAB-style trem picking (I.e., anchored fingers, looked like arm motion).

#99

Looking at James Hetfield 30 years into his career - he may have 99 problems but tendonitis ain’t one of them :roll_eyes: :smile:

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#100
  1. It just sounds ace!
  2. I teach for a living so sooner or later a kid is gonna ask so want to be able to help them
  3. It just sounds ace! :sunglasses:
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#101

A post was split to a new topic: Master of Puppets lick - what strategies would you use to get this up to tempo?

#105

Hi all, I’m new here. I’ve been struggling with fast downstrokes in general and the MoP riff in particular, for so long. Here’s a video showing some great technique, which (in my very limited knowledge :slight_smile: ) appears to not all be coming from the wrist but the elbow as well.

1 Like
#106

For those of you who do the thrash downpicking thing reasonably well and/or play MOP: do you warm-up? Of yes, how? For how long?

#107

It’s not like I am good at downpicking, I just like it )
It depends. When I come from my second job where I work with my hands I don’t usually do warmups.

#108

I always warm-up and practice with breaks so the hand is completely relaxed at the start of a new cycle. Otherwise other muscles will compensate for the burned out muscles and you train false technique (paraphrasing Miller here).

I start out with doing trem picking on each string with a metronome automator that increases the bpm 5bpm every 10-15 measures. After 8 mins the right hand/ arm is red hot.

If I feel like it I also play the “One” riff starting at 170bpm to 222bpm (original tempo) to 250bpm.

Then I play the MOP-riff. I start out at 150bpm to 212 bpm (original tempo) then try to go to 220.

Try holding the pick with three fingers instead of two, you will find there is less tension then. Then you can translate this feeling to two fingers.

MOP is sort of a benchmark for downpicking although there are also more difficult and faster songs.

I find that it is quite athletic; if I don’t practice downpicking for a while, my max tempo goes down pretty fast.

Best thing is to practice with pauses/breaks sp that you don’t tense up too much.

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