Fixed Pickslant Economy Picking in Both Directions

Jacklr · January 16, 2023, 9:40am

Anyone have any experience with or insights into this approach? Does it work consistently for you? What type of licks do you use it for? Can you mix it into a lick that uses USX or DSX successfully?

You typically see it most often when people economy pick Zakk Wylde style pentatonic fours, in these instances it looks like it would be more laborious to have to change your picking angle so often so most players tend to use a more fixed position

It looks like it can be done with little alteration to your normal picking technique, Guthrie’s technique always look like this:

And Cesario’s technique tends to look very similar to this:

Is it just the slightest change to your normal technique so it becomes trapped?

bradejensen · January 17, 2023, 12:34am

i think it can work extremely well with the thumb thing as it can almost escape the plane of the strings both ways. however the more slant you give it the more you can use it for directional economy picking both ways. and yes it can be done both ways with a fixed pickslant i use to practice 3 nps scales with this technique using a fixed pickslant economy down up down ascending and up down up descending using usx type of wrist positioning pinky heel plant with a very slight supination.

at the end of the day nobody cares how you pick the note as long as it has a dynamic organic clarity to it, fake it til you make it.

also who in there right mind could even audiate so fast and so well that if i heard you do a double up to tackle a 4s sequence at blistering tempo am i just going to bust out ah ha i saw it! i heard it! he’s not playing it right! there is probably only very few skilled listeners who could perceive it with distorted high tempo guitar playing at tempo. sure if you slowed it down you will hear it, but at tempo, turned up, distorted, reverb, delay, against a backing track? who cares!

cesario also has this really cool 2 string arpeggio kind of lick that he does up a diatonic progression in major or minor using down down up up. i will soundslice it in a bit so you can practice it. i will let you figure the rest out.

its kinda like this i am not sure if even troy knows he is kind of swinging this lick as the tempo is just so quick that its almost not perceivable, but slow it to 25% and you can hear bits of swing tempo during the passage.

still sounds amazing, in other words who cares if you double up and double down to accomplish something as long as it sounds good, its in tempo, has a dynamic organic sound to it, and rips. play it however you can handle when trying to play fast.

bradejensen · January 17, 2023, 2:56am

so i was looking more at this today, and there is the Yngwie kinda harmonic minor descended lick, i mean its not really his , that i do with this technique. however i use directional economy, and pick it with thumb thing, string hopping over the string here by raising my index finger slightly as i am picking with this technique to get the down stroke to clear over the b string to upstroke the d string here. so i think it is possible to dbx with this technique by utilizing the index finger raising and lowering it.

had no idea that’s what was happening until i started analyzing it just now, lmao! when i raise my index finger knuckle above all the other finger knuckles to do it, that’s what it looks like, and it kinda feels like i am ramming something with a horn like a goat, but it’s my index finger knuckle.

so now the moral of all this is i believe Cesario perceives it more from his thumb from what he told me, but i think we gotta learn both as i feel it more in my index. however having learned about rest stroke, the thumb is very important process in all off this because most of this kinda style is flamenco rip off, and they do a lot of rest stroke with the thumb which will build up that mental clarity with this technique to consciously perceive the thumb. however since after seeing the power of also using the index finger to dbx it probably is also important. i think spending some time learning gypsy jazz rest stroke technique maybe helped my mind think more of the thumb when doing this technique cause i use to only perceive the index finger doing all the work, with absolutely no mental coordination link to the thumb whatsoever. even though i was doing it fast, my brain just worked differently, but learning some gypsy jazz tunes using proper traditional rest stroke i think built up that mental connection with my thumb.

and truthfully you don’t even have to do that down stroke just rip that as fast as possible and slide into the note. of course on my classical it doesn’t sound good, but i imagine dod250 overdrive,max gain, slight delay, touch of reverb, it would sound Ah Mazing!

kgk · January 17, 2023, 2:02am

The above discussions are too advanced for me to follow, can you type a quick one-paragraph summary that somebody like me could understand? I can’t even grasp why Cesario (a great player) is moving his thumb like that, and I’m sure that there is an important reason. Thanks!

bradejensen · January 17, 2023, 3:25am

i would say just watch the video of cesario doing it, and just try to not alter anything as when you do a musically ascended phrase, but do a 3nps descended scale pattern with the exact same setup used when doing an ascended phrase just slice the pick through the upstrokes doing up down up, up down up. he even told me if its a pure 3 nps scale descended scale kind of run he will do up down up economy. try to mimic the way cesario does it in the video, make your hand setup look similar, and do the motion he shows when he slices through the string slowly.

maybe to think in more simpler terms just do some crosspicking 3 string chords with only your index and thumb picking, dont move the hand to much. this is much harder, but this is how the motion works.

why does cesario do this motion? because it’s Ah Mazing!

because it probably allows him to kind of fall back on this technique to endure long sessions of playing fast. as well as when he does the normal usx one way escape, he can kind of rev up both motions to go even faster probably.

of course you dont have to do the entire phrase just do 11 notes like what yngwie does in fugue.

Screenshot 2023-01-16 at 21-25-06 Edit Untitled Soundslice

Jacklr · January 17, 2023, 12:02pm

I don’t really get Cesario’s thumb motion, he is obviously using thumb motion but when he speeds up it looks like more of his wrist-forearm motion comes into play.

I get the idea of pushing with the thumb when changing strings, it definitely makes economy feel smoother but there is more too it then that with Cesario. There does seem to be a DBX or DSX helper motion component to it like you say.

bradejensen · January 18, 2023, 3:44pm

You can see some wrist rotation if you slow the video down to 25%, but watch the index finger as it is easier to spot the thumb thing when focusing on the video because the wrist rotation makes it harder to see the thumb motion happening.

Actually, if you think of it like the table tapping test, but only tap with the index and thumb with the wrist heel planted on the surface as you do the tapping, this is the motion to escape the plane of the strings. That’s the motion I used in the preceding example.

If you just do the original more trapped motion, it’s like drawing a line up and down with a pen tip never leaving the surface, and moving the pen with your index and thumb while the wrist heel is planted. But the table tap motion was how I got out of the plane of the strings with the down stroke.

But you got to boil it down to am I doing it on purpose? No way, I can rip through that extremely fast with that picking pathway. I didn’t have time to think about lifting my index finger; it just happened, most likely as a result of trying to force faster and faster tempos, and the body found a way.

Later in the day, when I can play louder with an amplifier, I’ll analyze my technique to see if I do any wrist rotation during that lick, and I’ll let you know what happens at higher tempos during a descended phrase with fixed pick slant.

carranoj25 · January 17, 2023, 3:39pm

It’s not so much a thumb movement. In my
Opinion, it always looks like a thumb dominant movement because we only see the thumb, but it’s really index finger moving the thumb; sort of like a trigger pulling/release motion. I always thought it was a really cool motion and people who have that down can play some fast stuff. I know Anton touched upon it in his breakdown of Paul Gilbert’s right hand but I think he frowned on the thumb motion idea

bradejensen · January 17, 2023, 3:52pm

Right, and when I asked Cesario, I was surprised to hear him say that he perceives the thumb moving when I clearly was only moving the index finger. But now that I’ve learned about the rest stroke and its main application in classical and flamenco, I completely understand his perception of moving the thumb. He lives in a country that values classical and flamenco music, as well as possibly Gypsy Jazz, which also employs a rest stroke. Cesario obviously knows Gypsy Jazz because he performs an Ah Mazing cover of Dorado Schmitt’s Bossa Dorado.

bradejensen · February 1, 2023, 7:49pm

I was reviewing the Cesario Filho Far Beyond The Sun cover video. And you can see the raised index finger knuckle with thumb extension when he does this down stroke on the B string to a pull off then an outside stroke on the E string. This is the maneuver I am talking about with using thumb and index to tackle inside and outside string changes. With inside string changes the index finger knuckle lowers with thumb flexion.

You might not be able to perceive it very well here even at 25% speed, but take the video and slow it down further in some form of video editing software. Then go back and watch it again to slow it down even further. You will see the knuckle raise a bit higher to compensate for this outside string change, and further more watch the thumb go into a straight extension.

And sure the entire phrase sequence of 4s itself appears to be more forearm rotation up until this one maneuver.

And really the whole usx or dsx might not really matter here since once the index knuckle raises with thumb extension it is bringing the pick out of the plane of the strings, and when the index finger knuckle lowers with thumb flexion it is pulling the pick further out of the plane of the strings as well. Seems to be the helper motion Cesario does here, but most of the stuff I analyze he does this maneuver for outside picking most of the time. Although to an extent you really don’t have to use the lowered index knuckle with thumb flexion for inside picking as once you are out of the plane of the strings with the raised knuckle and thumb extension on the last down stroke you can just use forearm rotation for the upstroke inside picking string change, this is for musically descended string change in usx setups. But under the camera the body might do some of that lowered index knuckle with thumb flexion motion under high speed. This might also be how Joe Stump does alternate picking during descended phrasing, but don’t take my word on this because I have not analyzed him under the microscope yet.

So now knowing this for dsx musically descended phrasing is the cake walk, you will use upstroke sweeps to string change, however during the musically ascended phrasing inside string changes is when you run into problems trying change strings after an upstroke. So what will happen is on the last upstroke before you are trying to change strings to a musically ascending inside string change you will lower the index knuckle and use thumb flexion to hit the string before doing the down stroke on the next string. This maneuver will pull the pick out of the plane of the strings so you can do a downstroke on the next string. Down strokes will be outside of the plane of the strings on musically ascended phrasing so you will be fine here.

I advise you to watch the video slowed two times by using video editing software because seeing it done so exaggerated even at high speed tells me that he has trained this motion slow. Even though he is executing it fast, seeing it exaggerated by physically circling around the string by using this motion means he knows he is doing it. And he also knows what thumb and index are capable of with his other motions.