So everyone who finds outside picking easier has large hands? Lol I’m not sure about that!
And you have assumed that I have tiny hands???
Geez. I said might. Would be worth looking at. And I don’t care about your hands.
I was just making a positive observation that there are tons of techniques to play that are musically equivalent and that dont require uncomfortable mechanics.
Yes, I’m aware I’m being mobbed. I suspect you want me to quit posting here.
Sorry mate, I didn’t mean to offend (my post was meant in jest and I found your comment funny) and of course I don’t want you to stop posting here. You are entitled to post what you want and I thank your efforts to contribute. Sorry to hear you feel mobbed.
You are right that there are other techniques available, but I feel that being able to outside pick achieves the articulation that I’m after, seeing as my ability to use economy or hybrid picking to play the PG lick sounds like my guitar is projectile vomiting through the speaker!
Here’s the most obvious example of Paul swiping the lick on the upstroke during string change, just to make everyone feel a little better about their inability to play it cleanly or fast enough.
Troy’s execution of the lick is by far the cleanest one I’ve heard so far.
2 Likes
In short words: what is ‘Paul Gilbert lick’? Tabs would be great ^_^’
@ASTN
Here you go:
If we’re being pedantic, the lick was first taught by Michael Angelo Batio in his first instructional video a few years earlier.
I just noticed his swipe on the upstroke as well.
Also, it was used by Al Di Meola before MAB taught it in his video (although not the same intervals, but pretty much the same layout - 3 notes on the lower string and 1 on the higher string)
You can also hear the open B string being swiped with the upstroke on the E string, but it’s not muted like in Paul’s and MAB’s examples.
The problem with the lick is the single note on the higher string. Namely, you need two-way pickslanting in order to make the string change to the higher string (upward pickslanting) and back to the lower string (downward pickslanting) in the span of one note.
The lick is notoriously hard to execute cleanly at a fast tempo, which is why even all these virtuosos have difficulty nailing it cleanly. The only one (that I know of) who can pull it off without swiping is Troy:
He even wrote an article dedicated solely to that lick for Guitar World:
3 Likes
Thanks!
Difficult one! I don’t know about right hand but my left hand definitely can’t do it.
1 Like
You’re welcome!
Neither of my hands can do it, not anywhere close to these speeds.
Hi guys, I’m working on this lick at the moment. What is swiping that you refer to. Many thanks. Paul in the Uk. 
‘Swiping’ is when you slghtly touch and move through the string which isn’t supposed to be played at the moment. Usually it’s not very noticable.
For example, consecutive upstroke on 2nd string and downstroke on 1st string when played fast may actually be up(2nd)-swipe(2nd)-down(1st)
Ace, thanks for that . I’ve seen it mentioned a few times. Could do with a glossary of names and abbreviations lol. I can guess most .
I thought I might be upward pickslanting on the Paul Gilbert lick but I may just be two way pickslanting slightly . In fact I’m finding a slightly neutral position of barely any slant on something like this is working for me at the moment
I’m finding my left hand is a weak link so am thinking of adopting a thing I heard about from Tom Hess of practicing each hand independently . I am going to add the first part of intense rock to my schedule . Unfortunately or fortunately I have a wealth of material to choose from and it can get overwhelming which to choose , unless something speaks to you at a specific time. I have rock discipline , speed mechanics, intense rock, speed kills etc .
1 Like
I’d say stick with one guitarist’s instructional video until you get bored of it or find that you’re not making progress, then you move on to the next one. You can go back to the instructional videos you’ve already watched later on.
I’ve started using this approach to practicing lately (not all of my practice time) and by the end of one practice session I managed to play the PG lick at 100 bpm in this fashion (two repetitions of 16th notes followed by one repetition of 16th-note triplets and then loop the entire lick), except I started the lick with the upstroke on the single note on the higher string. I’m practicing other things at the moment, but when I dedicate some time to that lick and check whether this approach to practicing it results in improvement, I’ll post a short video about it in this topic.