Hello from the EU!

[Alainovix]

Hi CTC community!

My name is Alain. I’m in my 20s, and I live in Europe.
I’ve been playing guitar for about 12-13 years now. I started out taking a few years’ worth of lessons from the “local guitar guy”, but I’ve been a self-taught player for the last 8 years or so. I took a one year sabbatical from the guitar to focus on learning bass (I discovered Jaco, James Jamerson, and Rocco Prestia). And the last 2 years I have only played my acoustic guitar (I discovered Tony Rice and Doc Watson), but I’m jumping back into electric playing again.

I have a very broad musical taste, but the main style I’m trying to focus on is Fusion, as most of my current guitar heroes live within that world.
To list a few players I am really into: Issei Noro (Casiopea), Guthrie Govan, Allan Holdsworth, Shawn Lane, John Scofield.
But also people from outside the fusion world, like Joe Pass, Wes Montgomery, Derek Trucks, Tony Rice, Curtis Mayfield, Chalmers Alford, Matt schofield, Larry Carlton.
This list can go on for a very long time, and I also find a lot inspiration from musicians that aren’t guitarists.

Most of my picking technique I fell into kind of naturally from trying to learn fast jazz heads (tracks like Donna Lee for example). I naturally gravitate towards an upstroke-escape picking style which really got codified for me by watching the Cracking The Code series on youtube a few years ago.

My goal in using this site as a resource is to build a primarily double-escape focused alt-picking technique, getting it rock solid, and then plugging in sweeping and hybrid picking.

As to what I see as the primary bottleneck of my picking technique right now is if I try to play at higher tempos (in chunks, which is how i try to develop my speed mostly) I struggle a lot with the outside string changes (so down-up when ascending and up-down when descending). It literally feels like I’m jumping over hurdles compared to the inside changes (down-up-down ascending, up-down-up descending).

To answer the question “Can you comfortably play a scale? At roughly what speed? Any particular things you find yourself stuck on?”:
I’m not someone that does a lot of linear scale practice up and down the neck to build speed but my fastest comfortable tempo would be ~150bpm I’d say. Long linear 3nps passages are tough for me however.

I’m very excited to jump into the Pickslanting Primer and hopefully make use of this forum for questions regarding my technical development!

Cheers,
Al.

[steve506]

Hello and welcome!

What do you mean by outside changes? If you play DSX, you are already playing outside changes (that flip to inside changes if you reverse the pattern).

[Alainovix]

Hi!

My mistake, I think i didn’t explain it correctly!

What I mean is if I’m just trying to play a 3nps chunk crossing over into another string, if I start on an upstroke it’s very fast for me, but no matter how I try to alter my picking style / position for down-up-down into and upstroke on the next string (let’s say from A to D) I just can’t get any real speed.

If it was purely a downslanting problem I’d imagine while descending the outside changes would feel more comfortable (so up on D into down on A), but that’s not the case. I still massively prefer escaping the string on a downstroke when descending where I’m on the inside of the two strings I’m playing. Whenever I have to pick from the outside of two strings it just always feels like i have to overcome this massive distance, that’s why i used the hurdle jumping analogy. But for all I know it could be a purely pscyhological thing?

It became super apparent to me recently when I picked Technical Difficulties by Racer X as a song to try to use to work on my speed. The main theme relies on this kind of crosspicky parts that are connected by these 16th note triplets at 130bpm, if i try playing those i have to slow down on the first string but then i can fly through it on the second string back into the main theme because I’m going up-down-up (change) down.

I’m just working through the pickslanting primer for now so I hope learning to pick primarily with reverse dart thrower dbx motion (I think this is the right terminology? it’s still all a bit new to me haha) will fix this issue at some point (having a hard time getting a comfortable position with no slant though).

Right now my picking is kind of a glued together mess of various techniques where I alt pick some stuff, use eco for some stuff, and sometimes throw in hybrid picking.

Cheers,
Al