My current interest in picking technique probably started last March, when I saw Uli Jon Roth play live and up close (close enough to enjoy his 4x12 blowing my hair back - one of the most exquisite tones I’ve ever heard). Although everything he did was incredible, three things stuck with me - his tone, his fluid improvisation, and the elegance and grace of his picking, which is much funkier than the average shredder. I started looking into lessons on his classic “Sails of Charon”, and found this terrific insight from Uli himself…
Uli Jon Roth picking technique
The link takes you to where he’s speaking directly about picking, although the whole thing is worth watching. “Downstroke, hammer-on, upstroke, downstroke. That’s like clockwork, and that’s the feeling i get when doing this.” He talks about “clockwork” and accents on the downstroke in a way that is basically chunking, in Troy’s terminology.
What’s interesting here is that this allows him to change strings on both upstrokes and downstrokes, and he does both in the first 12 notes of the phrase he’s teaching. The main limit is the slur in the middle of the clock (which can be a pull-off or a slide as well as a hammer-on) must be on the same string as the downstroke. This technique allows for as little as one note per string, as long as it’s the upstroke - that also happens in the little 12 note phrase.
There’s a lot more to say about Uli Jon Roth’s beautiful technique, but I wanted to share this little bit because it’s just so clever and groovy-feeling.