Is it possible to play perpetual burn with alternate picking?

Playing Technique
#1

specifically the intro. the arpeggios are very fast, but i got relatively close with alternate picking (like steve morse) is it possible to play that fast?

#2

Sounds like you might be better placed than anyone to answer this.

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#3

The sweeping bit? I mean, never say never, but… That would be insane at speed lol.

#4

Hey tobiash,

I saw your post about a week ago and decided that this was just the challenge that I needed :slight_smile:

Here is video proof of me pure alternate picking the Intro Arpeggios to “Perpetual Burn” by Jason Becker.

I apologize for the poor quality recording, my iPhone is ancient.

#5

yeah its quite tricky but i thought it was doable, the techniques troy explains definetily helped me a lot

#6

What is the actual tempo / rhythmic subdivision of these arpeggios?

Working from memory, the fastest (and clean!) 1nps I have ever seen is from Troy and Martin Miller, in the neighborhood of 180-190bpm 16th notes (!).

#7

What does that sound like through an amp/amp sim/amp modeller/some other amp alternative I haven’t thought of?

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#8

i think about 10 notes per second if im interpreting the tab right

#9

Then yes, players like Steve Morse, Andy Wood and Martin Miller should be able to alternate pick that kind of thing pretty clean!

#10

@tobiash @tommo this is the tab that I found for it:

https://www.songsterr.com/a/wsa/jason-becker-perpetual-burn-tab-s2897t0

If I’m understanding correctly, they’re 32nd note groupings of 5, bpm is 110. That’s 10 notes per beat, 1100 notes per minute (110*10), which is 18.3 notes per second (1100/60) or the equivalent of 275 bpm 16th notes (1100/4). Am I reading this correctly?

#11

thats what i thought at first but it seemed a bit fast to me so i went with about 10nps, so roughly half of the value you got

#12

@tobiash It definitely sounds faster than 200bpm 16th notes to me, which is why I originally said it’s an insane speed to alternate pick lol

#13

Yes with these numbers it seems unlikely that someone can actually do it clean.

But hey who knows, Troy is doing some crazy experiments these days, he might show us how to pick the unpickable :slight_smile:

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