His faster playing very rarely involves much picking (Crushing Day is an outlier), so it’s hard to say if he naturally would lean towards one escape over the other. Usually when he picks fast it’s tremolo for effect, like here:
I’m racking my brain for any fast picking sections that aren’t like the one posted above in Time and I got nothin’!! Crystal Planet (the song) has one at the end and there’s a cool 2nps run in Big Bad Moon. Devil’s Slide, which I think might be his fastest playing (that or Bells 2) kind of has one, but that’s just 13 notes and 3 rests on a string before going to the next, and the solo has one of those fast picked bits but that’s mostly the bluesy rake. I’m thinking his fast picked string traveling is a “go-for-broke and hope for the best” kind of thing lol
I definitely can see your point, however I think his way of picking is still good enough for most people I believe. Like I’d rather get that on my four note groupings than always trying to work around it with DSX tricks, just to have more options and slightly different sound.
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If it’s not much trouble could you give me a list of recommended songs from Joe Satriani? I’d like to expand my knowldge on his discography. Just your favorite songs, that you know, aren’t the ones that most people have alredy heard or already know. Doesn’t have to be super long or anything like that, just something to get to know him better.
I love Satch, he was the gateway guy to virtuoso playing for me, but I still think he probably didn’t scrutinize what he was doing here too much. His picking looks like mostly wrist, maybe some elbow or rotation occurring in different higher speed scenarios.
So if you want to play ascending fours all picked like this, and you’re already DSX (wrist?), the options are either to try for some DBX (which may or may not result in swiping), or purposely add in some 2 way pickslanting a la a helper motion (which could also result in swiping haha). I’d probably try working on it in the medium zone first, maybe 16ths around 140-150, and see where the big snags are. Can you chip away at it until it sounds good, or is there some major roadblock?
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That’s honestly a great way to think. I don’t consider any of us “snobby” but I’ve gone down this rabbit hole of fast clean picking and a high standard that most people wouldn’t appreciate if they heard vs something not quite as perfect (but equal speeds). It’s fine, because it’s just for me 
This lick you could just consider a “trick”. Get it good enough and roll with it. Swiping / displacement are great candidates.
Thank you I’ll try this!
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Yeah! I absolutely agree. I’m pretty familiar with swiping however I’m not familiar at all with displacement techniques. Could you elaborate on it please?
I’ll start from SwTA instead of Not Of This Earth. There’s some great stuff on there, but it might be more difficult to find tabs or lessons for songs from that record. Also, I can only go up to EoC because that was the last record I studied of his before I retired, and I’d rather pick songs that I can actually still play, or could in my younger days. I’ll be picking my favorites, but fortunately, those also happen to be the ones where he does something different, either playing-wise or compositionally. I don’t think he evolved his playing all that much after EoC, but each record until that point was quite a bit different than the others.
SwTA:
Ice 9
Crushing Day (this one I didn’t really study back in the 90s, but since it’s start of this thread, it belongs)
Always With Me, Always With You
Satch Boogie
Circles
Lords Of Karma
Echos
FIaBD:
Flying In A Blue Dream
The Mystical Potatohead Groove Thing
Day At The Beach
The Forgotten (Part 2)
The Bells Of Lal (Part 2)
The Extremist:
The Extremist
War
Cryin’
Rubina’s Blue Sky Happiness
Why
Time Machine Disc 1 (disc 2 is live and awesome. He goes off often):
Time Machine
Banana Mango II
Joe Satriani:
Cool #9
Luminous Flesh Giants
Home
Crystal Planet:
House Full Of Bullets
Crystal Planet
Raspberry Jam Delta-v
Time
Engines of Creation:
Devil’s Slide
Borg Sex
The Power Cosmic 2000 (Part 1 and 2)
I could just as easily give my reasons for my picks, but that’s too much for a thread that ain’t mine, but I think all of these are different than the others in important ways. I’m a big fan of chronology when getting into a new artist or a band, but you can start anywhere. I’d pick Crystal Planet as my overall favorite record, and FIaBD as my favorite overall song.
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Thank you very much I’ll check these out! I aggree that listening in order is good, you can hear the evolution of the artist or how they decided to change sound or style over the years, it’s very interesting.
This is a nice one : Until we say Goodbye From Engines of Creation.
Also Rubina from Not of this earth.
And Dreaming #11 Memories.
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If there are any sections you’re curious about on how to play, I’ll see what I can do as far as filming myself “close up” but not with a magnet since I don’t have one lol
Tabs and lessons are probably all over the internet at this point but there are quite a few songs of his that no one has bothered with. I haven’t really tried to revisit most of these songs in 15-20 years, but my strength and stamina are getting closer to what they were so I might actually stand a chance at playing them again haha
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It’s where you pick a muted string while simultaneously doing a hammer-on on another string. There is a description near the bottom of this post that I tabbed and also a linked video of Troy showing the technique.
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Thank you very much! It’s insanely ingenious, definitely gotta try that for these four note groupings.
Agreed. Troy is the man for figuring all this out. It’s just unbelievable.
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Indeed! In my mind this is a form of swiping (going through a muted string), where the sounded note can come from:
- The pick itself
- Hammer on
- Tap
- Hybrid pluck
DSX person here as well. Thought I’d include my take on 4’s - I do 'em as a 4nps+2nps+4nps as shown below in the key of Cmajor, starting on an A so I guess A natural minor or A Aeolian. It’s a bit of extra work for the LH, but that’s fine - for me this approach really simplifies things. Start on an upstroke, and just alternate pick everything. Not a very typical approach, but it works quite well and I don’t have to utilize any hybrid picking or economy or hammers etc. Which is fine, but I find those things end up with a different sound, and I like the aggressive sound of it being picked at my disposal!
Another option is to simply play it on a single string for 3 cycles ie ABCD BCDE CDEF then go to the next string, and do it again, DEFG EFGA FGAB GABC.
Anyways, I hope that helps a bit - lots of super awesome responses here.
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This is a fantastic solution thank you very much! Specially for getting the aggresive picked sound
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Glad it could help, man!
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Thanks very much to Jordan and Scottulus! Very cool set of licks👍🏻
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