Mabel’s Fatal Fable practice

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#1

I haven’t been practicing quite as intensely the last month or so focusing on work, also focusing on writing/recording a bit, but I’ve been working on this a fair bit.

I think my picking is back to switching between different single escape motions, I just rotate my forearm to change pickslant. One thing I’m working on is incorporating economy a bit in my outside changes, especially ascending, and not trying to be too rigid about alternate picking everything. Basically, working in those tricks of picking two of the three notes on a string or working on some economy now that I’ve worked on alternate picking for a while.

Through the holidays I plan to work through Rick Graham’s material in more depth and really get my legato and economy picking as even as possible.

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#2

look into double downs. i was thinking more about these today, and i think its kinda essential that we learn it. we tend to neglect it, but if you can do it half way decent you will never be limited in what you are trying to play. say you play a fragment, but the next phrase you are going to play isn’t lining up well this is what i mean. i honestly think all greats probably do it whether they realize it or not. but eventually you are going to have to double down at some point. so i would say just get use to it.

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#3

Didn’t know there was a name for that, but that’s what I’ve been embracing more is double down. Rick Graham does this and a lot of other similar stuff because he’s got the Gambale sweeping down to a T, but also focuses on Rest Stroke/Planting so it’s even more defined sounding.

For example - this pattern with double downs and double ups that he recommends as one of his most useful picking patterns, probably because it covers multiple movements in a pretty concise way

So I got all his economy picking material and have slowly been working through some picking patterns and applying them. Feels a lot different from strict alternate picking for sure.

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#4

no i mean more of what joe stump was saying in the troy grady interview where he connects licks, and just hits another down on the same string. double downs is a gypsy jazz rest stroke technique kinda thing. i linked the video on the time stamp of this tidbit on double down technique.

keep watching when he talks about trying to go all the way back after a musically ascended sweep to do another one. to get these to develop motor mechanic wise swing tempo helps alot, it will naturally build these motions up at a more generous chill speed. but at the same time it is building up these motions in a relaxed subconscious level whether one realizes it or not. so swing tempo is like this huge key to alot of the problems we are having with consistency so we can start speeding it up naturally along the road.

go view my post on desvairada, and listen to the original recording that i linked of him playing it on a mandolin, keep lowering the speed a step at a time until you hit slow to 25%. you can clearly hear the swingness in his picking.

#5

and i hate trying to give advice to someone clearly better than me as who am i and i know i suck. but you are clearly really good, and practice hard, so i want you to get even better. :smiley:

it was just something that maybe you might never think about, but you will encounter it if you start writing more and more of your own material, and keep trying to rearrange things to workout picking wise. don’t let the picking limit what you want to play, push through it, as i can tell you clearly have the will if you figured out snakebite. :sweat_smile:

tackle the double down thing head on and the sky will be the limit with your technique.

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#6

That’s actually very timely advice, I kind of do a double down stroke in that sense when I play jason becker style three string sweeps, start each one on a down stroke. Similar for Yngwie. But I’ve been working on avoiding doing that. I can’t decide which is better, but end of the day, maybe both ways are good to keep in the tool kit.

I got to meet Joe Stump once and take a lesson from him, that guy is incredible for sure.

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#7

learn as many techniques as you can in all areas of guitar because each genre has specific phrasing that you can rip off when you come back to metal. thats what i am finding out so i definitely agree with troy when he says he likes them all. if you just embrace everything guitar you can learn more on a musical level which can be hard to do beyond just always working on technique.:smiley:

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#8

Example of those double down strokes now that I know what you mean

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#9

There was a time when I studied jazz a bit, man that stuff is mentally exhausting, but I’ve been studying classical specifically baroque composition more, playing with folks in person more, working on chord progressions that sound cool than reverse engineering them to fit into a theory framework but also just listening to guitarists talk about how they conceptualize what they’re writing. There’s only so much time in the day, but if I don’t get something new every day I feel like I dropped the ball, so that’s gonna keep pushing me forward. That and regret from just skipping out on playing for a decade, wishing I would have kept working at it just a bit every day during that time.

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