Just of curiosity, how does Michael Angelo Batio play ascending economy? He uses elbow DSX, it means there are no reststroked downstrokes in here.
I think he must abandon DSX and goes a little more ātrappedā for those phrases.
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So forgive the ignorance, but what is a restroked downstroke?
Itās when you play a downstroke but your pick comes to rest on the string positionally beneath it. Example: play the A string, your pick is now resting on the D string.
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Ah, rest stroke. Iāve found you donāt necessarily need to do that for economy picking. I donāt use one when I do it, I actually concentrate on not doing that, and focus on stoping in the space between the strings until I have to shift and hit the first note on the next one. Iām assuming heās probably doing something similar.
Batio is such a great player. Listen nbn to how good his vibrato is on some of those runs too. His thoughts on strengths and limitations of economy picking teally interesting.
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Thatās an interesting approach. I think it misses the point of the thread though.
MAB is known to be a DSX player. Since his downstrokes naturally go slightly away from the body of the guitar, weād expect that to escape the string positionally beneath it, not plow through it like we require for ascending economy picking. It doesnāt have anything to do with stopping halfway between the strings, itās a question of trajectory. How does he make a movement, that inherently escapes after a downstroke, instead take on a temporary USX trajectory? The footage Iāve seen, it just looks like heās moving his elbow back and forth.
Thereās something secondary going on, whether itās subtle changes in pronation/supination or rotator cuff activity to push the pick more into the body of the guitar. I should probably renew my membership and watch the interviews again. Iām sure Troy discusses it, because itās mysterious enough thatās worth discussion.
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@joebegly I think maybe I missed a bit of the implication you were hinting at with it, but the problem I see is that it assumes that all DSX escape trajectory has to HAS to escape whatās beneath it, or be somewhat exaggerated, or visually very obvious, or that DSX makes it impossible to do, and I donāt think Mikeās is at all, I think his Is more subtle, so he not moving that far on that diagonal trajectory at all, just enough, and it only becomes somewhat obvious when the footage is slowed. So I guess I donāt really see why it becomes a deal breaker for his picking hand. My thought on all these guys is that they use a combination of motions as well. Yes he does one that is more VISUALLY obvious, forearm and shoulder stands out to a distracting degree, but there usually is a lot more involved.
I could also be completely crazy but I could have sworn in some of troys earlier interviews with Batio, he looked like a downward pick slanter, or at least part of the time, and the motions he used were conducive to economy picking anyway like in this clip starting at the 1:22 mark. Whatever heās doing isnāt that exaggerated that I see it would prevent him from doing whatever he wanted.
Iām sorry but Iām lost. Yes, a DSX motion has to escape whatās beneath it. If it doesnāt, itās not DSX motion.
This, I get and I totally agree with. Motions indeed donāt need to be exaggerated, and his arenāt. Which is why itās mysterious how he plays some of his phrases. Whether DSX or USX, we just need to clear the string. A super shallow angle is all thatās needed and thatās probably what weāre seeing with him.
I think the big issue is that his motion mechanic appears to be elbow. That, by itself can only do DSX. For it to be USX or even trapped, it needs some other helper. Or there is a major injury to the elbow that suddenly allows it to be than a simple hinge joint haha!
So sure, heās doing something else to help him make the movements and play the phrases that donāt jive with what we understand is a DSX only mechanic. What is it though? Thatās the question. Troy even admitted that when he plays Zakk Wylde style elbow motion (which is mysteriously USX) that he doesnāt exactly know how heās making it happen in terms of what other joints are involved. I could be conflating but I swear I read that Troyās classed MABās playing as similarly mysterious. He does quite a bit that we can say āAh, yes! Definitely DSX! He changing strings after downstrokes or swiping outside string changes on upstrokes. Textbook DSXāer!ā But then this other stuff comes up and we just go āHmm. Howās that work?ā.
Again, I hope Iām not conflating. Iāve read so much stuff on this forum and the site in general that Iām sure Iāve misunderstood things or taken things out of context. But I think in these mysterious situations the take away was to not overthink it. Just try to play it and get it working. Even if we donāt understand exactly whatās going on, so what? That leaves the nerd in me wanting answers still lol!
So since @adamprzezdziecki is monster, we should ask him to try and brute force some MAB economy phrases and just see what happens. Have you tried @adamprzezdziecki ? I know youāve had some disappointing forays into USX and ascending economy. I hope Iām not mis-remembering because I think they were disappointing only because they were physically uncomfortable/painful for you. Troy and Tommo both said it looked and sounded awesome. So youāre stuck with your even more awesome and less painful DSX mechanic lol! Have you tried taking your DSX and just sort of āflatteningā it out some (i.e. making it a little trapped and not really DSX) and playing ascending economy? Maybe it will just magically work, much like it does for MAB.
Itās implying that he may not be using any type of escape for that one part of the phase, there might not always be one in play, or that his escape is so fine, and controlled that he can easily change the trajectory of it or just not go through with it. But this said Iām still confused as to why economy picking has to use a rest stroke no matter which escape motion you use. The initial post about rest strokes and elbow DSX making a restroke downstroke impossible, and to that Iām asking 1) why does it matter and why you need a restroke period? 2) why the assumption there is always an escape motion in play all the time? If MAB does indeed use a restroke than I donāt know but Iām not sure he does, and I donāt either.
This is what I call the trap of over analyzing. The small details of which are only useful to anyone if they can actually easily apply them. Micro-overthinking this is almost always counterproductive.
@Fossegrim
Iāve opened this thread just because of curiosity, I donāt really want to copy MABās movements.
Iāve never seen anyone economy picking without restroking, how would that be possible? Maybe you could force the pick to not rest stroke, but it would probably cause you to do two separate strokes instead of one big down/one big up.
@joebegly
Iāve tried ascending economy by changing my DSX to trapped but itās really hard to push through the strings for some reason, even with a lot of edge picking.
My problems with USX are super weird, the motion youāre talking about actually screwed up my hand and gave me golferās elbow. It took me 3 years, about month ago Iāve finally found a forearm based USX motion that feels truly comfortable, itās basically a classic gypsy flexed form rotational thing with no muting. Itās the fastest motion Iāve ever had, not counting hyperpicking, faster than my wrist DSX. Iāll be posting a few vids soon because I have some tracking related problems with maintaining good pick attack on every string. In general it feels like my body hates anything rotation related like forearm USX or funky strumming but is capable of learning these things through shitload of work.
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I donāt understand his picking mechanics at all. It looks like a combination of joints, which means he may be able to ascend and descend economy picking by engaging different joints when needed.
I did see a live stream where he said it took him a long time to develop itā¦ So maybe ran into some issues that took some experimenting to work out.
@adamprzezdziecki now you have me super curious about this, and also what Iām truly doing when I do it. Maybe this warrants some exploration, and Iāll post something for you guys to dissect, because now my interest is piqued, because itās one one of those things I just never really thought about.
@joebegly and @adamprzezdziecki
Here a 10 sec quicky of me doing some pretty bad economy, not on my best game for sure but maybe good enough to pick apart my right hand - well maybe. I apologize if the video quality isnāt great itās kind of dark in that room right now, and the angle too slightly forward to fully see, but the picking hand makes the same motions I believe I typically do. You may have to adjust the play back speed in YouTubeās utility window to slow it.
I donāt perceive a rest-stroke and Iām certainly not trying for one, but there may be one there. Iām not really trying to think at all about what that hand is doing, if anything Iām thinking more about the fretting hand, and more focused on plowing straight through on that final string changing down stroke, not really on any slight rest stroke. But who knows I might be doing it. Iām not even sure what kind of escape is even being employed here. Anyway I might just try to film it again if this turns out to be a fail.
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Great playing, thanks for the video!
Any thoughts on whatās going on? Because I certainly donāt know. Iām just concentrating on the left hand sync mostly. Which isnāt great on the last rep I know.
What exactly are we supposed to be looking for in your video? I feel like weāve been sidetracked by the semantics of what exactly a ārest strokeā is. I didnāt want to press this earlier, but Adam said exactly what I was thinking:
I canāt fathom how anyone could play at even a moderate fast speed, do economy picking and not also be making a rest stroke at the instant the economy/sweep happens. Thatās like swinging for a home run, stopping your bat, starting it back up and expecting a solid hit. MAB definitely isnāt doing this, and you definitely arenāt either.
But this is where I think weāve gotten off the point of the thread. Is that even what youāre asking? Or are you just saying when you economy pick, you donāt use rest strokes other than the one that plows through the last note of the string youāre changing from then does another downstroke on the new string. Is that your issue with the terminology? Are rest strokes only rest strokes in an alternate picking context?
Iām trying to follow but Iām lost. The original question was about someone whoās largely accepted as a DSX prominent player. What is he doing to temporarily change his trajectory, while visually keeping his elbow as the main mechanic, when he does ascending economy? Itās obviously subtle and likely some small helper motion. We tried to talk about that and you said basically āwho cares, itās overanalyzingā:
For me it all comes back to the elbow. It canāt do USX or even trapped without the assistance of some other joint. It only does DSX due to the way holding a guitar positions that joint. Whatās that other joint thatās aiding in the trajectory change in MABās case? Itās an important discussion because plenty of people on here find that their default fastest motion is elbow based. Maybe, just maybe, theyād like to play some ascending economy. How should they go about learning it if they keep elbow as their main mechanic? It seems to work for MABā¦somehow.
Your playing is great, but you have a drastically different mechanic from MAB. Itās not at all mysterious why you sound good and can do ascending economy, because you have a motion that looks more wrist based and you have some finger movement. It looks to me like Joe Stumpās playing. We know those joints can do just about anything in terms of trajectory and most players who use that combination are frequently pretty good economy pickers. Itās a different world that MABās setup.
@joebegly mostly due to my confusion. The original question is this:
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Just of curiosity, how does Michael Angelo Batio play ascending economy? He uses elbow DSX, it means there are no reststroked downstrokes in here.
To this I asked Why does he need one? You guys seem to be of the mind that economy picking is impossible with out a rest-stroke of some sort. And Iām beyond confused.
This all goes back to what we are defining as a rest stroke. To me I have always understood it to be a slight rest or pause of the pick on the next string before actually striking it, no matter how fast it happens. When you guys say itās impossible to play economy picking with out that slight rest before sounding the next, I say if this is the understood definition, why is that? If you donāt rest on the string before you push through it isnāt technically a rest-stroke if we are holding that definition.
His elbow motion has very little to do with this or economy picking itās his DSX that is the more important part, as again the implication and logic you guys used is that If he uses DSX, it means no rest-stroke unless another motion to change out of DSX, which equals Economy picking is impossible because economy canāt be done without a rest-stroke, and heās not giving any visual queues or easy ones that he transitions out of DSX
Now, I posted a video of economy picking because Iām pretty sure regardless of wrist or elbow movement, I believe that I use predominantly shallow DSX too, and still play economy picking, and on top of that donāt believe I use a rest stroke either if my above understanding on what your calling a Rest-stroke is correct, maybe itās not. Which should be impossible by the sound of it regardless of whether wrist or elbow movement is. Also Joe Stump was my instructor, many years ago when I was in school, so itās not so surprising that he left a lasting influence on me, although the funny thing is that I never tried to work on or touched economy picking until last year.
I took a look at that footage Troy did in 2017 of MAB, and I swear I see slight rotation in there when he switches strings. I donāt see strict adherence to DSX, I see some evidence of DBX using rotation. You see some obvious rotation when he plays slow sure, I think he still does it when he plays fast, itās just not as obvious or exaggerated when heās going super fast, itās more like a twitch that would be hard to see.
Is this for economy picking or just his general alternate picking?