Recently found this very relaxed way to alternate pick, I am not sure if I am crosspicking or what is happening exactly. The best way to describe it is like using the string as a ski ramp on your downstrokes and then using dwps to escape on upstrokes. Any guidance would be appreciated. Again, I am an economy player typically so I am not used to alternate picking.
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Thatās kinda how I startedā¦ using the pickslanting I already had experience with to help āconstruct itā However, if you previously had a ābiasā towards the downward slantā¦ you would have problems on the escape of the down-strokeā¦ and escaping the upstroke would be almost automatic.
Interesting that you are an economy, āliteā player. 16 months ago, I was the sameā¦ using a tiny jazz III pick and gently āfinessingā the stringsā¦ using economy wherever possible. Now I use the large thickest pick available and I slam the strings.
Itās kinda tough to explain how I learned cross-pickingā¦ showing it would be much betterā¦ and I just got my getto magnet camera setup delivered today!!! woohoo. So I will start recording monday (or maybe even tomorrow). And I will try to include at least a few videos on how I developed it.
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Looking forward to those videos!
Yes is it crosspicking, and you are doing it perfectly!
Specifically, this is the supinated wrist-only version of crosspicking which works precisely as you have described. However, I would resist thinking of this as ādownward pickslanting with a ski jumpā. Itās just an alternate picking movement that uses two different movements, one for the downstroke and one for the upstroke, that veer off in opposing directions.
I get what you are saying, but you are probably referring to crosspicking approaches that involve the forearm. For wrist techniques, this is not true. In the wrist-only versions of crosspicking, the ābiasedā orientation is necessary. This is why Albert Lee looks the way he does, and Molly Tuttle / David Grier look they way they do. The post we are seeing here is a great example of precisely how the supinated wrist-only style is supposed to look and operate when done correctly.
In general, @Sguitar, this looks great, and I wouldnāt change anything you are doing. The key here is that it feels effortless. That is how you know itās working. Again, instead of trying to shoehorn this movement into a mental image of āpickslantingā, even if it shares some of those characteristics, youāll get the best results in thinking about this simply as pickstrokes that veer off in two opposing directions, in a way that feels comfortable, and not tensiony.
How did you happen across this, trial and error?
Is this kinda like crosspicking guys? Iām not maintaining the (up down up down up down) though. Itās mixed.
Yes, trial and error. I watched the miller mechanics video on repeat and thought about the whole curve for a while. Eventually I decided that trying to make a curve wasnāt working so I started thinking of it as not following through with the pick or maybe like the opposite of rest strokes. That way I wouldnāt have to worry about trying to make a curve, I just had to not let the pick stroke hit the other string. Then I tried to not think about anything at all and just let my hands find the most comfortable way to alternate pick a scale and after a little while I found this to work pretty well.
Bingo. None of the players we interviewed with the exception of Steve Morse were even aware of any sort of curved pickstroke. So ātryingā to make one is probably not the way to learn this, and will probably lead to either aggressive arm turning / forearm type movements, or stringhopping movements in the case of the wrist approaches.
Instead, the way is probably to get set up with a specific arm posture and internalize the idea of downstroke and upstroke that simply veer off in opposite directions from that posture, letting the body do the rest. In your case, that arm posture is lightly supinated, and the pickstrokes simply go left and right of the armās center line.
Just feeding this movement a wide variety of lines and gradually think about cleaning it up over a period of months.
Nice work here.
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Nice playing Hank. I think thereās some rest stroking happening here, plus the camera is super close up and hard to tell really whatās going on.
Honestly, in general, scalar lines could be a better option for some people, namely experienced players, to experiment with because when it comes to this kind of arpeggio stuff, we all have learned baggage and itās easy to just revert to that without meaning to. I can do stringhopping pretty fast at this point, and it sounds clean and musical. But itās not the same movement, itās strain-y, and itās hard to stop doing it on well worn phrases.
With scales, or any other line thatās not your usual, there are fewer habits to break. So you could try experimenting with that using @Sguitarās clip as a guide. Deviation crosspicking is not super obviously supinated. Itās more like Mike Stern supinated. I think that is one thing that throws people off when attempting this.
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Hey, I WILL definitely do what you said. I decided to do this real quick before shutting the amp down today. There is a flub in itā¦ How does the motion look? Hoppy? I have no practice time into this. Just winging it for analysis.
Looks good but thatās always hard to say visually especially with camera angles. The test is whether you can do it quickly without arm tension. When done properly it feels no different than any other kind of alternate picking, yet youāre still getting over the string.
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So for someone who is already proficient in dwps, would this be the way to go instead of trying to learn upws now?