My alternate picking is sloppy and there’s too much muting

Technique Critique
#1

Hi there,

Hope you are well and thanks for taking the time to read my post. I’m new to the forum; glad to have found it. I’ve been playing for 25 years and at non-shred speed I think I’m ok. But in those moments I want to shred I fail miserably. So I’m hoping you will be able to help improve my alternate picking shred.

At very low speeds (120 BPM) I’m alright but at the higher speeds, it gets sloppy and I feel I’m compensating by palm muting more that I should. Maybe my pick should be slanted more downward?

Here is a video of my alternate picking:

I notice in the slow mo, when I’m ascending, I’m unintentionally hitting the next next top string with an upstroke as I string change.

Welcome any critique (don’t hold back, I can take it!!).

Hope to hear from you!

Kind regards,
Justin

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#2

Sounds good to me, sorry that I can’t seem to pinpoint anything problematic in particular!

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#3

This is happening because you’re using a motion that escapes on downstrokes rather than upstrokes. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it means that to use this motion effectively you need to arrange things so that each string change comes after a downstroke instead of an upstroke. For some phrases, the difference will be as simple as starting the phrase with an upstroke instead of a downstroke, but there will be some phrases that would work easily with upstroke-escape (USX) where you’ll need to use workarounds with your downstroke-escape (DSX) motion in the place that a USX player would change strings with economy picking.

You can score some early victories by using your DSX technique on licks from players who also use DSX (e.g. Michael Angelo Batio, Vinnie Moore).

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#4

Bingo.

You can’t just “pick anything” with any alternate picking motion. There are different types of alternate picking, and the type of motion you are using has requirements. Here is the more detailed explanation:

Although I will say that your form looks good for doing both escape types, DSX and USX, from the same arm position. How to learn that is beyond the scope a forum post, but I’m suggesting that you may not need to really change your form, just learn slightly different motions using that form.

Again, more reading through the whole “picking motion” section of the site linked above would probably fill in some of the blanks.

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#5

First of all, this is really great playing to my ears!

But there are swipes in the descending part (I guess that is what you really meant) but we can’t really hear any excessive noise here. It actually sounds and looks really good. If you were to record with an amp maybe we could hear more of what you find problematic. Otherwise swipes are totally ok as long as they don’t degrade the sound too much or make the playing feel stiff or limited in any way. But as you describe in your post, you find that you get noise and need to palm mute because of this, so either you have to work hard on left hand muting technique or work on other motions to get clean string changes. Frylock and Troy has already told you all about the technical part of this so I have nothing more to add.

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#6

Thanks Pepepicks66, qwertygitarr, Troy and Frylock! I think I understand now after learning a bit more about USX and DSX. So as I’m more naturally suited to DSX, I can either concentrate on DSX licks or try to changed the rotation of my wrist when using phrases that require USX.

So am I correct in thinking that if I were to play the following G major run across the six strings playing three note per string only, I would be alternating between DSX and USX:

e -----------------------------------------5-7-8------------------------------- DSX
b ---------------------------------5-7-8--------------------------------------- DSX
g -------------------------4-5-7----------------------------------------------- USX to DSX
d -----------------4-5-7------------------------------------------------------- USX
a ---------3-5-7--------------------------------------------------------------- DSX to USX
e -3-5-7----------------------------------------------------------------------- DSX

?

Kind regards,
Justin

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#7

Yes- ish :slight_smile:

The most common way seems to be alternating between your primary motion (DSX for you) and a single note played with DBX (double escape).

What you outline (switching between full-on DSX and full-on USX on different strings) is theoretically possible but not so common

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