Picking technique Paradise City intro from slash

Playing Technique
#1

Hi all,

After watching cracking the code I thought: FINALLY someone found the truth about the picking technique on guitar and did so in a very scientific way.
Gave up on playing guitar about 10 years ago and never was any good at it, kids came, couldn’t find the time and also because I couldn’t play very good and also didn’t make much progress which didn’t help in motivation. After this great revelation of cracking the code I thought I will give it another go and now put this new found technique to good use. Thank you @Troy for never giving up and unlocking that secret that helps so many guitar players for years to come. Your pitbull like attitude on this subject really paid off!

Now I want to learn the intro from Paradise City and I watched how Slash shows how to play it on youtube: Slash Lesson Paradise City.wmv - YouTube.
There is no camera recording high speed from the correct angle so I tried to do an analysis of of the tab and for each note put the up or down in there and then figure out what a good pick slanting option could be and where any conflict may be solved by a sweep (if you have a down stroke escape, and you are on an upstroke and the next string is a lower string, then you can just continue moving up to this string right?).
This is a tedious task and I am not making much progress. Is there by any chance anyone who has any info on the picking technique from this intro? I thought I ask here first before I lock myself in my room and instruct my wife to slide pizza under the door twice daily until I crack this code…

Thanks!

1 Like
#2

Post the TAB here and I suspect that you will get lots of advice, although your pizza idea will work as well.

1 Like
#3

Having had a very quick look at the video, I think Slash is not really shooting for the most “mechanicall efficient” solution. And he doesn’t need to, because at this tempo you can get away with some “string hopping” of sorts.

I think that Slash is just picking in a similar way as Di Meola shows here (go to 38:40 if the timestamp does not work), with repeated downstrokes and repeated upstrokes (not sweeping, actual repeated strokes!):

I am a bit worried that all the cheese will be scraped off the top :smiley:

#4

Ha! That part of the video always seemed strange to me.

  1. Adding an extra upstroke JUST because he thinks economy picking is cheating? Lot of work just to feel better about saying you don’t economy pick lol
  2. We’ve seen it’s quite possible to alternate pick at that tempo. Funny thing is Al is such a monster wrist player I’m sure he could cross pick like a beast if he ever embarked
#5

I actually find this sort of stuff easier to do without sweeping, as Al is doing here.
If I try sweep it, it sort of feels off and just falls apart.
Having said that, I wouldn’t be doing this stuff as fast as Al is here.