Playing USX oriented licks with DSX

[PR007]

Hi all: I am trying to figure out my primary motion and I am thinking that I am a DSX player. However, I noticed a lot of the players that I like are USX players. In order to play their licks do I just start them with an upstroke instead of a downstroke? That way, I switch strings on each downstroke? thanks so much!

[Jacklr]

Hey!

That will work for a lot of things while other licks may need reconfiguring. @adamprzezdziecki has an invaluable video on demonstrating his DSX approach to common pentatonic phrases that would be a great way to get started

My guide to playing cascading pentatonics with DSX motion

[Guitar Lesson: Playing Eric Johnson's cascading pentatonics with a downstroke escape motion] I hope a little bit of self promotion is accepted here. I’ve done a detailed explaination of how to translate EJ type lines to DSX using a downstroke escape motion. 24 tabbed excercises included. Any kind of feedback is welcome!

[JakeEstner]

Answer is yes, with two caveats off the top of my head, though there are likely more:

1. USX will lend itself to ascending sweeps. If there are ascending sweeps in the phrase, making it work with DSX will require more than flipping the strokes, as obviously you can’t really do an ascending ‘sweep’ with upstrokes.

2. A lot of players build up some comfort with a rhythmic orientation of alternate picking; more or less, downbeats are played with downstrokes and upbeats are played with upstrokes. If you’re somebody that has this ingrained, it’ll be a bit of an adjustment to ‘flip’ this orientation. If that’s not how you’ve done things, disregard this comment.

[PR007]

Ok good to know! Thanks Jake

[adamprzezdziecki]

@JakeEstner

USX will lend itself to ascending sweeps. If there are ascending sweeps in the phrase, making it work with DSX will require more than flipping the strokes, as obviously you can’t really do an ascending ‘sweep’ with upstrokes.

An example of translating this kind of USX line to DSX:

I am a Viking opening run - DSX translation

[viking run dsx] Hi. I was bored today and tried to translate that legendary run to DSX. Ascending part is 3 notes starting on D, on next strings I do some position shifting to keep it 4NPS to match the rules of DSX. G string - shift with index finger, fret 4 to 5, B string - shift with pinky from fret 10 to 12. That way is comfy for me, you can do it your on way if you keep an even number of notes on G and B. Descending part is mostly alternate picking with some economy, basically…

That’s what I do very often, odd number of notes starting on a down on the first string and even nps on every other string. Blitzkrieg would be another example.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CcfPyYEKDpB/
Yngwie plays it using economy (3 + 3 + 2), we can refinger that to be 3 + 4 + 1 and it works very well. I also play stuff like U - D - hammer, usually squuezed somewhere between all-picked fragments in a way that you can’t really hear it. I used to play the intro to Blitzkrieg using the same fingering as Yngwie, doing D U D on A, D U hammer on D and U D on G.
The ascending harmonic minor run at 0:31 in the Blitzkrieg video is also a cool example, it’s 3 + 2 + 4 + 3.

[PR007]

So it sounds like incorporating a tactical hammer on will allow you to fill in the gaps so you switch strings on a downstroke. Thanks for your insight Adam and great playing!