Should I wait to learn pickslanting?

Should I learn to play semi-fast before moving to pickslanting or should I go ahead and jump into it.
At the moment I can play 3 note per string scales at 130 bpm. I also don’t think my picking hand is holding me back at the moment, rather my fretting hand.

1 Like

welcome aboard!

if you are already doing decent 3nps scales, perhaps you are already doing some form of pickslanting

it might not be anything to “jump into” because you might already be doing it to a degree

got any way to shoot a vid?

1 Like

It’s not letting me post the video taken from my iphone, but it doesn’t look like I slant the pick down. I do use economy picking though. My understanding is that dps is used when trying to play at super fast speeds, which my fretting hand can’t keep up with anyways at the moment.

super fast speeds can be played with dwps or uwps or anything else. dwps and other methods are all about crossing the strings etc

in a certain sense, if you are doing economy picking then u dont really need dwps unless you just want a full skill set.

but you can also wait for others opinions etc

try loading the vid to youtube and then post it here. i dont think u can load vids straight to here

Sorry for the bad quality and angle and messy dorm room. :joy:

1 Like

how fast can u pick on one string? learning to pick fast and do some nice patterns on one string is a great building block for shredding. it really gets the picking motion grooved and builds coordination between the 2 hands etc

patterns like the “yngwie 6 note pattern”

e-----8–5--7–8--7–5…repeat etc

or the very similar

e-----7–5--7–8--7–5

spend a few weeks on those and you might take some nice steps forward


the problem I see with your “economy” picking is…it isnt really economy picking lol. Like when u r crossing to the next lower string, economy picking would basically be ONE downstroke across the 2 strings but what you are doing is basically doing 2 separate downstrokes so its sort of defeating the purpose. understand?

also there is a little “hopping” where you are raising the pick away from the strings. like instead of going straight thru the strings you are sort of jumping off the strings like a ski jump. dont despair though because it isnt that bad overall

with economy picking you will want to go straight thru the strings etc


if you got into dwps or uwps etc it would be a whole different thing. you would generally be strict alt picking like down-up-down-up. so for a 3 note per string scale it would be down-up-down and then when u cross to the next string it would be with an upstroke and continuing on strict alt picking from there

the “slant” part means you would be picking sort of on a diagonal path as opposed to exactly parallel with the guitar body. if you went for dwps then youd be sort of picking where your downstrokes would go diagonally closer into the body and then the upstrokes would come up thru the string while moving out and away from the body. this is how you clear the strings to change strings etc. for dwps the upstrokes are what escapes from the strings so you can change strings easily

uwps is totally opposite

of course economy picking negates most of the string crossing stuff because you simply change strings with the same stroke etc. of course the problem there is…what if it doesnt line up correctly. What if u somehow have an upstroke on the D string but then u want to go to the G string? I dunno what economy guys do since im not an economy disciple per se…but in that case youd still need some sort of “escape” provided by pickslanting

Okay I’ll spend some time with those one string licks. I guess I should also implement dwps while I’m working on those?
Also thanks for the help.

well again, dwps only really has to do with switching strings

have u watched this yet?

if u wanted to try dwps then u could try some simple licks like these to see what dwps is for

G------7–5-------
D-------------7–5 loop etc. down up down up etc.

or take either of those previous licks I showed u and after u get them good on one string, start doing them back and forth on 2 adjacent strings and youll see that dwps allows u to change strings easily etc

for example:

e----8–5--7–8--7–5----------------------
b--------------------------8–5--7–8--7–5-- loop those two back to back etc and youll see that dwps allows u to change swings easily

another question about dwps and edge picking.
is it either or or do you do both, does malmsteen edge?

u can do both or neither, sort of independent of each other

most people edge to some degree, some a lot, others less so

Yngwie for sure edge picks

at other times not as much

this dude, Cesar Filho, is an absolute beast in the style of Malmsteen. Even though he speaks Portuguese, u can still see what he is doing lol. he uses some edge in the Yngwie style

hint: cima = upstroke, Baixo (basho) = downstroke lol

thats sort of a good quick intro to how Yngwie makes dwps work. to ascend he often uses economy picking, and to descend he often throws in a pulloff when needed so that he goes to a new string with a downstroke

this guy sometimes edges so much its hard for me to look at it lol. gets weird looking. i have seen some people hold the pick almost straight up and down

Definitely jump straight into it. You want to build a mechanic that allows you to play quickly along a single string, but is also escaping in at least one direction so you can change strings easily. :+1:

2 Likes