Hey! Thanks for checking it out. I am super-duper self conscious about my picking. It’s like… a “thing” at this point. I have invested all kinds of time, taken all kinds of lessons and paid the bill - basically done a lot of research into myself hahaha until I absolutely know what won’t work. I realize now that there’s not a “magic button” for me. Other people, sure. I mean Steve Morse was a picking god and he managed to whip his hand into shape until he could alternate pick anything. Frank Gambale is a sweep/economy master. Marshall Harrison is the same thing, sweep to extremes and then added hybrid picking.
But I am not any of those guys. I am a completely different person, with a different physiology a different set of experiences and an individual set of tastes and interests.
While the video is super rough, I think that it shows some potential to develop a vocabulary that covers most bases, even within the primitive content within the video. While it would be nice, and much simpler to just have “one” technique that covers everything and use that as my strategy it’s not realistic with my motion. If I go back to “elbow” and a grip like Frank’s, sweep and economy really opens up ascending or descending- but I don’t like how difficult it seems to be able to accent properly and get lines that are rhythmically correct and groove. Some people can do it, but I can’t. And I am okay with a little bit of the “loose cascade” sound for some things, but a lot of that just sounds like a mess to me. Haha hurts my soul when I do it!
So I think the “strategy” is this;
Even NPS (2,4,6) sequences = alternate picking and good ‘ole DSX
Odd NPS ie 3 NPS or sequences of 5/7 scales are a combined approach, alt, sweep, legato and hybrid.
My sweep rule; avoid a downstroke sweep in my mixed scalar runs. Heck, avoid it even in arpeggios- best practices (for me) is to do sweeps/economy strokes on an upstroke.
Hybrid “more often than not” rule - “usually” hybrid pick after an upstroke, and usually do a downstroke after a hybrid pluck.
That’s just me, and dang it if it doesn’t just seem a bit complicated but honestly it’s what works. Time spent with @Tom_Gilroy has been absolutely foundation building. It’s been a while, and I have gone off and tried lots of other stuff, but at the end of the day what we developed is I think what will yield good results. @tommo suffered through many a TC with me trying to do something that just isn’t playing to my own strengths, and since I am both a bit dense and stubborn as a mule I had to go the long way up the mountain and learn the hard way.
I think that at this point, the real questions when facing a challenging bit of music are 1) Can it be arranged for even NPS 2) is an upstroke sweep/economy note possible to make it work 3) can a hybrid pluck be applied without adding too much of an unwanted disruption (tone/rhythm)
4) is hammer-on/pull-off an option?
Lots to think about. I am envious that lots of people who play don’t have to come up with work-arounds or problem solve the lines - it just isn’t obvious to me how to do a “one way fits all” type thing, ie economy pick everything or DBX master. And to be honest, I may have stopped caring! Hahahaha
buuuutttt what helped me get my economy scales even and fast was practicing them with rest strokes, all down ascending, all up descending (as follows)
