Strict alternate picking exercises

Playing Technique
#1

Hello,

Great that i found this great community here! You all have done a great job!

For me its a pleasure to be able to speak with some speed pro’s here for advices!

Brief intro:
I played guitar when in high school for about 2 years and now after almost a 15 years break i started playing again.
My level was never that really good in the lead, but i could solo at low speeds i could say.

Since now I have more discipline in studying and exercising, i decided to buy some books focusing on lead and i started from stetina since i had used them in the past. (Lead guitar 1, Lead guitar 2, speed mechanics)

In Lead guitar volume 1, there are some basic triplet exercises in the 3rd chapter in the blues scale. (Ex 78 for example if you guys have it) These exercises are for strict alternate picking.

What ive found is that my right hand is strangely going to economy by it self in some exercises if it doesnt feel right. Keeping the pick on the “outside” and alternate pick there for me needs really big big concentration and feels very odd. In Ex78 (although not really an economy example) for me UDD UDD etc pattern seems more logical and convenient with these crossings, but the book is like DUD UDU DUD UDU etc which are odd for me.

The question is, since I am a new learner but I see here there are some traps of the strict altenate…should I keep focusing on the alternate picking of these old books? Or just do it naturally?
Is it maybe too early to modify exercises and keep focusing on the alternate picking for the time being?
Do I have to master well these exercises maybe and then rethink about it? Or its going to be somewhat late after those 3 books?

Thanks alot!

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#2

There is probably no real concrete “right and wrong” to this question. (tab would help) I used to have that book but no more. I think I still have Vol 2 though, which I bought in about 1988 lol

If you tend to hold the pick with a downward slant, then its going to be more natural to want to economy pick going to a higher string etc. Yngwies basic method

if you are going to go to a higher string with an upstroke then the pick generally has to be slanting upwards

So of course that means on 3 note per string licks you will have some string changes with upstrokes and some with downstrokes.

Me personally I would advise taking the time to go ahead and learn 2 way pickslanting since its the most flexible. You can always add economy picking pretty easily later.

if you start with economy then it might be hard to add 2 way later because you’ll have that downward slant pretty deeply ingrained

#3

Thanks for the reply. Although I try to keep the exercises original as much as possible, I am also sometimes adding a legato to help the picking motion.

What I notice is that I dont know which way i naturally pickslant. Since I am new to (slower of course) speed licks…I dont have any previous experience.

It seems that I can do both, and i can confirm it when I invert the first stroke on a lick from a downstroke to an upstroke and keep the previous slanting, I crush. If i change, i recover the lick.

I think that my natural is upstroke pickslanting specially when i start an ascending lick. But not sure yet.

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#4

well in the end there are only so many possibilities. The more of them you can efficiently do then the better of course.

  1. go to higher string with upstroke

  2. go to higher string with downstroke

  3. go to lower string with upstroke

  4. go to lower string with downstroke

many years ago, maybe 1990…I figured out I was pretty good at this lick, starting with a downstroke:

B—5–6--5------------- loop etc
G----------------5–7--5

Well its a two way slanting lick with inside string changes but I was mostly oblivious to any of that.

But if I reverse the order I sucked at it:

B--------------5–6--5
G—7–5--7----------loop

ugggh. way freaking harder to me because its “outside” changes. I can do it pretty good now though.

if u post a vid up we can probably tell more about your natural slant etc.

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#5

Yeah, those circular sixes inside vs outside is a good way to find weaknesses in particular transfers.

Also, try 2nps up & down stuff, starting on both an upstroke & down-stroke.