Swiping and DWPS

Playing Technique
#1

Has anyone found that swiping is more difficult for them to accomplish with DWPS?

Specifically, I find that I sometimes (these times seem to be randomly distributed: I mostly [try to] use swiping to play ascending sixes and the PG-lick, as well as ascending fours) i have a hard time getting far enough past the next string to come back with a good upstroke. What’s weird about this is that sweeping the string change (or even using inside picking and 2WPS!) presents basically no trouble most of the time. When I’m having this problem, UWPS is suddenly easy.

Analysis: I could be somehow changing my string-tracking strategy, which I haven’t yet sat down and worked on specifically (I think I use wrist deviation + elbow for this whereas my primary mechanic is rotational).

#2

It’s kind of similar for me. I much prefer inside string changes with a pickslant change over any kind of swiping. So even with outside picking, I try to always change the pickslant properly, but it’s slightly less comfortable than doing it during an inside string change, because with inside picking, there’s no chance of hitting the string I want to get over.

#3

wait a minute…i thought swiping was unwanted hitting of other strings as you are playing ascending or descending patterns??

#4

While it is usually accidental and guitarists who didn’t learn it consciously often don’t know it’s happening, it’s not unwanted. It allows you to play difficult lines without changing the pickslant. Of course, you can learn to do TWPS all the time, but for people who didn’t think about this when learning technique, swiping is something that comes a lot more naturally. It also happens with TWPS when you don’t change the angle enough. The trick is to make it as subtle as possible, so that it isn’t obvious that you’re hitting a string that should be silent.

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