Hi - not sure I’ve seen this topic covered but what is the best technique for playing this blues very fast? My guess would be cross picking or economy but not sure. Thanks in advance.
Not that there’s any one right answer… but somewhere in this forum there was a discussion (hell, I may have started it) about some really excellent quality live footage of Jimi Hendrix that included a few picking hand closeups, and this lick, or variations at least with the same bend-the-G, fret-the-B-and-E-two-frets-behind motif at the core of them.
I’ll see if I can find that thread, but for what it’s worth, Jimi sweeps this three note motif.
Mtyself, I’ve always badly crosspicked it, and while sweeping it feels incredibly unnatural to me, it also has a really distinct slinky, slippery, greasy feel to it that is absolutely a hallmark of Jimi’s playing, and has a very different feel than the more rigid, on-the-beat vibe you get with straight alternate picking. It pretty clearly can be played faster swept than crosspicked, but in blues picking speed is rarely going to be the limiting factor.
I’d suggest practicing it both ways, but for what it’s worth this is something I do periodicaly come back to and try to work on getting a swept version to feel more natural to me.
EDIT - the video has been taken down, I’m afraid - Jimi’s family is evidently pretty aggressive about copyright claims - but you can glean some of it from the discussion here: Close-up of Jimi Hendrix's picking hand
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Thanks for the reply. I’ll definitely try the sweep. Is the sweep down down down or down down up? The down down up feels unnatural to me but maybe if I play it every day it won’t.
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I always play this kind of fast repeating line with hybrid picking cuz I’m lazy - so plectrum on the G string, middle finger on the B and ring finger on the high E; easy to play super duper fast because your right hand doesn’t have to move at all. If I’m doing it not quite so fast I’ll do down-down-up but less economy and more string hoppy so you can accent each note a little more.
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My feeling is that this lick is never played at shred speeds, and it’s usually played a bit “dirty”.
Still, it is totally possible to play this fast if one so wishes.
@Philausopher’s method is a great one if you are willing to do some hybrid.
Otherwise even the alternate picked version can be brought up to speed if you can do efficient double escape - it’s essentially the bluegrass forward roll - Andy Wood can certainly do it for example:
Down-up-up. !!!
A counterintuitive idea but it’s from Paul Gilbert. He says “This is most important lick I can ever show you,” and that it’s a key idea in his picking.
Cheers! Z
As much as I love Paul, that’s definitely not going to work at high speed.
Although I think Paul was not concerned with playing this lick particularly fast. And indeed it’s a lick you rarely see being played fast
is the bluegrass forward roll the same as a banjo roll? Is it basically alternate picking 3 string arpeggios? So like alternate picking one note per string across G B E strings for example
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Correct, that is what I meant!
Yeah cool thanks! I definitely want to practice getting better at these. These are some of the hardest in my opinion because the wrist needs to be super smooth and relaxed
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Re down up up, yes PG doesn’t play it that quick either, was more interested that he said that this lick is so important.
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I think half of the appeal of this lick is it SHOULD be played a bit dirty - the bend on the 4th towards the 5th followed immediately by a fretted 5th and fretted octave/root gives it an awesome slurred sound and honestly if the timing gets a little loose, as long as you’re in the pocket on that first bent note it’s going to work.
That said, when you do hear it played at more “shred” speeds, it’s usually with a couple more notes tossed in to make it more of a “circular” phrase rather than a straight ascent. Something like this
|--------12--------------12-------|
|-----12----15p12-----12----15p12-|
|-14b-------------14b-------------|
|---------------------------------|
|---------------------------------|
|---------------------------------|Or this:
|--------12--------12--------12--------12-|
|-----12----15b17~--------12----15b17~----|
|-14b-----------------14b-----------------|
|-----------------------------------------|
|-----------------------------------------|
|-----------------------------------------|…with the first played as, say, straight 16ths, and the second, the ascending three note run as 16ths and the 15th fret bend as an 8th to draw it out a little. The first in particular can be swept quite fast, leveraging the fact that you’re entirely free of the strings after the last high E to loop back to the b string with an upstroke, which you can afford to bury because you have a pull-off to get the pick back above the strings and ready to sweep the next three downstrokes. I’ve heard this occasionally in Jimi’s playing, where it’s a dizzying blur of noted in the way a lot of Eric Johnson’s playing might be, where it’s not that it’s especially fast by technical standards but that a pentatonic lick like this covers a LOT of interval ground in a hurry. The other one is a little trickier to pick smoothly, but if you catch that bend with an upstroke, it gives you some time to position for an escaped upstroke on the 12th fret root. Again, though, sweeping this feels unnatural for me since I’ve been playing it with what’s probably a sloppy forward roll for decades, so I’m not going to guarantee what I’m trying to do here is optimal.
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I’ve seen Rob Marcello play this variation of the blues lick, which avoids the problems of string skipping and adjacent strings ringing out
|----------------------------------------------|
|-----12-15------12-17-------12-15------12-17--|
|-14b--------14b---------14b--------14b--------|
|----------------------------------------------|
|----------------------------------------------|
|----------------------------------------------|
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Nice. USX for the win too, if you play the whole lick D D U! Even though it isn’t exactly the lick being discussed I love this because it follows the Shawn Lane attitude of “If something is difficult, find an easier way to do it. Don’t get hung up; use any means necessary to express yourself”. Which is a quote-of-a-quote from this interesting article:
Gary Moore is a master of ‘shred level speed’ using the pentatonic box. Never get tired of hearing that guy play.
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When I think of this lick I think of Randy in his Mr. Crowley solo. I believe he alternate picks it.
Fantastic another article that confirms Lane mostly avoided the 1-3-4 finger combination. Time to voluntarily remove my pinky and restructure licks for 1-2-4 finger combinations lmao.
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But then what of your grip strength!?
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I could not comprehend what Paul was talking about, and am fearful that I missed the entire point of the video. Can I trouble you for a short summary, as you definitely understand what he was saying… 
@Drew is right, this lick lives in a context, needs a note or more for quick rotation.
@Philausopher hit it too, hybrid if you must.
Or slide it. The only other thing I can think of would be to ask Greg Kotch 
edit: then there’s …
