This descending fours lick is my nemesis

Playing Technique
#66

The reason I ask is because I just don’t see much thumb joint moving going on.

And from some of the Stochelo videos I have from his academy, his doesn’t move much either. It is like they are doing tiny rhythmic chord strums to do this descending double down style stuff right? This guy is not as fast as Stochelo but he is about 1 to 1.5 nps faster than me with this technique. This guy is a violin player and did the transcription stuff for Stochelo on his academy website.

I think this technique is developed from the 3 note per string riff on the 2 high strings, or that 3 note per string Yngwie style arpeggio run he does at the end.

#68

Sorry! I was eating when I wrote that last reply and didn’t watch the video closely. This is the Gypsy double downstroke thing you’re asking about right?

Yes, it uses a secondary / helper type motion, with forearm, but it’s fundamentally inefficient because you’re asking your hands to do two downstrokes in a row and ignore the “free” upstroke you would normally get with alternate picking. It’s common in Gypsy playing, but not exclusive to that style. George Benson does a bunch of it too. You can read about it and see some examples here:

However, as cool as it is that Gypsy players can even reach the speeds the best ones can reach, it’s not obvious to me that it can be done at Batio levels of speed and physical easyness. I would think way more people can get way closer to Batio levels of ability on fours with pure alternate or one-way economy. And @Interestedoz is already moving pretty quickly, probably beyond the limit of most people to do the double downstroke thing anyway. So I don’t know how viable that is for this phrase at rock/metal tempos.

#69

Yes it is the most impressive feat I have seen on guitar when they do 3 downs in a row, my eyeballs like pop out of my head. :rofl:

#70

When going to a lower string or a higher one? You don’t often see three downs when moving to lower strings. And when moving to higher strings, that’s actually not the same motion, that’s rest stroke sweeping, which actually is efficient, and can be done almost as fast as you want.

#71

Three downs moving to lower strings. Sephora measure 80, I thought no way, but sure enough in the video he does it. :sweat_smile: He does it all over, Minor Swing, just let’s forget I even said anything. :joy:. Let’s just say I am happy to even get his stuff to 75% of his speed with wonky picking paths, doing double downs, but I just do double or triple ups, or down up pull off cause his speed is unbelievable.

I found out real quick these Gypsy Pickers are picking warriors, and fretboard wizards.

The 2 note per string diminished stuff using all downs is weird at first, but doable. It is the double and triple downs going to lower strings, I just put my hands on my head like :exploding_head:!

It is like I went full circle back to my roots of let’s down pick everything except now we ramped up the difficult to the max level.

#72

I’m not familiar with the example you’re referring to, and I don’t want to derail this thread, but if you’d like to post another one about Gypsy double downstroke technique that would be totally fine, if there’s video of it I’d love to see it.

As far as the fours lick is concerned, I’m not aware of any players that are doing that in the 180-200 ballpark with double downstrokes. Either pure alternate or one-way economy with some sweeping and legato is going to be doable by lots of people without getting near any kind of physical limit of very fast repeated downstrokes.

#73

Yes apologies about getting off topic. I have been testing the pluck method, and around 170 bpm I noticed something. I have yet to really get these 4s this fast with pretty decent clarity, but I was able to sort of push myself past my boundary using the pluck. I bet this pluck could be used as a sort of crutch to get you playing faster than your normal, then eventually you could put the picking back in once your hands gain better endurance.

#74

Thanks Troy for the awesome feedback!

Brilliant triage of the issue. It does indeed seem to be a form issue.

I’m not an expert with the escape aspects of picking yet, but it seems this is where the problem was. Already seeing improvement!. The issue with missing the 4th note (after the string change) was because of the escape motion before the 4th note and so I was missing the note - every time. I have adjusted the escape slightly and am now hitting the 4th note every time.

I now have to just recalibrate some of the rest of the lick now as my fingers are not used to getting that note right haha. Will keep you all posted. Sounding better already!

Was thinking of moving this to another thread but this is turning into a really great super thread on “fours” so think it is good we are all in here discussing this stuff. Hope OP doesn’t mind.

Yngwie does play it completely different to me - I just like alternate picking and my goal is to see if I can sound good playing these types of licks with alternate. So that was the issue I was looking for help on.

I hope others are finding value in this - there are tons of great tips in this thread no matter how you want to play these licks! And lots of the pointers here apply to all kinds of licks - not just tricky ones like the fours.

Also a lesson here for anyone getting stuck in a particular part of a lick as I was - especially a high speed one - that just focusing on wrong note/ notes may not get you out. If the form or mechanic is wrong - you can just keep missing the notes (as I did) no matter how much practice you do!

Thanks again

I do use some similar aspects to Cesario - but he uses a much more Yngwie like approach to it than me as Troy mentioned, that it is hard for me to use exactly the same form. He is brilliant at economy/ sweep stuff - whereas I 'm just not great at that. So I have to kind of adapt my alternate picking to it. Thanks for your responses! :slight_smile:

#75

If you are trying to play Yngwie I don’t really see why you would be using pure alternate picking. I am not saying this is wrong, or criticizing you. This is how I look at things. I have watched Cesario, Yngwie, Romeo, alot of players live. And the ones I don’t see do it live alot are the pure alternate picking machine gunners, where did Rusty Cooley go? I know even with my own ability, as with Cesario, we could alternate pick, but once you get decent at economy picking like you see Romeo doing you feel so much more free, and it is not near as taxing on your hands. Watch Cesario’s live stream play through of Vinnie Moore’s guitar instructional where he will do both economy and alternate so you can see the difference in his hands.

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#76

Fine with me! This answers my original issue and makes for interesting reading

#77

I’ve been working on this run lately, using the Yngwie picking method, and was getting sort of fast but still struggling, got much better with the @bradejensen pattern though.

Then today I picked up my guitar and without thinking, played the run, the original Yngwie pattern all picked, faster and cleaner than ever, but I was alternate picking it ! I could do it over and over, which I shouldn’t of because I’m supposed to be resting my fingers, but when you’re in good form it’s hard to stop.

It’s one of those weird things though that when I try to slow it down to analyse the pick strokes I can’t do it. Seems I’m doing mixed escapes though which is how I’ve picked for years.

Really annoying, that as usual, whenever I try to switch to the Yngwie sweep method it never sticks and I alwaus revert to alternate picking with mixed escapes. It’s just burned into me I think, but it’s limiting because some days I can’t seem to do it very well and it doesn’t seem efficient. That’s why I wanted to switch to the USX down sweep method.

Anyway, just thought I’d mention it; @Interestedoz: you’re not on your own and it is possible to play that run fast using alternate picking. Just for me, tomorrow it will probably be rubbish again.

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#78

Did you try the pluck method? I think I might start doing this alot. Here is a pattern I do to get from a high 4s sequence in sextuplet rhythm pretty challenging to do if you are always playing 4s in sixteenths to Yngwie’s mixed minor, Phrygian/phrygian dominant box shape. This time I switched to the pluck and I felt freedom. :grinning:

#79

Yeh I saw you suggest that the other day it looks cool but not tried it yet. Maybe tomorrow if I pick up the guitar I’ll take a look thanks.

#80

Good question!

The answer is I haven’t been able to get the economy push/ sweep through to the second string technique to sound clean and in time.

Secondly I haven’t been able to get the economy rules to line up with the notes in some of the Alcatrazz licks I have been working on.

I actually find alternate picking it easier in some ways than even using the 2 pull offs in the run down! A bit like @SlyVai was saying. This surprised me as I thought adding pull offs would make it a lot easier!

#81

I think you have to be careful about making assumptions based on “not” seeing something. The old saying, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, etc. Rusty doesn’t actually have this phrase in his working vocabulary. I made him do it in the interview, and he was able to, despite not actually working on it. That was more a demonstration of his ability to figure out stuff intuitively, which is super high. I think Rusty is generally underappreciated for how many techniques he is able to do.

What you really need to look at are players that can actually play this line with pure alternate, and do so in a memorized way without thinking about it. And really, Batio is one of the few I can think of. He does it all over Speed Kills, and In our interview he did it just as effortlessly, starting on both upstroke and downstroke, without breaking a sweat. It’s clear that it’s memorized for him.

The upstroke version uses swiping, which we haven’t talked about it, but is physically very easy to do once you learn how. If you have a reliable alternate picking motion that you can do smoothly without fatigue, then you can have this version on your worst day with minimal warmup, seriously:

If you’re looking at players who can only do fours on a couple strings, or only on their best day, and they tend not to play it most of the time, my guess is they never really learned it. You can’t really make the assumption that it’s because the technique is too hard. With some phrases, it’s just less obvious how to do them correctly, and that’s why you see fewer people doing them, not because they’re physically more effortful to do.

Again, I like all solutions. Economy is great and alternate is great. Not arguing for one or another, they all get a fair shake!

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#82

I agree, I like to try them all and not limit myself. I only limit myself if it just doesnt feel natural, but I at least give it a fair amount of time before I make my decision a month or so of not seeing any improvement on a certain technique. Even that is not enough time, but I have to make a decision cause I only have so much time to devote to the guitar. If I notice a decent amount of improvement in 3 weeks I stick it out. I noticed big improvement on descended economy which I thought I would never be able to do, but every morning for about a month I would wake up, drink my regular morning coffee, and just pick up and down through 3 note per string scale shapes. Because even though music is about hearing it, there is also a very big technical side too that unfortunately sometimes you have to kind of work on. How much? Thats the big question, but I do believe you need to somewhat otherwise youll never get anywhere.

#83

I am always on the other side of this looking at the actual traversing picking path. Thinking of outside the box ways to be able to pull off high precision manuevers in the most stressful situations while maintaining a relaxed technique and finding the fastest path possible with no hiccup or hurdles. Similar to Marshall Harrison’s or Frank Gambales view probably Michael Romeo too. Why run a mile when you can accomplish the same feat in one lap? I see to many people going haywire trying to pick everything so brutally that it looks painful watching their technique. Not that I am saying it’s wrong, bad, or tiring, I don’t know. I do know for myself that being more economical, and analyzing certain ideas to make sure I can utilize a more relaxed picking hand, feels so much more relaxing to focus on the music. And not to mention economy picking techniques can honestly make you go even faster, I mean after all it is like always finding the shortcut in a race. If music was a weightlifting workout I guess I would be a strict alternate picker. :grin:

#84

I made a post about swiping yesterday and this is the exact pattern that gives me trouble. I don’t know which pick direction/movement to start with in starting with a downstroke. And I don’t know if 2WPS should be used or if swiping would work best (to get at top speeds).

#85

I do something similar for those. I start with 2 pull offs, then one and last 4 notes all picked. Re-start the sequence. Hope it made any sense.

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#86

Well, I learned earlier this year that even notes per string works great for either single escape, USX or DSX and then I started applying it. Here’s descending fours as a 4 nps then 2 nps cycling pattern, alternate picked, no swiping required and fast AF. Same system (In reverse) works great for ascending as well. I hope that helps.

—8–7–5–3-------7–5------------------------------------
-------------------------------8–6--------10–8–6–5----

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