This descending fours lick is my nemesis

Thanks for the response Troy!

Here is a video of me playing the lick - this incorporates 2 pieces of advice you offered.

  1. Play it fast - somehow!
  2. Play something other than the phrase I have been focusing on for the last year - this is not the lick I was planning on posting here on the CTC forum next. But I am glad I did this one.

So this sums up my issues really well in this video:
(a) I miss the 4th note in the sequence each time
(b) there are heaps of swipes and choked notes

The speed is exactly the same as Yngwie plays it - but I cannot clean it up.
This is the same issue I have had with the end of the of the Alcatrazz solo I have been working on.

I can get the speed - but not the precision. I actually have had the speed for best part of a year now. But can’t get the accuracy as good as Yngwie. He nails each and every note.

Any suggestions on how to clean up my playing would be awesome! :slight_smile:

This sounds awesome, much better than I was expecting based on your description. This is a good example of objectively recognizing all the things you’re doing right and appreciating those. A lot of people would like to have this level of ability.

I don’t think you’re failing at anything here, per se. I just think you’re trying to play the pattern with single escape motion, possibly DSX, because I see the little thumb motion every time you have to do certain string changes, which looks like a helper motion. Nothing wrong with a helper motion strategy, that’s what Batio does.

Do you know what escape you’re making, have you filmed yourself up close while doing all-evens single escape licks starting on each pickstroke:

If one method feels easier and involves no stringhopping or helper motions, then that is the primary escape you are using. You can also film it and look. You would need a down the strings angle and at least 120p video, preferably 240p as any iPhone will do. You’re not going to learn much from this perspective.

Moving forward, if you want to do this kind of phrase with wrist motion and no (or minimal) helper motions then you need to know whether you are actually capable of making both escapes or if you’re just doing the primary escape (from the previous test) the whole time. If it’s single escape the whole time, then there is no point in trying “fix” individual wrong notes because wrong notes aren’t your problem, the motion is the problem. What you need is more motion capability.

The way you learn new motions is you change something about your form and make more medium-fast and fast attempts to see if you any of these changes produce the motion you want. In this case you want to see the other escape happen, where the pick cleanly does the other string change. Very often this includes making a double escape pickstroke at that moment, somewhere inside the phrase. If you see that, then the changes are correct and you can keep them. If the motion looks exactly the same then you didn’t change anything. Rinse, repeat.

In short, you can’t fix wrong notes at the “going on autopilot” speeds, you can only make form changes and evaluate how it sounds, feels, and looks, preferably in slow motion.

Also, and this is important: You need to do this while playing a wide variety of phrases on different groups of strings, up to and including phrases that have one note on a string, like alternate picked arpeggios. It’s hard to predict which phrase is going to produce the desired motion, and when it does, that ability may translate to other phrases in the group. This takes time. Months, or more, as you experiment with all this vocabulary.

TLDR make form changes to try and get the new / unfamiliar motion to happen. Note the form changes that produce the correct results. Keep any that work, discard any that don’t. When you find changes that work, you can then slow down a little bit and try to get more notes right, while maintaining some of the “correct motion” feel that you learned from the faster experiments. Because at that point, you have something you can actually work with.

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Have you tried mimicing cesarios hand position. I call it the claw leg. His hand is very relaxed, and he uses his middle finger to sorta guide certain technique changing, from the more thumb oriented string changing licks to the gypsy style wrist sling by using his middle finger as it brushes the body back and forth during single string note barrage. But always watch his hand, he keeps it ultra relaxed.

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Cesario looks like Yngwie, i.e. USX technique with a combination of finger and some forearm motion. That form is not the form you’d use to alternate pick all these notes with wrist motion. For that, you want something that looks more like Paul Gilbert, Andy Wood, Al Di Meola, and Anton Oparin. We cover that form here:

This is more similar to what @Interestedoz is already using. So I’d keep going with the form in these videos, just with some small changes to produce the mixed escape motion.

More generally, apologies if this wasn’t already clear from the thread, but for anyone who’s reading, just in case it isn’t: Yngwie doesn’t alternate pick this phrase. There are sweeps and pulloffs in there. This is necessary because he’s a USX player. The Volcano seminar explains how this is done in this lesson here:

And this is what it looks like up to speed. Edit: Sorry, wrong version of fours! This is the correct one:

There is nothing wrong with this approach, it’s awesome! But I assumed the purpose of this thread is to understand how it can be done with pure alternate. If not, my bad. You can do it both ways. Both ways are great!

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I think only you can figure out how to clean it up. That why I was showing you how I do it. Cause I tried probably all the ways without the shifting, which was like a big ah ha moment for me. And I chose that way cause it feels easiest for me, and also it’s the fastest this way for me. The problem is the down stroke into the high e upstroke. From ascending after a down there is that worminess you have to do to go back around the string for the upstroke. Because of the upward pick slant, that’s why I do down down and I know it breaks the rules but since it’s one reverse back making me do one inside stroke. It’s not too terrible on my hands.

But the down up pull off is important because it is like the wind up motion into more fast chunks, and a relief point. I have been noticing more players use that pluck thing. This might be one of those things you could try. I notice Cesario will pluck every once and awhile during really fast stuff.

I have been testing this pluck method out and the lucky part about the location is if you accent all the downbeats and really accent the pluck it is hard to tell you pluck. :joy:

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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.

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.

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:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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:

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

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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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:

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.

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!

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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