Is the lick at the beginning of this video broken down somewhere ?
I love it but am struggling a bit to figure out the right hand from the video.
Looks like downward pickslanting the whole time but it’s not an even number of notes per string lick. I think there is some economy picking / sweeping and that’s how I play it ( not as fast ! ) but I do up sweeps in the descending part and that means angling my pick upward so it can’t be right.
I’m in the course at this part as well and it’s…uh…quite a step up to say the least. I’ve been playing for like 20 years but with super ass picking technique so this type of stuff is great for me.
While I haven’t mastered the down-sweep part I have figured out sort of what’s going on, I think, with this riff. It’s set up in to little blocks that always have a double downstroke when you’re supposed to be moving your left hand in to a new position (I think).
Think of it like doo-doo-dah-dah-doot-doot (the doot-doot)_ is always the double down) doo doo dah dah doo doo dah dah doot doot, etc…doing this off the top of my head but I hope it doesn’t sound ridiculous.
Couldn’t play it right until it was broken down in to phrases that revolve around the double downstroke and change in hand position.
TL;DR - aiui it’s not broken down anywhere, but taking the time necessary to master it has huge implications later.
Not sure if you’re aware, but there is a tab of it in the pickslanting primer showing the up and down strokes.
Aha ! I found it now, thanks ! And @BurnsXL you were right, I the bit that I had wrong is that it is always down sweeps even in the descending pattern.
Ah great you’re welcome! Glad I could point you in the right direction if not help, super cool that you figured it out.
Still getting the hang of the descending portion but it makes sense to me now too, just a matter of execution and slowing it down and speeding up.
Hi! Apologies for the confusion. I know that’s the first thing I play, but it was just intended as a fun intro and not intended as the first thing you actually do. For a discussion of how alternate picking and sweeping combine in the “dwps” playing style, I’d check out the “downward pickslanting” section of the Primer, especially the first few chapters of the Eric Johnson section:
This the same concept at play here, and Eric’s style depends heavily on combining an “upstroke escape” alternate picking motion with a little downstroke sweeping. Just make sure you have have some version of a upstroke escape / dwps picking motion working first on a single string at least reasonably smoothly. For that, you can start here:
Or here:
Let us know if you run into any trouble!
Thanks a lot Troy, yes I browsed through some of the EJ exercises and thought they would be a great prep for that lick which is definitely more involved, I’m about to start making my way through them.
Woah the master up in a thread I posted in! Thanks man, your course is revolutionary for me and I’m not even close to finished…it’s made a believer out of me again in my own ability to grow.
RE: intro lick, if it’s truly not meant to be something you learn at that time it might be helpful to add that in notations or something. Definitely, at least to me and seemingly OP here, came across as “now that we’ve learned these things let’s do this” in the natural flow of the course/website.
My reaction was "holy moly it’s amping up pretty fast’ and I guess rightly so. On the other hand though maybe it is good for people to sit down and practice it until they master it, as it sets them ahead of the curve later on.
Appreciate the clarification on it though, I’ve been reasonably hung up on whether or not to master it 100% before continuing to certain parts and now I know it’s not needed.
@BurnsXL it is in notation, it’s the Mixolydian pattern in the sound slice clips of the Eric Johnson seminar.
@Troy I have to say the way these EJ exercises are broken down is brillant, between these and the small changes I made to my right hand thanks to the other thread I feel like I’ve made more progress in the last 2 days than I did in the last 3 months after picking up the guitar again following a long break !