When do you (personally) choose to alt pick vs economy?

Playing Technique
#28

I think Troy has some really interesting points in the video above about how some things are easier with economy than alternate and vice versa. He talks about it from memory in volcano seminar as well with some of that blindingly fast Yngwie stuff that would be nearly impossible with alternate. I have found trying to play some of the Yngwie circular Alcatrazz stuff really, really challenging as an alternate picker - and I know Ynwgie is using economy for them. I sense (if you could do it) economy would be easier.

Either style though doesn’t (in my opinion) lend to better hand sync. There is no avoiding the work that needs to go into that aspect of your playing.

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#29

Emil Werstler? I’m basing this on PRS and super accurate picking.

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#30

I play right, handed. Yet I feel I’d play better left handed, my left is weaker but more accurate, and right feels stronger and faster but less delicate…
I feel I’d play better lefty, but I can’t really spend another 5 or more years trying it out…
what is your strongest hand?

#31

Yes! That’s him! I just love his playing. It’s so fluid and wonderful.

#32

I’m a natural lefty although I do some odd things right handed. For example, I bat, golf and play hockey from a righty stance, but I box in a southpaw stance.

I write and throw left handed and all of the other normal things, and I’m left footed as well (important during my soccer days).

I never once for a second considered playing righty. I started very young and am entirely self taught, and I bristled early on at suggestions that I play right handed. Very anti-authority as a young man. It’s something I regret quite a bit now when I walk into guitar stores and can’t find anything worth playing.

#33

Sounds good! I’ve come up with an arpeggio sequence to work on which has some 1nps and 2nsp combinations. All pickstrokes are swept so it’s good practice to try get control of the sweep!

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#34

Generally, economy picking for maximum speed, alternate picking for precision. Economy picking feels more slippery and uneven, although being faster, you pretty much feel in time by starting and ending licks on the appropriate beat. Whereas pure alternate seems to allow you to have every note be an almost exact subdivision.

I also saw a Jeff Loomis masterclass a while ago where he said he specifically alternate picks ascending and economy picks descending because he could never figure out alternate picking on the descend. Makes me wonder just how frequent “true” alternate pickers are when you have monster players like Loomis who said he could never do it, and guys like Yngwie who don’t even do the lauded “true alternative picking” thing at all except for specific licks.

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#35

It was a real eye opener to me when I saw how Yngwie sweeps through to the next string when doing 2 string licks on the high B to high E. I feel the same way about economy - feels uneven to me too. As I described above it feels to me like you are trying to run with 2 right steps then a left!

I just have not been able to get the precision I am after using it.

#36

@Lindecraft I get your train of thought, but I’m guessing those guys developed great technique and phrasing that never really required them to develop “all facets” of alternate picking. Pretty sure at this point @Troy has collected “empirical evidence” with his magnet rig of plenty of players doing pure alternate picking. I mean, I can do it myself without inherent talent.

#37

This is because Jeff uses 2:00 wrist motion which with his arm position is DSX, like Andy James. And those players will do upstroke sweeps when possible.

The little knowledge we have uncovered goes a really long way to explaining things that would otherwise be completely opaque if you had to figure it all out on your own.

Re: “true alternate”, USX is alternate. DSX is alternate. It sounds like you mean the ability to do both escapes. Which is fine but one is not really better or worse. Just as one of many examples, the fastest pentatonic players are all single escape players, usually USX like Wylde and the Gypsies but sometimes DSX like McLaughlin or Andy Wood.

People find their way to these techniques through the repertoire. Almost every bluegrass guitarist and classical mandolinist has some amount of double escape. The repertoire is not possible otherwise. In rock it all started with fast blues so it’s no surprise why we see the techniques we do.

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#38

About “true alternate,” I’m more referring to the fact that in some circles, at least that I’ve seen, there was (don’t know if there still is) this idea that anything other than every note being played with alternating up and downstrokes (no pull-offs, no economy) was somehow “cheating” and that “the real greats use real alternate picking.” Kind of in the same vein of the idea that using lighter strings, usually anything less than 10’s, was for “people who aren’t good enough or dedicated enough to use the better tone on the harder to play strings.” I’ve seen that one used in arguments about who “better” players are.

What I meant to get across, probably poorly, is that I’ve seen people implying or even stating outright that people trying to learn are not good enough or not practising hard enough if they can’t play every single note with alternate picking, even though a lot of the famous players who allegedly do actually don’t. Maybe it’s different now, or maybe I was just in some bad forums and met some immature people, but it seems like the guitar community has been very elitist and combative over things like this.

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#39

That’s just guitar elitism, or simply a dick measuring contest.
I seen that type of talk on various forums over the years.
The way I see it is, it doesn’t really matter how you get the notes out, alt picking, economy, legato, combinations of different methods etc. In the end, if it sounds how you want it to, then it’s correct.

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#40

Where do you encounter this, is this is a jazz thing? This sounds like something I would have heard back in the 80s, when nobody knew anything about how picking worked. Because even if you did want to be macho about “picking all the notes”, this particular attitude is technically ignorant. The simplest picking motions you can make are single escape motions, and the simplest phrases you can play on a guitar are “pure alternate” phrases with one kind of escape and even numbers of notes per string. You don’t really get a medal for picking all those notes, it’s literally your first step in learning picking.

Nowadays, we prefer more sophisticated biases like “double escape is better than single escape”, i.e. “you suck if you can’t play one note per string”. At least those take more technical explanation to refute!

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#41

I’ll cast the blame where it lies:

Al is the man, and we all love him around here obviously. That part of the video always rubbed me the wrong way though. Rant: I actually had a decent elbow mechanic going when I was 15. I bought Al’s instructional video when I was 16 and was crushed to find out I’d been playing the ‘wrong way’ lol. I spent about a whole year trying to rid myself of all elbow movement. Even watching myself in a mirror, because the elbow would creep into my playing quite subconsciously. I’ll stop my bitter old-man whining now lol

This is a fun video. I’ve always favored dark sounds and ever since I heard SRV used ultra heavy strings I thought I should too. I was surprised the tones I liked more in Rick’s video were the 9’s !

Thank God we live in the age of information and can finally rid ourselves of all the dogma! Rick and Troy are national treasures.

#42

I have started to analyze Yngwies solo sections more in detail, and this is what i find him doing alot. Legato phrase 2,4,2,1,2,1 and the other fingers version 3,4,3,1,3,1 using the index middle and ring. This is so he can gain back picking strength for more bursting ascended economy down up down down up down or down up pull off during descending inside his little mixed minor box shape. So really if you arent going to flamenco, even they use a descended form of picado economy, you should be figuring out directional economy picking. utilizing plucks or down up pull off during descending cross string madness, or up down up up down up if its a pure 3 note per string scale descended run. Otherwise pure alternate picking is left for the single string line stuff, or also for outside picking 2 string tetrachord pattern style runs ala paul gilbert exercise.

And really it’s what your genetics can do the fastest so I would look at it from all angles. If you aren’t playing it fast enough try something different.

Because believe it or not I can play this basic descended harmonic minor with this wierd picking pattern the fastest even though it has an inside stroke. I believe I can do it because it is so close to the low end strings that my wrist has this tendency to tilt the other way cause of the prior descended economy I have going that is slightly tilting my wrist into an upward pick slant, plus it is one inside stroke so it doesn’t tire me out.

#43

but it feels amazing when alt. picking. That machine gun MAB sound.
Love it
Serotonin level spike for hours.

#44

When I want something to be very rhythmically regular I alt pick. There’s a downside to this because it can start to sound like a quantified midi track which is wearying to the ear.

Sweeping has a more flowing, loose, slurred, rhythmic feel. It can be more vocal, or horn like.

And tonally- a rotation based mechanic sounds different for me, more bass followed by that upper harmonic bloom. I can’t get EJ, or Yngwie, or Bonamossa’s tone out of a DBX movement.

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#45

Isn’t Bonamossa DBX though (or at least mixed escape)? I am not super familiar with his playing. My brief exposure (and a few things I have read on here) lead me to believe compared to EJ and Yngwie he has more of that rhythmic hard sound. I think it is because he alt picks and doesn’t do economy.

#46

Have any clips to compare? I often go for an EJ tone, and I use DBX.

#47

You can hear Andy alternate EJ lines here and it sounds great, but the picking sounds different.

About Bonamossa, I could have sworn he does economy some of the time but I don’t know for sure.