Is there a crosspicking primer comming?
Im practicing DWPS and really digging this approach, but i want to expand it with some crosspicking.
Isn’t the crosspicking the same as 2WPS?
Where do i start?
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Hey dude this is a great question that has popped up a few times recently. Try running a search (upper right corner of your window) and take a look at some of the stuff that’s been talked about. Troy’s Crosspicking thread is full of great stuff, for example.
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I looked at Troys Crospicking critique post, its a good read, but it doesnt provide much info on where to start and how to practice it.
Id love to see these things Troy is playing transcribed as exercises.
Check out this thread, in it I link to an E-book of classical pieces that are basically complete crosspicking etudes. Anything you might play as a 1 note per string line could be a Crosspicking movement really. Maybe some 3-string arpeggios might be a good place to start, such the instrumental Organ/Guitar duet between Blackmore and Lord during the solo section of Burn by Deep Purple?
Hi @pauliusmm.
In a crosspicking system, the paths of the pickstrokes (both upstrokes and downstrokes) are curved, so that the pick enters and exits the plane of the strings on every pickstroke. These curved trajectories are what ensure effective crosspicking.
In a 2-way pickslanting system, there is negligible curvature to the path of the pickstrokes, so that in each slant, one pickstroke enters the plane of the strings, and the other pickstroke escapes.
It seems the difficulty most have with crosspicking is to ensure that the same muscles are not used to escape the strings (which would be stringhopping). The downstrokes and upstrokes must use antagonistic muscle pairs to be efficient.
It is possible to achieve both crosspicking and 2-way pickslanting from the same position.
It is also possible to “mimic” a 2-way pickslanting by using small, curved pickstrokes while playing on a single string and exaggerating the movement to move to another string. @hamsterman has mentioned this in several posts on crosspicking.
I have created a detailed thread about the different “modes” of picking in my own playing:
I feel I have my greatest capability for crosspicking (and strict alternate picking in general) in what I called “Mode 1.”
For demonstration, this is a clip of me using this picking mode to crosspick a 3 string arpeggio shape:
Also, here are a few “outside Gilberts” using the same basic movements.
For repertoire, I would suggest Steve Morse’s Tumeni Notes.
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I can just tell you how I started… it may not work for everyone though… but I’ll put it out there.
I started over a year ago, and I started by just tremolo picking… trying to escape both strings… so basically playing beyond the strings on both ends. This is good… because you immediately know if you are doing it wrong… because you’ll here another note played. I then just kept piling on different mechanics… starting from the forearm… and moving down. Initially… I think its ok to ‘peck’ a little… but ultimately… you have to smoothen it out to an arch… otherwise… the speed will be limited.
That took a good month or so… then I slowly started trying to move it around (using the elbow). That’s where it got really hard. The reason is that you will be fighting a lot of your old habits here… it takes a while… but relearning the tracking is critical. When I couldnt do the one-note-per-string tracking… I spent time doing 3 notes… then 2 notes (starting with and up and a down)… to get the feel of the transfer. Now Im mostly just trying one-note-per-string stuff. I’m still not up to speed with the one-note-per-string stuff… but Im making progress every week. My playing overall has improved tremendously though.
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One thing that I think is a great practice routine is a ‘modified’ gilbert…
You play the pattern… then you ascend by playing 3 notes and going to the next string… and starting the pattern over again… but this time (because of the additional 3 motes)… it will be an ‘inside pick’… and you just keep continuing it to the high ‘e’ string… .then do the same thing descending… Its a really fluid sound… and its a good way to get your feet wet with outside and inside picking. I guess it doesn’t require cross-picking… but its a neat tool.
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I think i understand the movement when changing strings. its a kinda swinging motion.
Does this movement change if there are more notes on one string vs when changing strings?
Idealy… it changes as ‘little as possible’. So if you are doing the motion… it should feel roughly the same for tremoloing as it does for arpegios. But your going to find that tough… especially in the beginning.
My motions are slightly adjusted when I move from string to string… its very tiny… but its there… basically… I try to use the inertia from my picking motion to sorta… help my elbow stop and start. This is different for outside vs. inside picking.
I still have a weakness with outside picking ascending… because I neglected it for years… So I’ve had to spend hours and hours trying to get that up to speed.
Ultimately… you can get to a point where you just basically ‘turn on the picking’… .like a chainsaw… and you will hit almost anything you put your finger on (within reason). But again… there’s a steep learning curve to get to that point.
You are correct, we don’t have tutorial material on this yet. The main issue is we’re still sorting out how these methods work and how we should teach them, and we really don’t want to dump a lot of half-baked information on you.
Complicating this is that there are multiple ways to do this, some of which are obvious, and “look like pickslanting”, because the movements are similar. Then there are other approaches which don’t involve any obvious turning movements of the arm at all. This second category is really easy to do, and also really easy to do wrong, with stringhopping. That’s why just practicing “exercises” with arpeggios in them won’t really do anything if the movement itself is not correct — again, especially in this second category of movements.
We’ll definitely put some stuff together when we get our thoughts together on this topic, but we’re still sorting it out.
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Sorta along these lines (for the first category). I used 2wps mechanics to get me to the X-picking form. Specifically the mechanics for changing from one slant to another… those kinda pushed me in the right direction.
Molly Tuttle has a great little introduction to cross picking lesson here:
There’s a video - unfortunately no close ups of her picking hand but of course CTC has an interview with her with close ups - and some exercises in basic 3 string “rolls”. The lesson finishes with a couple of short songs that use the technique.
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Lets take a bebop tune like Anthropology.
If i understand correctly Crosspicking uses strict alternate picking.
So there are two ways to play each phrase - starting on an upstroke and starting on the downstroke.
Should i be able to pick it both ways? Or should the downstrokes match the downbeats for bebop tunes?
Its kinda hard to choose which way to start a phrase: on the doenstroke or on the upstroke.
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I try to be comfortable beginning on either a downstroke or an upstroke, to be able to accent either pickstroke and to play either pickstroke on the downbeats.
I don’t think it’s always a realistic goal, and there are many pieces I play where I have not achieved this to my satisfaction.
I think it is crucial to practice crosspicking in straight and swing feel also.
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If you’re crosspicking then I don’t think it will make a difference on the technical front however musically you might find you have a natural preference for one or the other depending on the part you’re playing,
In 8th/16th/32nd note sections I like to play downstrokes on downbeats because it generally feels more musical to me. I’m currently trying to learn Andy Wood’s “ShrednecK” (albeit no where near his speed) and the intro has a sequence of rolls that mix 8th and 16th notes and while most of it is cross-picking there are cases where it feels more natural to hit two down strokes in succession where they fall on the 8th notes and kind of almost “air-stroke” the in between upstrokes to maintain the 16th note feel. For me that gives a more musically rhythmical feel to the picking.
On the other hand a succession of triplet rolls feels more natural for me to go with a strict alternative approach but that means the start of each triplet alternatives between down and up strokes
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There is a Pat Metheny book called Guitar Etudes and it is full of exercises, some of which have a fair amount of crosspicking in them. You can check out a sample of the book on Amazon.
There is a video of Pat warming up and playing some exercises:
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Have we, as a community, kind of hijacked what is and isn’t cross picking? I understood it to be the adaptation of banjo and mandolin rolls (mostly 3 string) for guitar, but it seems like at present there’s a mechanical requirement/disclaimer being applied that I’m yet to get my head around.
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Yeah… agree with this. I kinda wish we would use another term that to describe the pick motion, rather than the type of music… but I think its too late… everyone seems to be using this term now. But maybe Troy has something up his sleeve… he may have some new terms for the different approaches here… I vote for the ‘Troy-picking’
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Then again… I think ‘Hamsterpicking’’ has a nice ring to it.
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Yes I somewhat agree as well because we are tending to talk about this as being an alternate picking technique but some “cross pickers” are not strictly alternate picking. They may pick a three note pattern using down-down-up strokes or down-up-up strokes depending on what strings they are moving between.
Having said that players that are extremely competent in traditional crosspicking (like Andy Wood) are taking the same technique and applying it to “non-standard” patterns across more than 3 strings creating interesting arpeggios or patterns that mix multiple strings with any combination of notes per string whilst maintaining a strict alternate picking approach.
Coining a new term makes sense. “Hamsterpicking” has an original ring to it or maybe “shrednecking”? 
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