Is economy picking an essential technique

[Peterrr]

I use the following techniques : alternate picking,sweep picking and legato.But i recently discovered this technique.It is basically alternate and sweep picking combined.Do you guys think that i should learn this technique?

[Strum]

It depends man...It really isn't "essential" but can make things a little easier if you get used to it. Then again, getting used to it could take some time and practice. If you've got your alternate picking down well, then there's little to benefit. All a matter of preference.

[Crossroads]

I don’t think it’s essential. And for me life’s too short.

Personally I could spend half my life trying to rival Gilbert’s standard on alternate picking & sweep picking. And I’d still need much more time for other stuff, like Music for example lol!….ie for me, fast picking is by no means the “be all & end all”, its maybe 5% of what I need to do.

If I wanted to perfect another picking technique then personally I’d look seriously at Hybrid Picking in the style of Brett Garsed, ie playing with pick & fingers together.

Ian.

[elmariachi]

I never encountered economy picking for the first few years of playing and then i started playing stuff by eric johnson and found it invaluable in some of his stuff and then found ways to apply it in alot of other places to make things easier. I would say theres no harm in learning it if you really want to apply it in practical playing situations. Ive found it invaluable at certain times paricularly when playing say quintuplet like this:

d u d u u
|----------------|
|-4--2-----------|
|-------5--2-----|
|--------------5-|
|----------------|
|----------------|

As if you have play it twice it maintains the same right hand picking pattern whereas if you used strict alternate picking the second time you play it the picking pattern would change and you would begin on a upstroke which can be pretty confusing imo.

P.S sorry couldnt get the spacing of the picking pattern over the tab right but you get the picture! :p

[KenParkerRules]

Dave Martone is a monster player and amazing musician and he doesn't use economy picking. He alternates and sweeps.

I like alternating sweeping and once in a while economy. I've found that by learning economy picking it's a great trainer for keeping your picking nice and tight with the strings. Once you master it you'll find visuallizing the strings easier and the pick with stray a lot less.

At the end of the day I use it for picking practice but in practical use i find that I'm not very reliant on my pick as I have a very strong legato.