I have an economy picking question too...

[syan]

ok... like, from a mental point of view, I always figured alternate picking was the way to go. it seemed easier to not worry about it. now, I understand some guys are way into economy and I think someone I might be getting some instruction from is a proponent of the technique. Now, I agree with Eric's idea of "why not do both" ... Initially I was concerned that working on one would hurt/confuse the other. Do you guys think that is likely to happen? I've been playing the example's in Bizarro's article and I'm surprised how easily most of it is coming. I'm also thinking that maybe I don't need to worry about confusing them too much, since alternate picking is still inside the economy picking technique, if you know what I mean... Am I right? It's kind of like a control break in programming. Normally alternate pick, unless going from one string to another in the same direction as the last pick stroke.


Anyway... what would you do in this situation...?

E--------12--13--15--------12--13--15
B----14----------------14------------- repeating...

it's like, sixteenth notes or something. groups of four notes.

would you play the first one like: down, down, up, down? and then go to up, down, up, down for the rest of the repeats? because going down, down, up, down, back to the B string, down, down, up, down seems weird and kind of killing the point of the economy technique...

Kiko Loureirou is sick... just... sick.

I attached a powertab showing what I mean... The first measure is using alternate picking, the second is the way I think you'd incorporate economy picking, and the last is another way I could think of doing it that doesn't seem right to me.

Thanks a lot.

[gersdal]

Why not use tapping?

[shyboy12]

Kiko Loureirou is sick... just... sick.

Angra are awesome! Sorry can't help you with your problem though...

[Padawan]

Tapping would be the easy way to go, but if you wanna sound real aggressive and masculine you have to alternate pick :cool:

if you want to pick each note in your exercise, use alternate picking, if you used economy picking, you would have to start with an upstroke when repeating and you would be unable to economy pick, so it wouldn't make sense.

[syan]

thanks guys,

well, I *could* use tapping, but this is just an example of something that seems like a common enough occurance that I'd be tapping 50% of the time just to play a solo. Not to mention that tapping has an entire different tone about it too. I'm not so much approaching this as an exercise, but more like, if you're improvising and you economy pick and you go into something like this... because of your economy picking if you were going from like, a downstroke on the 14th fret on the G string to the beginning of this phrase, you'd start with a downstroke on the 14th fret B string, then down again on the 12th fret of the high E string, then up on the 13th fret, down on the 15th. But then if you want to repeat the last four notes, you're in a weird situation. So am I right in thinking that you would *go into* the phrase with economy picking and transition into alternate picking?

I do want to get into some of that type of tapping though. Guys like Alexi Laiho seem to do a lot of sweep arpeggios with a couple notes tapped at the end. I'd like to get better at just tapping a few notes here and there in the middle of licks and get back to picking stuff without messing up all the time. I always have trouble getting my hand from down by the bridge to the neck and back again fast enough :P

In the example sent, how do you manage to pick the first note everytime at high speed? Is it possible? Are you picking in the normal spot near the pickups, or on the neck near where you are tapping? I guess I also have to wonder why you would need to keep picking the first note to, if you're already tapping? Why wouldn't you just keep tapping?

[Padawan]

So am I right in thinking that you would *go into* the phrase with economy picking and transition into alternate picking?


exactly
Just keep practising the exercise I gave you and you will improve in speed and accuracy.
Economy picking is necessary if you wanna shred like Malmsteen, so don't worry to much about it. That doesn't mean you shouldn't start practising it, there are tons of exercises.

[gersdal]

Ok, tapping was maybe not a brilliant idea. The point is, however, what do you want to accheive? Would you like a lesson in economy picking, or would you like to analyse the phrase you're playing to see look for the easiest way of playing it? I don't see much benefit in sweeping parts of the phrase you mentioned. You'll do ok with alternate picking. It gives you nice and easy motions of the picking hand with inside string skippings.
Some licks calls for economy picking, but I'm not sure this one does. The key to economy picking, IMHO is that you analyse the lick to find the most economical way of playing it. For me, this lick it would call for alternate picking or tapping.
If you're looking for an exercise in economy picking though, I would not consider this the ideal, but it gives you a challange on sweeping the first two tones and a halfway outside string skipping in the end.

[Bizarro]

Syan, that lick isn't a good economy picking lick in that fingering. Either use inside or outside alternate picking.

If you want to use economy picking, I suggest changing the fingering to something that is very easy to do with economy picking:
E------------13--15-----------13--15
B----14--17----------14--17---------

I played this a couple times and it is easy after your fingers figure out where they need to go.

Good luck! :)

[gersdal]

I was just looking around for the economy picking article I remembered seeing here at IBM: http://www.ibreathemusic.com/article/130 and found out that it was written by Bizarro.. so you're obviously in good hands now, and I'll just say nothing more about economy picking :o

[syan]

Well, I see what you mean in terms of it not being well suited to economy picking, but I guess what I mean is, if you're picking style is economy picking, occasionally you will find a phrase that starts off with one picking pattern, but, if you keep a strict economy picking pattern, will change. Sometimes what it will change to might be an alternate picking pattern that will repeat forever without changing. The only other alternative I see that doesn't involve rearranging everything you play to fit nice and neat for your picking hand is to break the economy picking pattern at one point so that you can use it for the rest of the phrase.

Like, look at measure one in this powertab. That's ok to play it that way, right? But in the next two measures I'm showing if you were repeating it with strict economy picking. As you can see, the first time you play this arpeggio you start the first note with a downstroke, but unless you interrupt the pattern, you would start it on an upstroke every time after that. Now I know some people interrupt the pattern on arpeggios like this (starting each arpeggio with a downstroke everytime), but that's ok because you can memorize arpeggio patterns pretty easily. If it's not something you've rehearsed it might be tough to know when and where to break it, on the fly.

I'm not concerned about planned things. Because obviously you can plan everything out to be as easy or difficult as you like. I'm concerned about how to approach things when you're just improvising ideas that might not have occurred in practice.

Basically, if your goal is to, whenever you go from one string to another to keep the pick moving in the same direction how do you decide when not to do that? I would think the easiest way would be to to just train yourself to economy pick whenever the opportunity presents itself and just automatically alternate pick whenever you can't economy pick something. Like, instead of trying to look ahead and say, "well, I have to interrupt my pattern here, or change what strings I'm playing on, or I'm going to be in trouble" I think it might be better to just do the mini-sweeps whenever you can and alternate pick when you have to. Do you know what I mean?

What do you guys think?

[syan]

I forgot the attachment for my last post... so here it is.

[Bizarro]

That example is perfect. You should only economy pick where it makes sense, and the first time it doesn't make sense to do it, but if you repeat it like in your example, you have a great opportunity to economize.

There isn't a "rule" that you have to pick something the same way every time, so your method is entirely valid.

I found that after many years of economy and alternate picking (decades...), I never think about how I'm going to pick something. I have put in enough practice time to not worry about. I think that is where you are going with this, and it looks like you are on the right track. :)

A sidenote: Never stop practicing alternate picking. Economy and alternate picking are "the same" if you never switch strings!:)

[syan]

hey all,

I put a lot of thought into it, and read around and I think I found the solution for me. Basically, I want a style of economy picking that resolves itself. In other words, I want to have simple rules to follow that will take care of the right hand - when I need to alternate pick, I want that to happen by itself, when I can economy pick, I want that to happen without any thought.

I saw where Jimmy Bruno has a simple rule for economy picking. Basically, if you are going down a string (ex. G string to B string) always use a downstroke. If you are going up a string (ex. D string to A string) always use an upstroke. It sounds really simple, so I took a closer look at it to see if it would work and why. As far as I can see it works perfectly. Basically, it turns everything into either inside picking or a sweep. Things that can't be swept turn into alternate picking with the inside picking motion. Things that can be swept are swept. And all you have to do is remember down for down and up for up. I bet after you do this for a few weeks you don't even have to think about it anymore.

Actually, this seems like it might be even simpler than alternate picking in some ways, since it's really *all* inside picking in a way. I mean, if you're sweeping from the G string to the B string, that's not outside picking, so it's gotta be inside picking, right? Or sorta-inside at least. So really, the right hand only has to learn the inside picking feel, as opposed to inside and outside.

I still think alternate picking is fine. I think it probably is better in terms of a self-enforcing rhythmic feel and I'm sure there are other things that it's better for too. But I thought I'd pass on my recent thoughts on economy picking, since I've seen so often where people say it requires so much thought to use and that was always a huge turn-off for me.

Thanks for all of your help.