Any tips on alternate picking inside two strings?

Lewy

So for example, downstroke on 3rd string, upstroke on 4th string...multiple times at speed.

The context is acoustic flatpicking so it's not simply a case of switching things up and playing the 3rd with an upstroke and  the 4th with a downstroke as that will break the feel. I'm also limited in terms of how lightly I can play because I need to generate acoustic volume and move 13-56 strings.

I'm all good with concepts like "start slow and building up gradually", "use a metronome", "aim for evenness" etc. it's a given that they will apply here too.

I'm thinking more of any mechanical, pick angle type tips .... anything you rock johnnies do or think about that I can nick and adapt to bluegrass?

Any thoughts welcome!

LC

bingefeller

This answers everything:




Assuming you are holding your pick in the normal fashion, you will need to use pickslanting to get over the strings at speed after the upstroke on the 4th string you need to change your picking angle.   It really depends if you're a downward pickslanter or an upwards pick slanter to begin with.  Tell me that and I can tell you what to do next.

DLM

Also, for bluegrass, this is a must-see from the same YouTube guy!

Lewy

Thanks both...that is some really interesting stuff....I kind of skim watched through the more "narrative" sections but think I got the gist.

I definitely gravitate naturally towards downward pick slanting, I guess because of the heavy emphasis on the rest stroke in flatpicking (especially bluegrass rhythm playing) and also the style gets is pulse from the downbeat being played with a downstoke, so it's "downstroke heavy" and a downward pick slant gets the best acoustic downstroke tone. It didn't occur to me to neutralise  or even reverse it for certain moves..... It doesn't present a problem at moderate bluegrass tempos (say, 16th notes at 90 - 110 bpm) but it's when things get faster that I'm hitting glitches.

Thinking about how and what I play when I'm playing single note stuff, I'd say 85% of it involves changing string after 1 or 2 notes. Very rarely would I play 3 notes on a string. So that neutral positioning that Carl Miner uses would probably be worth cultivating.

Appreciate you pointing me to this info!

DLM

Grady goes into more detail on that style of picking (the music played is rather different, but the pick mechanics are very similar) in this video:

bingefeller

Lewy said:

Thanks both...that is some really interesting stuff....I kind of skim watched through the more "narrative" sections but think I got the gist.

I definitely gravitate naturally towards downward pick slanting, I guess because of the heavy emphasis on the rest stroke in flatpicking (especially bluegrass rhythm playing) and also the style gets is pulse from the downbeat being played with a downstoke, so it's "downstroke heavy" and a downward pick slant gets the best acoustic downstroke tone. It didn't occur to me to neutralise  or even reverse it for certain moves..... It doesn't present a problem at moderate bluegrass tempos (say, 16th notes at 90 - 110 bpm) but it's when things get faster that I'm hitting glitches.

Thinking about how and what I play when I'm playing single note stuff, I'd say 85% of it involves changing string after 1 or 2 notes. Very rarely would I play 3 notes on a string. So that neutral positioning that Carl Miner uses would probably be worth cultivating.

Appreciate you pointing me to this info!

I find the curved strokes to be quite tricky to do, but it might be easier on an acoustic, which I haven't tried.  

OK, so you're a downward pick slanter and you want to play a downstroke on the G and upstroke on the D, right?

The easiest way, and the way all the fast pickers tend to do this, is by rotating your pick after the down stroke to an upward pick slanting position and hitting the upstroke on the D with an upward pick slanting upstroke!  After that upstroke on the D you're gonna want to rotate your pick to be downward slanting again for the downstroke.

The pattern is - 

Downstroke - rotate pick up
Upstroke - rotate pick down

It's the rotation of the pick that will help you get over the strings.

However, sometimes players don't rotate the pick at all and use a technique which Troy Grady calls swiping.  Troy analyses an Al Di Meola lick in which he is hitting an open string because he isn't bothering to change his pick slant.  

In your case, if you wanted to swipe, you would choose a single way to angle your pick (up or down) and hit the downstroke on the G string and when dragging the pick to hitting the upstroke on the D the pick may graze the G string and sound it.  It's just a case of muting the G string so you don't really hear it, although there will be a bit of noise from it.  

Lewy

bingefeller said:

OK, so you're a downward pick slanter and you want to play a downstroke on the G and upstroke on the D, right?

Based on these videos and a close review of what I'm doing, I'm a downward pick slanter who uses curved strokes (what he calls cross picking) most of the time ... so a) I don't really take advantage of the downward slant by keeping the pick in the strings when I can and b) I'm reducing the efficiency of the cross picking because of the slant. Worst of both worlds!

This helps me understand the difficulty I'm having which is manifesting itself in passages where I have to play a big downstroke on the G, embellish with a quick upstroke on the D, and then hit another big downstroke on the G. What happens is that when I try at tempo I either "swing and miss" at the upstroke or more bizarrely seem to get stuck on the string....it's like the pick becomes magnetically stuck to the D string and just stays there, stalling the flow. 

If I hit the upstroke with an upward slant, then I'm picking into the strings...reducing the chance of missing and also the slant will mean the pick can't get "hung up" on the string. 

Then as you say, I'll need to rotate again for the downstroke back on the G. 

Blimey...there's quite a lot going on there.......

bingefeller

Lewy said:

bingefeller said:

OK, so you're a downward pick slanter and you want to play a downstroke on the G and upstroke on the D, right?

Based on these videos and a close review of what I'm doing, I'm a downward pick slanter who uses curved strokes (what he calls cross picking) most of the time ... so a) I don't really take advantage of the downward slant by keeping the pick in the strings when I can and b) I'm reducing the efficiency of the cross picking because of the slant. Worst of both worlds!

This helps me understand the difficulty I'm having which is manifesting itself in passages where I have to play a big downstroke on the G, embellish with a quick upstroke on the D, and then hit another big downstroke on the G. What happens is that when I try at tempo I either "swing and miss" at the upstroke or more bizarrely seem to get stuck on the string....it's like the pick becomes magnetically stuck to the D string and just stays there, stalling the flow. 

If I hit the upstroke with an upward slant, then I'm picking into the strings...reducing the chance of missing and also the slant will mean the pick can't get "hung up" on the string. 

Then as you say, I'll need to rotate again for the downstroke back on the G. 

Blimey...there's quite a lot going on there.......

Most crosspickers tend to hold the pick parallel to the strings as this works better with the curve.  You could try _not_ putting any slant on your pick and trying to maintain your natural picking curve.  

You try starting the lick on an upstroke and see if that works better.  

Lewy

bingefeller said:

Most crosspickers tend to hold the pick parallel to the strings as this works better with the curve.  You could try _not_ putting any slant on your pick and trying to maintain your natural picking curve.  

You try starting the lick on an upstroke and see if that works better.  

Yep, I'll try flattening out the slant in the first instance and take it from there.

The starting on an upstroke is a no no for me....gotta be a downstroke on a downbeat for the right feel with bluegrass/flatpicking. There are odd exceptions (Tony Rice broke the rule a lot), but not in the case of the pieces that have got me working on this glitch.

Thanks again for the input.

paul_c2

Not much to add but bingefeller's post (the 2nd post in the thread) pretty much answered everything. I initially thought (before watching it) "urgh.....30 mins of video to watch" but its well produced and very informative - I'll be checking out that Youtuber's other stuff definitely.

As an aside, I've been playing about a month (but played bass guitar for ages - with fingers not picking) so I'm new to picking too, I looked at my picking style and it seems that I'm naturally/instinctively rotating my hand to angle the pick so as to transit cleanly to the next string as relevant, during up-down picking. If I speed up and up, my left hand technique goes awry before my right hand, which was a surprise given 1) the 30 years bass playing and 2) that I'm left handed - when I played drums (right handed) it was clear that my left hand was better at stuff (if that makes sense).

bingefeller

I guess I'd pick it like this:

DLM

@bingefeller Are you holding your pick between thumb and second finger like IA Eklundh and EVH?

bingefeller

DLM said:

@bingefeller Are you holding your pick between thumb and second finger like IA Eklundh and EVH?

@DLM Yeah.... But I hold it backwards, like George Benson / Bruce Bouillet / Neal Schon , as far as I know those guys mentioned hold the pick in a strange way, but don't angle it backwards-EVH definitely doesn't angle his pick backwards.

mattias does something strange with his picking when he goes into a fast run, like he uses a completely different angle or changes grip or something.  I haven't been able to work it out yet.  

musteatbrain

Can we just make a sticky thread that says the answer to any picking question is Troy Grady?

bingefeller

musteatbrain said:

Can we just make a sticky thread that says the answer to any picking question is Troy Grady?

You have to buy some of Troy's material to get deeper into it do, if someone doesn't want to do that, here is the best place I reckon.