Alternate picking

M1ck

Anyone offer any help with alternate picking? I’ve had a look through previous threads and Troy Grady seems to be ‘the man’ but maybe that’s too deep for me and it certainly isn’t cheap with a recurring subscription. 

I don’t know anyone with enough experience or knowledge to ask, those I do know will say ‘I just do it like this’ whether it’s right or wrong. 

I’ve seen a Fundamental Changes book by Chris Brooks and was wondering if anyone had used it or is there something better? And of course with a book it’s a one off purchase that I can dip in and out of without worrying about subscriptions. 

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated 

DefaultM

Getting the Troy Grady membership for one month and going through the Pickslanting Primer should be enough to start with.

You don’t need to keep paying every month if you remember the concepts from that. You’ll be able to see for example 6 notes a string across all strings and know you need to slant your pick downwards. 

digitalkettle

An easier ‘in’ might be to check out some of Ben Eller’s stuff on Youtube (he is a CtC believer)

DefaultM

I’ve just looked and I’m sure it wasn’t $35 a month when I was on there.
It seems to have loads of interviews with players showing their technique now. When I was on it there was a few with people like Steve Morse and I didn’t find them particularly useful over the original lessons (Primer/Volcano/Cascade/Anti-Gravity).

stratman3142

It's worth checking out some Andy Wood Youtube tutorials. I also like the way his picking looks and sounds.

I subscribed to Troy Grady for a while. I think you can purchase specific packages.

I've got the Fundamental Changes book on alternate picking by Chris Brooks, which is great.

These things have improved my picking, but it's still only fit for purpose for the music I play, so I'm no expert. All of the above have got, what I would call, a 'God like' picking technique.

fastonebaz

Check out Chris Brookes too, amzn
Picking technique

Lewy

The Troy Grady stuff is amazing but....I think a lot of people miss his fundamental point, which is that there will be a movement that works for you and enables you to pick quickly, BUT you have to discover that through experimentation and just seeing what that movement is. You can't go "ooh, I like Eric Johnson, I'm going to become a downward pickslanter who uses economy picking when I have to leave strings on a downstroke" because that movement may not be the one that your anatomy or brain favours. Trouble is, he can do ALL of them as his demos show, making CtC members think they can do the same and that any of the picking approaches should be attainable for them. But he's a freak. None of the people he interviews/studies can use all the approaches, most of them only use one.

For what it's worth, the things that have led to any breakthroughs I've had on alternative picking have come from:

- reducing pick depth
- stopping separating legato lines and alt picked lines in my mind. I think about everything as being a legato lick first and foremost, and then all I'm doing is "painting" attack onto the notes with my right hand. Works for me, not saying it would work for anyone else
- don't practice slowly....instead shred in slow motion. When you're learning a line, you obviously do have to do that slowly. But make sure you are using the exacct same picking motion that you use when picking fast, just slowed down. No point playing slowly with lavish sweeping wrist movements...that will inevitable fall apart when you try and speed up

And by far the most important thing has been going for lessons with an arch shredder and learning all the other stuff you have to organise to enable you to play quickly - like being able to navigate the fretboard and visualise notes as quickly as you want to be able to play them. He's forever telling me "don't do that because you won't have time!"

Barney

What helped my alternate picking a lot was seeing which direction was the weakest and working on that for a while ...for me and most people it was the upstroke ..,.easy way is just set the metronome and reach the limit on downstroke only then see iff you can match it on upstroke. Iff you can't just work on upstroke until you can match the downstroke 

Another thing I think is your fretting hand needs to sound the notes anyways whether picked or not so a legato type of thing then introduce the pick 

A really good book I have found is Right hand development for Jazz guitar by Reinhardt hoover ...it's out of print now I think but did notice some free downloads somewhere on the internet ....it uses all picking variations

M1ck

Thanks everyone for the advice, plenty to go on there - I did look up Chris Brooks not knowing he had a you pube channel (Doh who doesn’t these days) he makes it look effortless. At 63 yo I’m not ’that’  interested in speed picking but I am interested in being more fluid and confident. At present I feel like I lack good coordination and I see he does a book on that too. 

Catthan

Also worth keeping in mind that whatever the picking style, a lot of picking problems are actually fretting and lack of coordination problems. lazy/ flat/ barred 1st finger is a big one for me. 

In my own experience I've found that to pick well across the neck in either direction (vert/ hor) my left hand needs to be as dexterous as my picking hand. so whenever I learn to pick something new, I find that focusing on coordination rather than picking hand mechanics is more fruitful. 

prowla

Well, I had to look up what "alternate picking" is; I thought it was just normal, but now I know.

Revolutions

prowla said:

Well, I had to look up what "alternate picking" is; I thought it was just normal, but now I know.

Ha, same! I read this the other day & assumed it some super-technical shred/jazz way of playing differently.

Brad

M1ck said:

Thanks everyone for the advice, plenty to go on there - I did look up Chris Brooks not knowing he had a you pube channel (Doh who doesn’t these days) he makes it look effortless. At 63 yo I’m not ’that’  interested in speed picking but I am interested in being more fluid and confident. At present I feel like I lack good coordination and I see he does a book on that too. 

If that's the case interval studies are your best friend.

Take a scale shape of your choice. If you can alternate pick 3rds, 4ths, 5ths, 6ths and 7ths ascending, descending, alternating ascending/descending and descending/ascending the control in your picking will vastly improve.

Not only that, it's good for the left/right hand coordination and the brain too!

M1ck

Cheers Brad, just made a start on the Chris Brooks speed & coordination book and discovered my timing is very sloppy too, looks like I’ve got a bit to do, I’m only a noodler and mostly play on my own so it’s inevitable (I think) that I’ll find holes in what I already know and do. I’ll have a look at intervals as suggested and see how that goes

Brad

M1ck said:

Cheers Brad, just made a start on the Chris Brooks speed & coordination book and discovered my timing is very sloppy too, looks like I’ve got a bit to do, I’m only a noodler and mostly play on my own so it’s inevitable (I think) that I’ll find holes in what I already know and do. I’ll have a look at intervals as suggested and see how that goes

No probs. I’m certainly not going to dissuade you from checking out any particular books and my alternate picking speed leaves a lot to be desired. But that’s not my bag…

If your timing is sloppy, one thing I’d certainly recommend, regardless of what book or concepts you’re working on is to use a metronome. But you want to use it in a way that creates space for you to fall into. 

If you have an exercise that might be say, 8th notes (quavers) at 120bpm. Take that exercise at the same tempo, but halve the click to 60bpm and after a while, halve that again to 30bpm. Doing so stops you using the constant clicks at 120bpm as a crutch. The space at 60bpm, and then 30bpm (and 15bpm!) is really difficult to adjust to at first, but will massively improve your timing. 

That is just one of many ways of using the humble metronome and as a very wise person once said to me, “Good time, takes time”. 

M1ck

Cheers @Brad ;A metronome is what highlighted my timing ‘issue’ - I’ll plug away at it I guess the worse thing that can happen is I’ll get better! 

DLM

Some great advice in this thread already! I've been following Troy Grady since he first popped up decades ago and totally understand anyone who says "my brain's not big enough for this!" when they look at his stuff.

Grady's starting point is always "post a video of you doing your fastest (smooth/consistent) tremolo on one string", so yeah, do that.

Lewy said:
And by far the most important thing has been going for lessons with an arch shredder

Would you care to drop the name?

I was far too timid with fast picking, scared to do it wrong so for now my contribution to this thread for now will be to look at Ben Higgins' YT encouragement videos where he says we should just go for it. I eventually did so out of anger and frustration years before I heard Higgy telling us to, and I wish I'd done that earlier, but years before that I'd once screwed my right wrist up for months trying to be Bernd Steidl* in a day, so don't go *too* bonkers...

*My second-hand CD dealer of choice at the time sold me his debut CD with the words "here's some headcase brutalising a uke with a plectrum!" It was love at first mutola for me, pity Steidl's disappeared.

Lewy

DLM said:

Lewy said:
And by far the most important thing has been going for lessons with an arch shredder

Would you care to drop the name?

Paul Clark aka Clarky

DLM

Fantastic! Miss him around here and always loved his playing. \m/  

Axe2Grind

M1ck said:

Anyone offer any help with alternate picking? I’ve had a look through previous threads and Troy Grady seems to be ‘the man’ but maybe that’s too deep for me and it certainly isn’t cheap with a recurring subscription. 

I don’t know anyone with enough experience or knowledge to ask, those I do know will say ‘I just do it like this’ whether it’s right or wrong. 

I’ve seen a Fundamental Changes book by Chris Brooks and was wondering if anyone had used it or is there something better? And of course with a book it’s a one off purchase that I can dip in and out of without worrying about subscriptions. 

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated 

I'm pretty sure you can already alternate pick pretty, you're really asking how to play fast alternate picking.
Its really just about being able to play fast on one string first and in time. Get that tremolo picking action going to a metronome or drum loop and play at high bpm's and make sure you feel comfortable doing this at high speed. Don't think about moving on until you have this rigidly down, then move on to three notes on a single string, then move on to three notes per string across two strings going back and forth until you have that down. It you spend a few minutes a day doing this or however long you want to put into it, you will get to where you want to be quicker than you think.

A lot of players dismiss the above approach but its the only way without spending years on it. This is coming from a keyboardist, not a guitarist, guitar is my 2nd instrument. If I can do it (in 1 month) then you can do it no problem at all. 

GoFish

M1ck said:

Thanks everyone for the advice, plenty to go on there - I did look up Chris Brooks not knowing he had a you pube channel (Doh who doesn’t these days) he makes it look effortless.....

I know it's not helpful and I'm a child who should not throw stones at glass houses, but that is a superb typo. I appreciate your sacrifice.