Economy pickers — please help me understand string switching on neighboring strings

[telejw]

I've been exercising my economy picking lately, and I'm curious how others handle string switching.

For those of you who economy pick: take a look at the attachment. Do you prefer the "A" pattern or the "B" pattern?

Do you tend to incorporate banjo/bluegrass style rolls, like in option A?

Or does upstroke always follow upstroke on descending string changes, as in option B?

[rodolfoguitarra]

I would choose A. The B requires lots of wrist rotations.

[Mick-7]

All down strokes for ascending phrases and up strokes for descending phrases is a sweep-picking strategy usually used for arpeggios and the like, and it's less efficient for the sort of two note per string phrases in your example. That's a long way of saying that your picking strategy in Example A is more natural and efficient.

[dasein]

The pure economy picking way to play this:

Start on an upstroke, then play downstroke, upstroke.

Repeat ad nauseum.

[Mick-7]

The pure economy picking way to play this:

Start on an upstroke, then play downstroke, upstroke.

Repeat ad nauseum.

There is no strict rule for economy picking, it depends on where you came from - what preceded the first C note. If it was the first note I played or first note after a rest, it's unlikely I'd play it with an up stroke. Whatever feels natural to you is best.

[BreckerFan]

The rules of economy picking just say that where you can use a sweep to avoid crossing strings, you should. Since there's no way to fully eliminate string crossing, economy picking doesn't dictate one or the other.

[pauln]

The rules of economy picking just say that where you can use a sweep to avoid crossing strings, you should. Since there's no way to fully eliminate string crossing, economy picking doesn't dictate one or the other.

You mean string switching rather than crossing; a sweep does cross strings, what it does is temporarily eliminate switching pick stroke direction.

Mick-7 is correct... what I like to think is it doesn't strictly depend on context, but it offers more ways to execute picking with respect to context as you learn to use it as a technique. Economy is typically a reference to sweeps (consecutive pick strokes in the same direction when string switching), but the distinctive mechanics is really in the geometry of consecutive pick strokes in different directions when string switching - and which of the two geometric "polarities" is favored based on potential or actual contexts of what was immediately before and about to be immediately after.

I call the polarities inward and outward. They comprise the sequence direction with respect to the individual pairs of strings - the details of a non-sweep string switch.
Notice that depending on string order, either inward or outward may be represented as either up down or down up, but a simple stoke code like UD or DU is physically different for inward vs outward. With both inward/outward, and ascending/descending with respect to strings (and notes independently*), economy offers a mechanical expansion of more ways to pick notes when not sweeping, and two ways to sweep.

* depending on the fingering availability of the same note on adjacent strings

[djg]

it does not matter. some econ pickers do it both ways (okazaki), others go econ up, alt down (benson). just pick one and stay with it for a few years.

but more importantly, why would you finger the triad this way instead of going for the full sweep?

[Christian Miller]

Number 1

As for what will work for you, depends on how you hold your pick and stuff

[James W]

TL;DR: economy pickers have to be great at regular alternate picking as well.

[BreckerFan]

You mean string switching rather than crossing; a sweep does cross strings, what it does is temporarily eliminate switching pick stroke direction.

No I mean crossing. Alternate picking a 3nps scale for example requires that you move the pick across a string before a pick stroke. But you can use sweeps to eliminate the crossing.

[pauln]

No I mean crossing. Alternate picking a 3nps scale for example requires that you move the pick across a string before a pick stroke. But you can use sweeps to eliminate the crossing.

I see what you mean; that sweep eliminates that extra unpicked "outward" that alternate would use to position for the next stroke by employing economy to use that string crossing as the pick stroke itself.

[SlowJoeJones]

Economy picking simply eliminates the necessity for picking on the ‘outside’ of a set of strings… but if you work with it for a while it becomes clear that the synergy created by consecutive strikes across strings in the same direction often make what it precludes worth the effort.