Joe Pass's Picking Technique

[MiniMerckx.22]

Did he actually say " bebop master Yngve Malmsteen" without so much as smirking or micro winking an eye? Dude is totally wayyy out of my league ?

[Christian Miller]

Did he actually say " bebop master Yngve Malmsteen" without so much as smirking or micro winking an eye? Dude is totally wayyy out of my league ?

If you gotta telegraph sarcasm it isn’t really sarcasm


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[starjasmine]

One thing I’ve got from Tory recently is that USX alternate picking is possible with compound movements, and that’s something I’m semi working on at the moment. In this case you have a workable pathway from USX into a more flexible style of picking and that’s pretty cool. So thanks TG for that.

Sounds interesting. Would you please post a link to the vid where he talks about this? Thanks!

[Christian Miller]

Sounds interesting. Would you please post a link to the vid where he talks about this? Thanks!

Oh, now you are asking... I think it's in the stuff about Andy Wood and Olli Sokelli... both are USX pickers who alternate a lot..

[James W]

Oh, now you are asking... I think it's in the stuff about Andy Wood and Olli Sokelli... both are USX pickers who alternate a lot..

Olli is actually DBX, if I'm not mistaken.

[m_d]

I've watched most of his videos and corresponded with the man himself. I've been looking Troy's stuff for about 15 years.


It's not MY way of explaining it. It's the way this technique is taught.

I also think he's missing some details.



I like Troy. I find his work interesting.

I don't think he's quite right about this specific thing.

I don't see that as a challenge to his honour or whatever. If one feels the need to defend someone when I disagree with them on a specific point, or bring in an appeal to authority, this would be cultish behaviour.



Don't put words in my mouth. I enjoy all sorts of guitar players, including rock players. I think being an electric player gives you a certain perspective though and will encourage you to think about certain things. This technique derives from acoustic guitar.

And vice versa, converting from acoustic to electric is also a huge shift. You can pay a heavy strung guitar like an acoustic through a clean amp - which is what I think Joe is doing here - and that feels totally different to playing gauge 11 strings or lighter with drive. It's just a different thing. I do both.



What does that mean? He can play fast so therefore he doesn't need to understand other aspects of music? You could put him on a high level NYC standards gig and he'd be all over it because of his technical mastery? Seriously?

I would tend to say that this is not the case. I can't imagine Troy himself would make that claim.

Anyway, look, Troy's a nerd like I am. If his thing was baroque counterpoint, he'd totally go down that rabbit hole. Don't try to tell me he wouldn't lol.


The Best? In what sense?

At making YouTube videos about picking? Sure! He can demonstrate all those things with aplomb, too.

As he'd tell you - he's not a performing musician. That video he put out about having to perform live on a Dweezil gig was a case in point. I found it surreal that anyone would think about the mechanics of playing a short solo like that, so it was a very interesting watch from that perspective. So different to the way most musicians look at things.

He's someone who is specifically interested in the mechanics of guitar playing and makes YouTube videos about it. I would also expect he would say that he is on the path towards learning how to teach this. Just a hunch I get from his videos. He's looking for a way to go from the objective fact to actual teaching. He's trying to find a way of teaching high level pick technique to everyone. I think that's a great cause - we do need more input into technical pedagogy, especially in alternate picking.

OTOH I'm not his findings are always directly helpful to the student - they can cause people to develop new hang ups IMO. Technique is REALLY psychological. And as Troy himself would tell you there's a lot of stuff that is simply outside the realm of conscious control. So for me that takes it back to the wisdom of the way I learned this style of picking. Rest stroke picking is already taught. By people who can play at an incredibly high level. Thousands of people worldwide have mastered it.

And as I say - I think he has it a bit wrong - or at least he is missing some nuance.

Look I don't understand what your beef is with Troy. He's not a rival, nor a threat to your business, I don't see the issue. Nor do I understand your insistence on "how things are taught" being obvious to everybody, as if such material had existed before and been taught clearly all along. It's simply not true. I admit may have missed material that was widely available online, but I'm usually pretty thorough when looking for information. You have a point that material about GJ technique specifically may not be complete. I realize that now as I'm looking to master that style. I find it harder than the other ones. It's all categorized under the umbrella of wrist/forerarm motions along with rock players using a mechanically similar technique. That was Troy's primary technique as well (on electric). There's the long Joscho interview with a lot of footage but I haven't had the courage to dissect it yet. l find it quite intimidating.

That aside, and most important, as any mature/experienced learner knows, it is ultimately the student that does the learning. Troy, or you or anybody, isn't going to teach me, ultimately it will be me teaching myself. I did think the video you posted a couple days ago was helpful. To me it's not any more helpful, or more complete than any other video, but there's certainly a couple of things I will keep in mind. Another couple of things are not consistent with what's said elsewhere. Agin what you posted was valuable - but what makes you think it's inherently more valuable to the student than what Troy posted? Ultimately the learner makes the judgement as to what works for them, through trial and error and internalizing, until everything gels together and the technique becomes one's own. That said, come on - there's an insane amount of valuable tips and insights about picking in Troy's material, and quite a few easy takeaways. It certainly changed my guitar life. Typically when I was learning to play tennis well, I had a notebook where I collected tips from many sources - lessons, books, magazines, personal observations from watching games. Only I could to put in the work and the hours on the court to make it gel, and one day everything clicked together. Magic! That kind of method isn't limited to learning technique of course.

I got a very different impression from the Dweezil clip. Give that guy a few weeks performing regularly, he would be killing it. It was VERY obvious. The end of his brief time on stage was much better than the beginning. The world could use more non-performing musicians of that caliber. A high level NYC standards gig would be intimidating to anybody, I don't understand what you're getting at here. That's not his turf anyway. Though if Troy ever had a mind to learn jazz at a high level - it could be really interesting to see.

How do we define performance anyway? There was an example last year of a famous jazz YouTube teacher everybody seems to revere, who I won't name, who was asked to actually perform, by a guy doing one of those chain solo montages with several players blowing over the same progression. The jazz teacher had all the time to prepare but couldn't bring himself to play a decent chorus, even rehearsed. Unbelievable, for a guy lecturing audiences week after week about the genius of bebop, Joe Pass, Barry Harris and what not. THAT is blowing smoke up people's ass. I'll bet anything he can't play the Joe Pass chorus that Troy performed. But he got a "pass" somehow, and every time people ask about jazz guitar channels to learn from, his name still gets inevitably mentioned. Even though he doesn't swing, which I already knew, and can't improvise, which took me by total surprise. More people should be directed to YOUR channel for instance. By contrast, I've always seen Troy perform and respect his audience, even just a YouTube audience; there isn't a single instance that I know of when he didn't, over more than a decade. That puts him, at the minimum, in the "good musician" category in my book. I don't see someone "specifically interested in the mechanics of guitar playing", but someone genuinely interested in playing and sharing music. IMHO and all that.

[starjasmine]

Oh, now you are asking... I think it's in the stuff about Andy Wood and Olli Sokelli... both are USX pickers who alternate a lot..

Now I'm asking? Why would you say that? Did I offend you?

[dasein]

I first learned about rest-stroke picking from players who were, for lack of a better term, Benson acolytes. I only had two instructions: on every downstroke hit the string below it, and every string change started on a downstroke. If you have those directives, you pretty much have to invent USX. And he was also adamant that Benson's "palm up" grip, while obviously a great way to play, was not a requirement. My grip resembled more of a traditional gypsy jazz grip, although I had no way of knowing at the time.

I want to be clear that I don't think this is the only way to pick. I think Gambale style economy picking is really great for a lot of stuff (this is how I played for years, before anyone gave me any picking instruction), and allows you to play stuff that's almost impossible with any other approach. If you want that machine gun attack, or play a genre like bluegrass that requires it, some sort of crosspicking is pretty much essential.

But I think there are a lot of good reasons to play rest-stroke style picking, with either a GJ or Benson grip (doesn't really matter, whichever works better for you). And I think if you're going to play USX, it makes a lot of sense to learn how to do rest strokes well. Whether you do it 100% of the time is your choice, but getting it down as a tool in your arsenal is only going to help.

If you look at not only jazz guitarists, but also a lot of blues, R&B, funk, and gospel guitarists, you'll find that this was and still is a pretty popular way to pick for musicians where groove is paramount (which is why it's so prevalent in black American music). When you get proficient at it, you find something surprising: downstrokes are accented, but the motion is very relaxed. For most guitar techniques, and indeed most instruments in general, accenting a note means playing it harder, ie, with more effort.

My theory is that the reason that there are seemingly a million Romani kids who can play Django solos note for note, besides the obvious environmental factors, is that rest-stroke picking lends itself to figuring out one of the secrets to virtuosity: controlled relaxation even at high speeds. It barely takes any effort to play a downstroke -- an initial motor impetus, and gravity + the weight of your arm does the rest. And the string below gives you a little bit of a rebound, almost like a drummer gets.

That kind of funky, percussive, Horace Silver like 8th note line where the notes pop but the feel is relaxed -- I think it's nearly impossible to get that using any other technique. It also, by historical accident, fits a lot of bebop vocabulary pretty well: sweep an arpeggio up, and scalar run back down.

[Christian Miller]

Now I'm asking? Why would you say that? Did I offend you?

Cos I'd have to dig it out. These are videos are from a while ago.

[Christian Miller]

I first learned about rest-stroke picking from players who were, for lack of a better term, Benson acolytes. I only had two instructions: on every downstroke hit the string below it, and every string change started on a downstroke. If you have those directives, you pretty much have to invent USX. And he was also adamant that Benson's "palm up" grip, while obviously a great way to play, was not a requirement. My grip resembled more of a traditional gypsy jazz grip, although I had no way of knowing at the time.

I want to be clear that I don't think this is the only way to pick. I think Gambale style economy picking is really great for a lot of stuff (this is how I played for years, before anyone gave me any picking instruction), and allows you to play stuff that's almost impossible with any other approach. If you want that machine gun attack, or play a genre like bluegrass that requires it, some sort of crosspicking is pretty much essential.

But I think there are a lot of good reasons to play rest-stroke style picking, with either a GJ or Benson grip (doesn't really matter, whichever works better for you). And I think if you're going to play USX, it makes a lot of sense to learn how to do rest strokes well. Whether you do it 100% of the time is your choice, but getting it down as a tool in your arsenal is only going to help.

If you look at not only jazz guitarists, but also a lot of blues, R&B, funk, and gospel guitarists, you'll find that this was and still is a pretty popular way to pick for musicians where groove is paramount (which is why it's so prevalent in black American music). When you get proficient at it, you find something surprising: downstrokes are accented, but the motion is very relaxed. For most guitar techniques, and indeed most instruments in general, accenting a note means playing it harder, ie, with more effort.

My theory is that the reason that there are seemingly a million Romani kids who can play Django solos note for note, besides the obvious environmental factors, is that rest-stroke picking lends itself to figuring out one of the secrets to virtuosity: controlled relaxation even at high speeds. It barely takes any effort to play a downstroke -- an initial motor impetus, and gravity + the weight of your arm does the rest. And the string below gives you a little bit of a rebound, almost like a drummer gets.

That kind of funky, percussive, Horace Silver like 8th note line where the notes pop but the feel is relaxed -- I think it's nearly impossible to get that using any other technique. It also, by historical accident, fits a lot of bebop vocabulary pretty well: sweep an arpeggio up, and scalar run back down.

Yeah, thanks. This is what I mean when I say 'rest stroke picking is a solved problem'.

Just because a lot of mainstream pedagogy on picking is confused and confusing, doesn't mean there isn't a tradition of teaching that not only regularly turns out virtuosi, but actually does so as the default. It's a technique simple enough to be taught to kids (in fact I think rest strokes are easier to teach than free strokes) but powerful enough to be the sole picking style of many great players past and present. As you say, it is somewhat emergent from the basic aspects. Older GJ curious players I have spoken to have commented how younger players have managed to learn this technique which used to be the preserve of the Sinti players, and I feel this is squarely down to the internet.

The same goes for the Benson style, which used to have something of a mystique about it (I don't think Tuck Andress helped here, even though I think his article is important.)

There are aspects of bop language as you say that seem tailor made for rest stroke picking. For example, the ascending triplet arpeggios that are such a bop cliche, work great with this technique - if you don't rush :-) For descending scales you can introduce some horn like slurring with both aids phrasing and the technique. There are some issues - descending arpeggios that need a different approach, but 95% of the time it's great. And you'll notice USX jazz guitarists just don't improvise those ideas.

I'm not as much of a rest stroke picking evangelist as I was - I think alternate picking is actually an ideal way to pick if your aim is to lock in. I do think rest stroke picking has some naturally tendency to rush that needs to be tamed - a bit like what Gambale says about sweep picking.

My theory of picking such as it is, is the ideal way to play guitar is to strum. How many times have you heard a singer songwriter who knows a handful of chords absolutely lock in rhythmically? Loads! It's the natural way to play. It's mechanically simple and rhythmic.

The problem we face when playing single notes is we need to make a choice:
- we decouple picking motion from the bear and keep the mechanics simple (rest stroke picking and in a different way, sweep picking)
- we keep the picking motion coupled to the beat and complicate the mechanics (classic alternate picking)

[James W]

From what I've seen great alternate pickers advocate being able to start on either a down or an upstroke anyway - the idea being that it's good to be flexible. Since I practice two-way economy picking, this decoupling is built into the mechanics of it, and I enjoy the challenge of shifting gears so to speak between using a downstroke and an upstroke for the downbeat. I feel it's a bit more of an issue with jazz where the notes are of uneven duration i.e swung, an issue a metal guitarist wouldn't necessarily be cognisant of.

But I do sort of miss the locked in feel of alternate picking and there is no reason why 'circular' picking can't be used for alternate picking rather than economy picking. In any case you can't avoid using bits of alternate picking for general patterns you want to practice for jazz - playing intervals from scales doesn't really lend itself to using sweeps for example.

Anyway. While I don't doubt that rest stroke picking works if someone is properly trained in such a way, I think the rest stroke itself doesn't necessarily ensure the movement being made is efficient, at least in my experience. Yes, I am aware that string hopping is a free stroke so logically one would assume that it's solved by using a rest stroke but I don't think that is necessarily the case. There must be more than one way in which to inefficiently pick. Such is my experience, anyway.

So I suspect all the gypsy jazz guitarists and all the other rest stroke pickers etc. acquire their chops through deliberately trying to go fast. This is me trying to effect a rapprochement between the Grady philosophy of picking and the GJ school.

[dasein]

Anyway. While I don't doubt that rest stroke picking works if someone is properly trained in such a way, I think the rest stroke itself doesn't necessarily ensure the movement being made is efficient, at least in my experience. Yes, I am aware that string hopping is a free stroke so logically one would assume that it's solved by using a rest stroke but I don't think that is necessarily the case. There must be more than one way in which to inefficiently pick. Such is my experience, anyway."

I don't think that rest stroke picking necessarily leads to efficient picking. There is nothing so simple that someone can't screw it up. But it does lend itself to figuring it out naturally more than other picking styles.

If you wanted to make a kid get monster chops, what things would you select for when giving technical advice? In my experience, it's:

- make it as simple as possible. Kids are not going to watch a 90 minute video on alternate picking technique. Rest strokes are easy to explain. Start on a downstroke, hit the string below it. Boom, done.

- make it lend itself to repeatability. If you are alternate picking, starting a line on a downstroke or an upstroke completely changes the motor learning pattern. With something like GJ picking, you pick it the same way every single time. It's the old Bruce Lee "person whose practiced 1000 kicks vs the person who practiced one kick 1000 times."

- lends itself to relaxation. Kids tend to try to muscle through stuff. Rest strokes gives them plenty of volume for less effort. You get immediate tactile feedback to STOP exerting when the pick hits the string

- as an added bonus, the motion for playing single lines is pretty much the same as your strumming motion.

I mean, the Romani community is a pretty decent sample size. They are not a very large community, but seemingly every year I see some new YouTube video of a 10 year old kid who can blaze through Django solos (and on GJ guitars, no less, without any distortion or effects to hide technical deficiencies behind).

That's not to say that this is the perfect way to pick, and everyone should do it. It has a particular sound, and limitations. Everyone needs to figure out what kind of ideas they want to play, and what kind of sound they want. Holdsworth or Gambale lines? McLaughlin/Di Meola machine gun attack? Bluegrass? Yeah, rest stroke picking probably won't cut it.

Thing is, I started as an economy picker. Nobody gave me any picking instruction when I started out, and that approach just seemed logical to me. I didn't even realize strict alternate picking was a thing until years later, and when I first heard about it, it made zero sense to me.

Rest stroke picking came later, and took a while to get comfortable with. But once I got it, it really wasn't any trouble to switch to economy picking for certain lines whenever I wanted to. As long as you truly get it in your muscle memory, context switching is pretty easy. It's kind of like switching to a new keyboard layout (Dvorak, Colemak, etc). It takes a ton of time to get used to a new one, and you're worried that you won't be able to use a QWERTY layout afterwards. But it's really no trouble to switch back to QWERTY when you need to.

What I would avoid is trying to learn multiple new systems at once. That's when trouble happens and motor confusion trips you up. Pick one picking style, get it down cold, and only then evaluate whether you need to add anything else.

[James W]

I don't think that rest stroke picking necessarily leads to efficient picking. There is nothing so simple that someone can't screw it up.

Agreed.

But it does lend itself to figuring it out naturally more than other picking styles.

Figuring out how to efficiently pick? I guess so. The evidence is there. But there is a plurality of picking styles which suggests it's by no means the only solution to this problem. And I'm not sure it's the crucial component of figuring out how to efficiently pick. That would be to pick fast - efficiency can only be tested above a certain speed, and the simplest way of picking fast would be the tremolo on one note. This is the one common denominator across the different picking styles (although not everyone agrees that the tremolo is foundational).

If you wanted to make a kid get monster chops, what things would you select for when giving technical advice? In my experience, it's:

- make it as simple as possible. Kids are not going to watch a 90 minute video on alternate picking technique. Rest strokes are easy to explain. Start on a downstroke, hit the string below it. Boom, done.

Quite why you think a 90 minute video on alternate picking is a real thing is beyond me. My advice for plectrum picking would be similar to what I outline above. Efficient picking is best tested above a certain speed. I would explain that the motion should feel easy and smooth, even if they may only be able to do it for not a very long time, and any kind of motion is ok if it feels easy and smooth. We would start with just picking one note fast (i.e. a tremolo). I would mention the rest stroke as something the kid can try if it helps, but not as an absolute necessity. Tremolo is easy to explain, one note repeated - done.

- make it lend itself to repeatability. If you are alternate picking, starting a line on a downstroke or an upstroke completely changes the motor learning pattern. With something like GJ picking, you pick it the same way every single time. It's the old Bruce Lee "person whose practiced 1000 kicks vs the person who practiced one kick 1000 times."

Sure, but the idea of being able to start on a downstroke or upstroke is obviously not something I'd introduce if I were tasked with teaching children how to plectrum pick. Conceptually alternate picking is simple in a way that GJ isn't, as Christian outlines above - how the stroke is aligned or coupled with beat placement. But I take your point. I'm not trying to argue against the effectiveness of GJ picking or method of teaching children - my point above was just that the rest stroke in my experience was insufficient in learning efficient picking.

- lends itself to relaxation. Kids tend to try to muscle through stuff. Rest strokes gives them plenty of volume for less effort. You get immediate tactile feedback to STOP exerting when the pick hits the string

I'll take your word for this.

- as an added bonus, the motion for playing single lines is pretty much the same as your strumming motion.

I can't argue with this.

I mean, the Romani community is a pretty decent sample size. They are not a very large community, but seemingly every year I see some new YouTube video of a 10 year old kid who can blaze through Django solos (and on GJ guitars, no less, without any distortion or effects to hide technical deficiencies behind).

That's not to say that this is the perfect way to pick, and everyone should do it. It has a particular sound, and limitations. Everyone needs to figure out what kind of ideas they want to play, and what kind of sound they want. Holdsworth or Gambale lines? McLaughlin/Di Meola machine gun attack? Bluegrass? Yeah, rest stroke picking probably won't cut it.

Thing is, I started as an economy picker. Nobody gave me any picking instruction when I started out, and that approach just seemed logical to me. I didn't even realize strict alternate picking was a thing until years later, and when I first heard about it, it made zero sense to me.

Rest stroke picking came later, and took a while to get comfortable with. But once I got it, it really wasn't any trouble to switch to economy picking for certain lines whenever I wanted to. As long as you truly get it in your muscle memory, context switching is pretty easy. It's kind of like switching to a new keyboard layout (Dvorak, Colemak, etc). It takes a ton of time to get used to a new one, and you're worried that you won't be able to use a QWERTY layout afterwards. But it's really no trouble to switch back to QWERTY when you need to.

What I would avoid is trying to learn multiple new systems at once. That's when trouble happens and motor confusion trips you up. Pick one picking style, get it down cold, and only then evaluate whether you need to add anything else.

Agreed. Personally I decided not that long ago (must have been around July last year) to try and develop circular picking AKA finger-thumb motion, simply because I tried tremolo picking with it and found I could go fast and smooth doing that and that it was considerably easier than with wrist motion, which I had experienced some discomfort with due to string hopping. The rest stroke in and of itself didn't seem to do much.

So my system is two-way economy picking with circular picking. BTW it has been pointed out to me that most people find they are better able to develop a wrist-based picking motion rather than thumb-finger motion, so I am somewhat out of the ordinary. And I know that my picking style is not for everyone. Nevertheless I would suggest a plectrum picking neophyte approach it with an experimental mindset. For a child specifically I would tell them about the common picking motions and suggest they try them out - the crucial criteria being that it should feel smooth and easy and go fast.

[Christian Miller]

Quite why you think a 90 minute video on alternate picking is a real thing is beyond me.

Nb I don’t think this was meant literally.

(TIL Rhetorical hyperbole is actually protected speech under US law… Rhetorical Hyperbole | The First Amendment Encyclopedia… interesting.)

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[CliffR]

Nb I don’t think this was meant literally.

(TIL Rhetorical hyperbole is actually protected speech under US law… Rhetorical Hyperbole | The First Amendment Encyclopedia… interesting.)

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I agree with your sentiment. But there is this.... I used to follow this guy for a while:

But perhaps of more practical use for the thread, by the same guy, and (relatively) short. He talks about alternate, sarod and scalpel picking - no rest stroke:

[Christian Miller]

I don't think BTW that rest stroke picking excludes alternate picking.

Rest stroke picking is a specific mechanic for making a downstroke. Alternate picking is a practice expectation.

What is true as dasein said is that certain picking patterns emerge from rest stroke picking - but it is possible to modify the pick movement to facilitate strict alternate picking. Some combinations are going to be challenging for a rest stroke picker (but different ones to a traditional straight/perpendicular pick player, interestingly). Actually this is something Troy has been talking about a lot in the past few years, and IIRC why we dumped his old terminology DWPS (downward pick slanting) for the more general USX (upward escape.) He classifies Mike Stern, for example, as a USX picker. Mike is, of course, a strict alternate guy.

I think you can totally develop a rest stroke approach to alternate picking. It's kind of what I'm going towards now to some extent.

The main issue as I see it for straight ahead jazz player is one note a string crossing, for instance in descending arpeggios. Everything else we can handle with slurring, and actually it is stylistically correct to do so - pure picking doesn't tend to sound good for straight ahead jazz guitar. This unavoidable in some heads, so you need a way of dealing with it. I think all GJ players who have crossed over to other styles of jazz have found work arounds so they can play a wider repertoire. For instance, Birelli does quite a bit of two way sweeping.

[Christian Miller]

I don't think that rest stroke picking necessarily leads to efficient picking. There is nothing so simple that someone can't screw it up. But it does lend itself to figuring it out naturally more than other picking styles.

If you wanted to make a kid get monster chops, what things would you select for when giving technical advice? In my experience, it's:

- make it as simple as possible. Kids are not going to watch a 90 minute video on alternate picking technique. Rest strokes are easy to explain. Start on a downstroke, hit the string below it. Boom, done.

- make it lend itself to repeatability. If you are alternate picking, starting a line on a downstroke or an upstroke completely changes the motor learning pattern. With something like GJ picking, you pick it the same way every single time. It's the old Bruce Lee "person whose practiced 1000 kicks vs the person who practiced one kick 1000 times."

- lends itself to relaxation. Kids tend to try to muscle through stuff. Rest strokes gives them plenty of volume for less effort. You get immediate tactile feedback to STOP exerting when the pick hits the string

- as an added bonus, the motion for playing single lines is pretty much the same as your strumming motion.

I mean, the Romani community is a pretty decent sample size. They are not a very large community, but seemingly every year I see some new YouTube video of a 10 year old kid who can blaze through Django solos (and on GJ guitars, no less, without any distortion or effects to hide technical deficiencies behind).

That's not to say that this is the perfect way to pick, and everyone should do it. It has a particular sound, and limitations. Everyone needs to figure out what kind of ideas they want to play, and what kind of sound they want. Holdsworth or Gambale lines? McLaughlin/Di Meola machine gun attack? Bluegrass? Yeah, rest stroke picking probably won't cut it.

Thing is, I started as an economy picker. Nobody gave me any picking instruction when I started out, and that approach just seemed logical to me. I didn't even realize strict alternate picking was a thing until years later, and when I first heard about it, it made zero sense to me.

Rest stroke picking came later, and took a while to get comfortable with. But once I got it, it really wasn't any trouble to switch to economy picking for certain lines whenever I wanted to. As long as you truly get it in your muscle memory, context switching is pretty easy. It's kind of like switching to a new keyboard layout (Dvorak, Colemak, etc). It takes a ton of time to get used to a new one, and you're worried that you won't be able to use a QWERTY layout afterwards. But it's really no trouble to switch back to QWERTY when you need to.

What I would avoid is trying to learn multiple new systems at once. That's when trouble happens and motor confusion trips you up. Pick one picking style, get it down cold, and only then evaluate whether you need to add anything else.

There are bluegrass rest stroke pickers.

Another bone I have to pick with Tory is talking about corsspicking as a specific mechanic. Because this puts us in the fairly silly position of observing that not all bluegrass players who crosspick use crosspicking. I think he should chuck that terminology out like DWPS.

Really our right hand style governs which school of crosspicking you go for, whether you are a double down up player (like Tony Rice) or strict alternate (like Molly Tuttle)

DDU is easier with USX/rest stroke mechanics. Molly is a DSX player.

This type of 1 nps picking isn't limited to bluegrass, you also get it in other styles of music, anything that we would normally finger pick, obviously. You have to work on cross picking to play JS Bach BWV999 with a pick for example, which I think many jazz players have done.

DDU with strings skips is also fine. I play a piece called Triades by Chico Pinheiro which is based on crosspicked spread triads. It works fine. Try it!

Obviously the reason why any of this exists is again, the desire for acoustic projection.

[Christian Miller]

Olli is actually DBX, if I'm not mistaken.

DBX means double escape? If so yes.

I just rewatched a video of his playing and I would describe his technique as traditional alternate picking - pick at right angles to the plane of strings. All free strokes.

So not much use to me. Hardest style of picking to master IMO! Well done him.

[James W]

There are bluegrass rest stroke pickers.

Another bone I have to pick with Tory is talking about corsspicking as a specific mechanic. Because this puts us in the fairly silly position of observing that not all bluegrass players who crosspick use crosspicking. I think he should chuck that terminology out like DWPS.

Really our right hand style governs which school of crosspicking you go for, whether you are a double down up player (like Tony Rice) or strict alternate (like Molly Tuttle)

DDU is easier with USX/rest stroke mechanics. Molly is a DSX player.

This type of 1 nps picking isn't limited to bluegrass, you also get it in other styles of music, anything that we would normally finger pick, obviously. You have to work on cross picking to play JS Bach BWV999 with a pick for example, which I think many jazz players have done.

DDU with strings skips is also fine. I play a piece called Triades by Chico Pinheiro which is based on crosspicked spread triads. It works fine. Try it!

Obviously the reason why any of this exists is again, the desire for acoustic projection.

I think Troy ditched the term 'crosspicking' some years ago, in favour of double-escape or DBX for short.

Molly is a DBX player, not DSX.

And yes, doing DBX efficiently is the most challenging thing for alternate picking.

It's interesting, BTW, looking at Chris Brooks' book on alternate picking - one of the few books solely devoted to the topic. He starts with picking on one string, then the next chapter is about USX, the next DSX and the next about switching between these two i.e what was once known as two-way pickslanting. There are then chapters on picking sequences and then some harder one note per string stuff. He doesn't actually mention DBX nor give advice on achieving efficiency with it, but I think it makes sense to be as comfortable as possible with the mechanically simpler techniques before trying DBX, just because I think you figure it out by feel and experimentation and it helps to know very well what efficient picking feels like. But ultimately as Grady says on his Steve Morse video it's like riding a bike - you have to figure it out by trying it at tempo.

[Christian Miller]

I think Troy ditched the term 'crosspicking' some years ago, in favour of double-escape or DBX for short.

Yeah I looked up the Craig Milner video and it's like over a decade old. Where does the time go?

It's a better term.

Molly is a DBX player, not DSX.

OK. Her stance is very DSX. Similar to Peter Bernstein, in fact, so that fooled me.

And yes, doing DBX efficiently is the most challenging thing for alternate picking.

It's interesting, BTW, looking at Chris Brooks' book on alternate picking - one of the few books solely devoted to the topic. He starts with picking on one string, then the next chapter is about USX, the next DSX and the next about switching between these two i.e what was once known as two-way pickslanting. There are then chapters on picking sequences and then some harder one note per string stuff. He doesn't actually mention DBX nor give advice on achieving efficiency with it, but I think it makes sense to be as comfortable as possible with the mechanically simpler techniques before trying DBX, just because I think you figure it out by feel and experimentation and it helps to know very well what efficient picking feels like. But ultimately as Grady says on his Steve Morse video it's like riding a bike - you have to figure it out by trying it at tempo.

Yeah, I think the DBX people are blinking marvellous.

OTOH a man has to know his limits. (After a while haha.) Although TBF I'm fairly happy with my picking chops, so I'll go with what I've got. Actually for me the journey is much more about my left hand these days. And contrary to popular perception, picking isn't really the be all and end all for electric jazz guitar.

I would be curious if they can get the same acoustic projection as an old school rest stroke picker. It would presumably be a consideration for players like Molly and Olli.

[James W]

Yeah, I think the DBX people are blinking marvellous.

OTOH a man has to know his limits. (After a while haha.) Although TBF I'm fairly happy with my picking chops, so I'll go with what I've got. Actually for me the journey is much more about my left hand these days. And contrary to popular perception, picking isn't really the be all and end all for electric jazz guitar.

I would be curious if they can get the same acoustic projection as an old school rest stroke picker. It would presumably be a consideration for players like Molly and Olli.

Yeah. Technique - mostly right-hand technique - is ideally/hopefully for me something I just need to keep ticking over. But I'm happy with the direction it's going in. I agree with the assessments you've made hereabouts about the various trade-offs of various picking techniques, 'choose your poison' etc. I've accepted that economy pickers are going to have to put some more time in on their timing etc.

Picking isn't the be all and end all but speaking personally, it does count for something when you've figured out a way of moving you right hand in a relaxed and efficient way - I think it helped the left hand too, since they are linked...

[charlieparker]

This thread has gotten me to try out rest-stroke picking the past few days. I have alternated for the most part with sweeps for some arpeggios in the past.

A lot of great players like Bruce Forman and our own Dirk Laukens seem be alternate pickers in the main but I have always struggled with even moderate tempos like 120 BPM.

But it's going to be really hard sticking with this rest stroke thing. One thing I am finding is that you are forced to think about fingerings and slurs a bunch more. I've had to refinger things I normally play differently. For instance I was playing,

E C A D F# as 5 5 7 5 4 starting on the B string. Doing three descending rest-strokes is a bit of pain. Not sure what people do here.

[Christian Miller]

This thread has gotten me to try out rest-stroke picking the past few days. I have alternated for the most part with sweeps for some arpeggios in the past.

A lot of great players like Bruce Forman and our own Dirk Laukens seem be alternate pickers in the main but I have always struggled with even moderate tempos like 120 BPM.

But it's going to be really hard sticking with this rest stroke thing. One thing I am finding is that you are forced to think about fingerings and slurs a bunch more. I've had to refinger things I normally play differently. For instance I was playing,

E C A D F# as 5 5 7 5 4 starting on the B string. Doing three descending rest-strokes is a bit of pain. Not sure what people do here.

TBH? I don't think they'd play something like that. At least not in improvisation.

[Christian Miller]

The Tristano school AFAIK would encourage guitarists to play everything with downstrokes, so it could be worse. RobbieAG, who studied with Billy Bauer could chime in perhaps.

I think it's a good thing to try. Downstroke only 8ths at medium tempo should be perfectly possible.

[joe2758]

The better I get at jazz guitar, the more down strokes I use