Why do FAST consecutive down-strokes?

[Kojo27]

Somebody (I think it was my dear friend, Monk) spoke of how he began, during a mid-career re-vamping of his picking technique, to play some moderate-speed passages using all downstrokes, and that this was better somehow. He didn't elaborate and now I've misplaced Monk's #, dang it, so do any of you guys know what the technical, picking advantage might be, of playing "da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da" eighth notes all with downs, when most players would just alt-pick them?

I see mandolin players doing this all the time. I see Frank Vignola doing it very often. In his "Shreds Beethoven's 5th" YT video (I *think*) he does a lot of it. This type of picking certainly results in a different dynamic, a more driving feel -- but is there some other reason this is a good thing to do?

KJ

[jtizzle]

Hmm... I can't think of any technical advantage. But I know playing something like quarters letting the notes ring out creates the effect of straightening out the feel and elongating the sound. Pete Bernstein does that a lot. Maybe on a medium tempo it would create a similar effect with 8th notes? If you're right about it being monk then it would make a little sense. It kind of sounds like a feel he would be looking for.

[Kojo27]

Hmm... I can't think of any technical advantage. But I know playing something like quarters letting the notes ring out creates the effect of straightening out the feel and elongating the sound. Pete Bernstein does that a lot. Maybe on a medium tempo it would create a similar effect with 8th notes? If you're right about it being monk then it would make a little sense. It kind of sounds like a feel he would be looking for.

Thanks, J. That's probably a big part of it. For some reason I want to learn to do it - it creates a *driving* feel that alternate picking just can't match, imo.

And it's hard! Years ago I noticed that Rick Skaggs could do this on mandolin. I tried it on guitar and became really discouraged. Now that I've seen what Frank Vignola can do with it (a master of it!) I want to learn it to the best of my ability.

I had a thought: how fast one can alt pick depends on how fast he can play these consecutive down strokes, because fast alt picking is just really fast downs, and catching the string every time, on the way back up - eh? So it could build your alternate picking speed greatly, seems to me.

Anyhoo, here's Frankie. Notice right off the bat how he plays those lines with all downs, and note the effect it produces.

Am I the only one who can't do this?

[Reg]

Yea... down strokes naturally create an accent. Picking patterns generally naturally create accent patterns. You can alter the natural accent pattern by physically accenting how you want the notes or the phrase to sound., where you want the accents to be.

One of the reasons is best to begin with standard alternating picking...
By that I mean, downbeats with down strokes and upbeats with up strokes. This would be your default picking starting reference.

How you would pick with out thinking. And of course... if you want those downbeats to be all 8ths... you would be using all down strokes. Yea.... you do need clean and efficient picking. And that would be with upstrokes also. One of the tricks of quick picking techniques is to pick from the wrist... not the arm.

Reg

[Kojo27]

One of the tricks of quick picking techniques is to pick from the wrist... not the arm.

Reg

Well, I'm screwed then. I've spent the past few months trying to convert to elbow picking, sorta like Bruno (and Django, etc.)

But when I try this rapid 8th note picking, it's waaaaay too hard. I used to be a wrist player but couldn't develop any speed, at all. 180 bmp was about it.

There's probably nothing wrong with switching between the two - use wrist for these rapid 8ths, go back to elbow for other stuff. I use wrist when I comp, too.

[Mr JDG13]

Interesting, Reg's explanation is quite technical. In the case of Frank Vignola, might be simpler though, sounds like he has a huge gypsy influence, and you might now that gypsy players play downstrokes even on ascending arpeggios, just because it is a naturally more powerful move, so you keep more consistent volume when playing those rather dry sounding gypsy guitars. Andreas Oberg also adapted this to his electric playing, he explains a bit about it here

By the way, what do you mean by elbow picker concerning Django, it looks to me from the "J'attendrai" video clip he has the typical gypsy motion (not really elbow, broken wrist angle + rotational motion of the radial and cubital bones that translate into wrist motion, as opposed to the translational motion of "elbow" picking that I see more often in bad metal guitar players - is that also what you mean?).

[Kojo27]

By the way, what do you mean by elbow picker concerning Django, it looks to me from the "J'attendrai" video clip he has the typical gypsy motion (not really elbow, broken wrist angle + rotational motion of the radial and cubital bones that translate into wrist motion, as opposed to the translational motion of "elbow" picking that I see more often in bad metal guitar players - is that also what you mean?).

I've searched past posts - but I confess that I'm inept at it - looking for the discussion a fellow and I had about this; I recall only that he seemed a good enough source and that he said Django was an "elbow picker" (it's where I got the term.) That's no great authority to go on, so you may be right. This gentleman had the same film clip, of course - I suppose he looked at it differently, and I seem to recall that he knew someone who had seen Django play... again, I could be wrong.

By "elbow picking," I do *not* mean the tensed-up, frantic-faced shredder approach to buzz-saw picking you refer to. Rather, I mean a method of playing espoused by several book authors and jazz artists, wherein the arm, shoulder, elbow, forearm, wrist, hand, fingers, etc., are SO relaxed it feels almost as if the arm might fall off, and the pick is barely clasped between thumb and forefinger. It can *look* like a tense way of picking - and it gets a lot of bad publicity because of this. Done correctly, though, this approach can bring almost unlimited power and speed. It certainly doesn't happen overnight, though!

However Django picked, it obviously worked. The Gypsy guitarists have a *method* - there is never any doubt as to whether they should be playing an up stroke or a down stroke. Sometimes I think the very existence of a method might be a stronger factor in how well the Gypsies pick than the particulars of the method itself.

[djangoles]

Thanks, J. That's probably a big part of it. For some reason I want to learn to do it - it creates a *driving* feel that alternate picking just can't match, imo.

And it's hard! Years ago I noticed that Rick Skaggs could do this on mandolin. I tried it on guitar and became really discouraged. Now that I've seen what Frank Vignola can do with it (a master of it!) I want to learn it to the best of my ability.

I had a thought: how fast one can alt pick depends on how fast he can play these consecutive down strokes, because fast alt picking is just really fast downs, and catching the string every time, on the way back up - eh? So it could build your alternate picking speed greatly, seems to me.

Anyhoo, here's Frankie. Notice right off the bat how he plays those lines with all downs, and note the effect it produces.

Am I the only one who can't do this?

If there is one thing I can do pretty well, it's down picking at fast tempos. I've played in some surf bands where we take the tempos quite fast and use no distorion, so it has to be clean, and the only way to make certain things "sound right" to my ears was a with lot of downpicking.....(as a bonus it makes makes your trem picking very tight rhythmically.)

So as I watching the first minute I'm thinking to myself "that's pretty much how I pick when playing that stuff" and then voila they go into a Shadows tribute type thing!!!

The tough thing with picking like this is keeping relaxed and not tensing up, but still making it punchy.

[mr. beaumont]

The tough thing with picking like this is keeping relaxed and not tensing up, but still making it punchy.

YEP!

As others have said, the downstroke has a definitive sound, and does create an accent...I never gave much thought to picking before I got into Django's Music a few years back...really made me rethink things. I tend to use a more "gypsy picking" style now, where generally when I switch strings I use a downstroke...took some getting used to, but as Reg was alluding to, simply having a system to go to made my picking a lot better...forcing myself to look at it closer.

[Mr JDG13]

I've searched past posts - but I confess that I'm inept at it - looking for the discussion a fellow and I had about this; I recall only that he seemed a good enough source and that he said Django was an "elbow picker" (it's where I got the term.) That's no great authority to go on, so you may be right. This gentleman had the same film clip, of course - I suppose he looked at it differently, and I seem to recall that he knew someone who had seen Django play... again, I could be wrong.

By "elbow picking," I do *not* mean the tensed-up, frantic-faced shredder approach to buzz-saw picking you refer to. Rather, I mean a method of playing espoused by several book authors and jazz artists, wherein the arm, shoulder, elbow, forearm, wrist, hand, fingers, etc., are SO relaxed it feels almost as if the arm might fall off, and the pick is barely clasped between thumb and forefinger. It can *look* like a tense way of picking - and it gets a lot of bad publicity because of this. Done correctly, though, this approach can bring almost unlimited power and speed. It certainly doesn't happen overnight, though!

Good... I immediately thought of Michael Angelo and Chris Impelliteri... In that case, I have never heard of that kind of elbow picking, but I don't see why it should have a bad reputation. To me it doesn't matter how you play as long as you play clean and it fits your purpose (avoid touching the top of the guitar with your picking hand/arm in the case of gypsy style eg). The way I described might be similar though, it is very obvious in Jimmy Rosenberg's playing for instance, looks like something in between wrist and forearm rotation. Concerning Django, I read an article a while ago about somebody (I think his son Babik) saying of Bireli that he had even as a kid the same heavy right hand as Django, and Bireli is no elbow picker if you ask me, but...yeah I have not seen Django play live so...

[jtizzle]

I don't think exclusive down picking would aid much your alternate picking as much as it would aid economy picking. The constant down motion (or you could try it with ups too) in changing strings is similar to economy since you'll probably be sweeping through strings. The only way I think it would help your alternate is if you spend more time staying in one string, and you can do the same with ups as well.

[MarkRhodes]

I remember reading an article about Joe Pass and in it he said he changed strings with a downstroke because it gave lines more definition.

[Reg]

At some point you need to decide where you want your playing in general to go. What you want to be able to cover, what you can play with out rehearsing... at least to the point of making bad technique almost work.

Most good players... pros etc... have a picking system that they use as a reference. They can use that picking system to create different phrasing and accents. The point is they have a reference system. You know where I come from... but I can economy, sweep, in any direction basically pick anyway needed. I can make the same accents with different picking... there are lots of players better... but I can cover. I've been able to cover because I have a system and I use it.

If you need to think about how your picking, you don't have a reference picking system internalized.

All I can say is I've spent time studying different players, trial and error and listening to different teachers and pros... when I was a kid, in high school, I made a choice. With in about six month I had crazy good picking chops... This is not that complicated... pick a system and get it down... Everyone knows the basic fingering and picking 1234 studies, and all the variations, on single strings up the neck and on four strings.
Six month of serious practice and you'll have your picking technique together. Then you add different patterns as you need them with reference to your default picking system.

If you want chops... start with alternating and go from there, if your not worried about being able to burn... pretty much any picking system will get you to the point of being able to hang... but you need a system.

While I'm bitchin... get your comping thing together also. You don't need to know drop2,3 etc.. all possible inversions... you need standard jazz chords built with roots on 6th, 5th and 4th strings... We all know what basic jazz 7th chords are. Get them down... then work on learning how to comp. You don't need that many chords to...learn how to comp. And generally, that's the goal, knowing how to comp, not playing hip chords and making sure you voice lead with contrapuntal guidelines...

While your learning how to comp... you'll pick up different versions of the chords you know, different combinations of those chords, called chord patterns. But after you learn how to comp, that's the goal.

Sorry, if I'm insulting anyone...
Reg

[mr. beaumont]

While I'm bitchin... get your comping thing together also. You don't need to know drop2,3 etc.. all possible inversions... you need standard jazz chords built with roots on 6th, 5th and 4th strings... We all know what basic jazz 7th chords are. Get them down... then work on learning how to comp. You don't need that many chords to...learn how to comp. And generally, that's the goal, knowing how to comp, not playing hip chords and making sure you voice lead with contrapuntal guidelines...

While your learning how to comp... you'll pick up different versions of the chords you know, different combinations of those chords, called chord patterns. But after you learn how to comp, that's the goal.

Sorry, if I'm insulting anyone...
Reg

Man...copy this and stick it to the top of every post about chords ever....

I see so many guys get hung up on drop 2's...thinking they need every inversion before they even play a damn tune...the internet sucks for sor some stuff...

Drop 2 and 3 inversions are not magic...they're just actually playable.

[MarkRhodes]

Sid Jacobs talks about simple voicings being all you need to get through tunes in a fake book. You can go FURTHER, of course, and when you have the basics down, you can embellish things, but if you try to learn a thousand voicings before your timing is solid, well, it still won't make for good comping. Timing is almost everything. A drummer taught me that: "Here's how to know if you can comp. Play blues changes for five minutes and stop---if you feel the time when there is no more sound, you are projecting time and you've got good time. When your time's good, the simplest things sound great and feel right. If your timing sucks,the most complicated shit you can throw out will suck." I think he had a point.

[Kojo27]

Sid Jacobs talks about simple voicings being all you need to get through tunes in a fake book. You can go FURTHER, of course, and when you have the basics down, you can embellish things, but if you try to learn a thousand voicings before your timing is solid, well, it still won't make for good comping. Timing is almost everything. A drummer taught me that: "Here's how to know if you can comp. Play blues changes for five minutes and stop---if you feel the time when there is no more sound, you are projecting time and you've got good time. When your time's good, the simplest things sound great and feel right. If your timing sucks,the most complicated shit you can throw out will suck." I think he had a point.

AMEN

About a year ago I was heavily chided for not knowing "drop 2" - I'd learned chords eons ago and had taken 18 years off and had never learned the "drop 2" principle -- so some here at the forum acted as if I must start at the beginning, learn 8,000 inversions of 4 sets of chords each, something like that -- and I could already comp 90% of the Real Book with the chords I knew. And at least my time is solid.

Back to downstrokes: anybody got any ideas for speeding up the development of this skill? I dig surf music but don't play any -- maybe that would help. Vignola seems not to be doing rest strokes in the video above, but free strokes (swing strokes, someone calls them.) In his TrueFire "Guitar Method," he starts by having you play, chromatically, every note on your guitar, using free down strokes. This alone, done every day, at increasingly fast tempos, would have to help.

BTW, he says he's played every note on his guitar, every morning for nearly 40 years. He demonstrates and makes you believe. All downs - fast.

Unless I'm badly mistaken, Frank is a fine tenor banjoist, and much of his fast chord strumming (as did Django's) comes from banjo playing. It seems that he's transferring a lot of tenor banjo ideas directly to guitar - the sliding chord shapes, etc. - very exciting stuff.

[Kojo27]

I don't think exclusive down picking would aid much your alternate picking as much as it would aid economy picking. The constant down motion (or you could try it with ups too) in changing strings is similar to economy since you'll probably be sweeping through strings. The only way I think it would help your alternate is if you spend more time staying in one string, and you can do the same with ups as well.

I think fast down picking would help both - your alternating speed, and your sweeping speed. What *is* alternate picking if not down picking, plus picking the same string on the way back up? Seems if you can pick consecutive downs faster and faster, it would take just a bit of practice to transfer that to picking the string on the way back. Makes sense to me. I might be wrong.

kj

[GuyBoden]

I think fast down picking would help both - your alternating speed, and your sweeping speed. What *is* alternate picking if not down picking, plus picking the same string on the way back up? Seems if you can pick consecutive downs faster and faster, it would take just a bit of practice to transfer that to picking the string on the way back. Makes sense to me. I might be wrong.

kj

I could be wrong, but you seem to be describing "Economy picking" as played by Frank Gambale and Jimmy Bruno. I've always played with this picking style, even as a teenager.

Pick "down down" to move to a higher string (A string to D string) and "up up" to a lower string (D string to A string). It's all about the economy of movement.

As a Jazz player, you must have seen Jimmy Bruno's picking style.

Guy

[Kojo27]

I could be wrong, but you seem to be describing "Economy picking" as played by Frank Gambale and Jimmy Bruno. I've always played with this picking style, even as a teenager.

Pick "down down" to move to a higher string (A string to D string) and "up up" to a lower string (D string to A string). It's all about the economy of movement.

As a Jazz player, you must have seen Jimmy Bruno's picking style.

Guy

Maybe read the early posts: https://www.jazzguitar.be/forum/getti...tml#post274831

[GuyBoden]

Maybe read the early posts: https://www.jazzguitar.be/forum/getti...tml#post274831

Sorry, it's definitely not economy picking that you're describing, it seems like "un-economy picking", but it has a very strong pulse. I think Charlie Christian played mostly down strokes, also back in the day, Punk Rock was nearly all down strokes, because it achieved that "big sound".

Guy

Off topic, but have you heard "Gary Potter", I heard Gary play when he was a teenager in Liverpool, he was great even then.

[Kojo27]

Sorry, it's definitely not economy picking that you're describing, it seems like "un-economy picking", but it has a very strong pulse. I think Charlie Christian played mostly down strokes, also back in the day, Punk Rock was nearly all down strokes, because it achieved that "big sound".

Guy

Ha - you know I also thought of punk rock, how they'd play 2 hours and it was all hammer-like down strokes for chords and lead, everything - bash guitar, sorta. I wondered if I strapped on some wrist weights and played punk for 3 months would I have the chops to play this Vignola stuff. (Just kidding.)

I think Frank Vignola developed it from, as he says, 40 years of practice, esp. all the Gypsy jazz he's played (though I don't believe he uses Gypsy picking per se) - he plays lots of rest strokes, and in his lessons, he has his students go heavy on down strokes.

Looks like he bounces the pick off the strings - great technique. Think I'll start playing everything with down-strokes.

[djangoles]

Ha - you know I also thought of punk rock, how they'd play 2 hours and it was all hammer-like down strokes for chords and lead, everything - bash guitar, sorta. I wondered if I strapped on some wrist weights and played punk for 3 months would I have the chops to play this Vignola stuff. (Just kidding.)

I think Frank Vignola developed it from, as he says, 40 years of practice, esp. all the Gypsy jazz he's played (though I don't believe he uses Gypsy picking per se) - he plays lots of rest strokes, and in his lessons, he has his students go heavy on down strokes.

Looks like he bounces the pick off the strings - great technique. Think I'll start playing everything with down-strokes.

Just want to clarify that I do not play downstrokes all the time. I use whatever works best for the moment. The downstrokes work well for the quick surf stuff not only for a more consistent sound, but when there is a need for 1/16th notes lines, your picking is already synced to the tempo. No need to double up the picking like you would if you were playing alternate 1/8th's. It's actually very similar to how drummers work on quick single handed 1/8ths (downstroke), and add the other hand to get 16th's (upstroke).

I will say that last weekend I played in a pit type situation and had to comp "Gypsy Jazz Style" at pretty brisk tempos and had no problems holding it down. I used almost all downstrokes and even in some of the syncopated figures I would still use the downstroke (where an up would make more sense), only because it sounded more powerful (there was only me playing guitar, no 2nd or 3rd guy to help fill it out.) So that right there is real world situation where I'm glad I worked at it and it translated nicely to a different genre.

[nosoyninja]

Just a quick note to add my voice to all the interesting comments already posted. I too switched to all downstrokes. Only the past few months though.

Normally I was using rest-strokes (or what someone above mentioned Joe Pass did) which is basically always change strings with a downstroke.

Playing all down helps a lot when playing acoustically. You can be very loud and totally in control of your dynamics. The downside is of course, however fast you develop this technique, you will always know you COULD be doing it twice as fast if you just added upstrokes!

One thing I did notice after prolonged practice of all downstrokes: If you don't practice some up/down every once in a while, your upstrokes start to sound very week in comparison...

K

[nosoyninja]

Thanks, J. That's probably a big part of it. For some reason I want to learn to do it - it creates a *driving* feel that alternate picking just can't match, imo.

And it's hard! Years ago I noticed that Rick Skaggs could do this on mandolin. I tried it on guitar and became really discouraged. Now that I've seen what Frank Vignola can do with it (a master of it!) I want to learn it to the best of my ability.

I had a thought: how fast one can alt pick depends on how fast he can play these consecutive down strokes, because fast alt picking is just really fast downs, and catching the string every time, on the way back up - eh? So it could build your alternate picking speed greatly, seems to me.

Anyhoo, here's Frankie. Notice right off the bat how he plays those lines with all downs, and note the effect it produces.

Am I the only one who can't do this?

Worth noting that Frank actually switches from all down to up/down seamlessly. He's not being religious, just using what best suits the moment. It's all downstrokes for the basic melody, but when he solos he uses upstrokes in there as well.

K

[MarkRhodes]

AMEN



Back to downstrokes: Vignola seems not to be doing rest strokes in the video above, but free strokes (swing strokes, someone calls them.) In his TrueFire "Guitar Method," he starts by having you play, chromatically, every note on your guitar, using free down strokes. This alone, done every day, at increasingly fast tempos, would have to help.

BTW, he says he's played every note on his guitar, every morning for nearly 40 years. He demonstrates and makes you believe. All downs - fast. .

This fascinates me. I love Frank's playing. He's got a great feel for blues and gypsy jazz, and he can burn when he wants, and he's incredibly clean even at blazing tempos. (tempi?)

But in looking at the video (-the example provided at True Fire) I thought, "O, boy, another teacher wanting to show me 100 ways to play an arpeggio..." It seems like overkill, but man, can he play.