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ftw!
Originally Posted by vinlander
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05-24-2014 09:51 PM
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Re: why alternate is base for all
Because it is the only natural one.
One maybe start with all downstrokes. Pretty soon it becomes obvious oly down is not enough for faster things to play.
That's where one starts to alternate.
All other techniques are developed to overcome those spots where alternate is not enough.
With every other technique, before it become second nature, you have to make an effort NOT to alternate.
With alternate, you just do it with occasional effort to do something else.
As a bonus, lternate is good as a counting aid "one and ..." = "down up ..." than some phrase, than count again.
Just to add, alternate is "not to use consecutive down or up strokes where you do not have to".
Where it comes natural, you do whatever, than come back to alternate, because alternate is natural for majority of stuff.Last edited by Vladan; 05-24-2014 at 10:10 PM.
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Best post of the entier thread!! Originally Posted by vinlander
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Ok . . . I'll admit to needing help with that acronym. But, even though I'll admit to not knowing what thew hell you mean by it . . . because it came from you, I'm inclined to agree with it. Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
So now, tell me what it means!
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In bold: yeah, that's what I'm starting to think. This emphasis some guys have on being 'strict alternate' seems like a recent thing (the last few decades), perhaps either due to certain teachers pushing it as an 'ideal' and also possibly the influence of rock and fusion guys (Di Meola, McLaughlin, Malmsteen etc.) who prefer it because of it's strong, choppy, defined sound (which suits distortion better). Originally Posted by dortmundjazzguitar
I've no problem with strict alternate - if you can do it fluently with bop lines, that's great - but it's interesting that we're getting closer to defining what the majority of classic players did: down sweeps asc. & mostly alt. desc. And seeing how it evolved from 30's acoustic downstrokes.
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For The Win! Originally Posted by Patrick2
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I think if someone were to read back through this entire thread and really sift through it they'd find a lot of arguing over semantics and maybe two or three spots of clarity. Those spots are all like this one. There's another one that I recall but don't care to search for where someone posted a quote where George Benson said that when he thought about picking it all fell apart so he just preferred not to worry about it. Bottom line... picking is a means to an end. That end would be the sound in your ear. I think we have all decided that no one alternate picks only. By the definition of economy picking... it's impossible to strictly economy pick unless you've decided to never play 2 consecutive notes on the same string before switching strings (ie you have to alternate at some point). It follows that this is all shades of gray. You have to be able to perform both. You just do. No one has said otherwise. Rather than argue semantics... perhaps we can offer up some assistance. A few posts back I offered up a couple suggestions for the OP as to how one might make their economy picking controlled and develop good time and the ability to articulate independently of string skips and picking patterns. Any thoughts? Originally Posted by coolvinny
If you've finally discovered that to play that Bird lick at 300 bpm you have to economy pick ... how do you develop that technique into something that can be executed cleanly and in good time?
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Patrick - I think the problem is that we mean different things by "alternate picking". To me, alternate picking means that when you cross strings you keep the down-up-down-up pattern consistent.
So, you would play a three-note-per-string scale pattern across three strings ascending or descending:
down up down
up down up
down up down
The gypsy system has you doing this ascending or descending:
down up down
down up down
down up down
And the economy system has you doing the same as the gypsy ascending and then:
up down up
up down up
up down up
To come back down.
All the systems have you alternating when you are on single strings, the difference comes in how you move between the strings.
I'm saying that I've never seen a jazzer other than Pat Martino use the first approach consistently in a bebop setting.
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I have a magic right hand that decides for itself what to do. For me, picking is mostly a rhythmic activity, I don't pick like a machine, and I find that I don't have to think about it, it just happens. I have noticed when doing scale exercises that my hand usually likes alt picking by default, even when moving up or down to adjacent strings, but scale exercises aren't jazz lines.
There are so many other activities going on when phrasing lines...hammers, pulls, slides, that they very much affect the flow of your picking activities, too much to analyze in the moment when you're just trying to "go for it".
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I work on independence. Basically alternate but I have worked for many years on combinations of picking patterns, because you never know which way or which beat the phrase is going to turn. But I still maintain that the direction of the pick should be determined by the music and not by the convenience of the string position.
I took a class from Barney Kessel. I completely forgot about that. Cool. But, man I don't know. Too much of this stuff just sounds too guitaristic. Folks are in love with the guitar and guitar players rather than jazz or music. I have always disliked sweep picking, for instance, whether the grand Gambole sweeps or the smaller jazz sweeps a la Kessel. They've always made me cringe. It's just a stylistic guitar trick that always sounded lame to me.
It's always been music I heard in my head, not so much guitar. That's why I've never transcribed a guitar solo. And when I've learned bits of guitar solos it's been Hendrix or Ford. But jazz? It's Garland, Rollins, Herbie, Coltrane, Bird, Corea, Miles, Cannonball, Dexter, Powell, Brecker, Liebman, Jarrett. The phrases, the articulation. Not the tricks of the instrument or the awkwardness of picking patterns that don't bring out the rhythmic phrases. Some of those examples posted earlier were cool but stepping back from the guitar a bit they just didn't flow right to me. Not that MY shit is right.
Too much picking is part of the problem. The other extreme might be too much legato. I pick too much for my OWN taste. But playing is unconscious. You train and then you go.
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This post of your totally clears it up for me. I just read the post and then picked up a guitar . . . confirming what you've posted here. Crossing strings will definitely lead to a very brief departure from strict alt picking. But, even with that very brief departure . . it still is a derivitive of and eventually gets back to alternate picking . . and then usually goes on to encompass the anything and everything technique . . based upon the lines being created and/or covered. Honestly, I never even heard of the term gypsy picking until this thread. Originally Posted by ecj
So then, my take away is this; with very few exceptions, there are no absolutes. No absolutely exclusive alt picking . . or eco picking . . and certainly not sweep.
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Originally Posted by ecj
Yes I agree, and for descending..........................
down up down
down up down
down up down
The main point/trick is that the "down down" or "up up" is one flowing movement without stopping.
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Not to be too pedantic here, but that "very brief departure from strict alt picking" that you describe re crossing strings is *the* thing that separates alt picking and economy picking. In a nutshell, that is the diff between the two methods, fast sweeps etc excepted. But lots of good points in this thread, and on close examination of my own picking I notice that I do often deviate from strict economy picking where it makes sense to do so. Originally Posted by Patrick2
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Interesting, because since a teenager I have always "economy picked", I wasn't taught picking, so economy picking was the "natural" picking for me. Alt is probably more common, because that's what's taught by most teachers. Originally Posted by Vladan
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To each ... I ve noticed sometimes I do economy change of strings, but in 99% I just go down up all the time, except for hammer ons and such.
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Henry, I find this somewhat problematic. First, I think it odd to say that something done on a guitar can be faulted for being "too guitaristic." Is is too saxo-phony when Sonny Rollins honks his tenor? Was it lame when Miles (and many another trumpet player) used a mute? Of course not. People tend to love whatever instrument they devote large chunks of their lives to playing. No one plays music "in general"---everyone who plays an instrument, from drums to piano to B3 organ to alto sax---is working with a particular instrument with particular properties. (Thomas Owens points out in his book "Bebop: The Music and its Players" how certain features of the alto sax influenced the way Charlie Parker phrased some of his lines; it is not at all clear that he would have played the same choruses, and he certainly wouldn't have achieved the same sound, if he played them on a trumpet, or piano, instead of an alto sax.) Originally Posted by henryrobinett
Second, I think the music we all hear in our head is vocal. It is interesting in this regard to note the many jazz musicians who sing / hum as they improvise: take Oscar Peterson (piano) and Herb Ellis (guitar.) They both did this. They also played together. There are live recordings during which both can be heard doing this. I don't think anyone----including Oscar and Herb, God rest their souls---would prefer the sounds they made with their voices while improvising to the sounds coming out of their piano and guitar respectively.
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Hey, I'm just speaking for my own perspective. A friend of mine and a great jazz trombonist and arranger said the same thing to me once. He didn't like J.J. Johnson because he did too many trombone tricks. He much preferred Jimmy Knepper. Now not being a trombone player I have no idea what he means. And what I say has little relevance for a trombone player as it pertains to guitar.
There are many tricks guitar players use that are easy to execute on the guitar: sliding up the fretboard, sweeping. Or things not necessarily easy, but very guitar tricky like two handed tapping, which has just become too much of a guitar thing for me to ever do.
The sax tricks I don't know anything about, which is fine. It's all just music to my ears.
Now as I said, that's just me. I play the guitar, but I never really fell in love with the guitar or guitar players. It was just a means of making music. So I NEVER wanted to play like Wes, Hall, Kessel, McLaughlin, -- you name them. And I was listening to JAZZ long before I ever decided on which instrument to play. The sound was in my head already. And some players just always sounded awkward to me. Tal Farlow's attack drove me nuts. Now maybe the three recordings I had were the wrong ones. Could be.
When I listen to guitar players, I don't particularly want to HEAR the guitar. I want to hear ideas that transcend the instrument. Since I primarily listen to all the instruments, I want the guitarist to be the equal of Rollins, or Hubbard, or Corea, Coltrane. But TO ME the phrasing, generally speaking, isn't the equal.
I'm not trying to take away the love you or anyone has for Herb Ellis or those guys. I'm a strange corner case. Of course most people who play an instrument want to hear and be inspired by others who play their instrument. I've just never been that guy. Not that I think I'm BETTER than anybody. I'm not. But when I hear Cannonball and Coltrane tear it up on Limehouse Blues - well I'd just rather hear them play that than Barney Kessel play anything. And that's nothing against him. It's just my preference and how I like my jazz.
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I get where you're going with this. I would draw a line between "guitar tricks" and guitaristic playing. Wes's conception is very guitar oriented. A lot of his lines fall along drop-2 patterns in a way that I don't think other instruments would even dream of arranging their own lines. He is not - to my ear - full of guitar tricks. Tal Farlow played melodies for ballads using artificial harmonics and I think that's just brilliant. I definitely do, however, hear excessive sweeping, or overly dramatic string bends, moving parallel patterns up and down super fast, tapping and slurs and things like that as tricks. In particular contexts those things make me cringe. I guess it comes down to whether or not I think they add to the music or detract from it which is totally subjective. I just draw a line somewhere between guitaristic conception and sliding across the stage playing the guitar with your toes.
Last edited by inwalkedbud; 05-25-2014 at 03:08 PM.
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I'm pretty much with Henry, on the issue.
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Must say, this thread inspired me to try out something I did not do since 1991, or maybe 1992. In about 5 -10 minutes I could sweep 2 octave major and minor triads like nothing. Little dirty, but with right distortion and delay, I could post a video lesson on YT. Would not be worse than average YT guitar smartass. Of course, i will not do that. For some time at least.
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Nothing at all too pedantic about your comments. It was just hard for me to make a distinction between alternate picking when only one or two pick strokes of possibly 4 measures or so would not alternate. I've heard it spoken, somewhere a loooooong time ago, that if you need to pass a string on the down stroke, just so that you could up-pick it and remain true to alternate picking, the motion of passing the string on the down stroke without plucking it . . is a wasted motion. I now assume that's where the term economy picking came from? However, as I see it . . the down stroke only needs to travel an extra 1/4" to pass the next string so that you can pluck it on the up stroke. Originally Posted by coolvinny
To be perfectly honest, I'd probably need to record a close up of my right (picking) hand and play it back in slo-mo to see where I actually economy pick unconsciously. The only time I need to make an exerted and focused effort on my picking, is when I intentionally alt-pick exclusively for a 1 or 2 measure run. Other than that, the habits and muscle memory deeply ingrained over the years just takes complete control over my right hand.
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I get that. When I first started listening to jazz, it wasn't to the guitar players but to the horn players. I used to think, "Man, if I had known that I'd get into jazz one day, I might've taken up the tenor sax instead of the guitar." So I completely get having a non-guitar-focused love of jazz. I didn't like the sound of jazz guitar when I first heard it----I was used to Hendrix and Jeff Back: the jazz guitar sounded boring to me. Wes was the first guitar player I heard who really knocked me out, that "Smokin' At The Half Note" record. Later I heard Charlie Christian and he was the first guy I heard play guitar who seemed to me to sound better than some horn players. Gradually, I got more and more into singers and guitar players. I never stopped loving the horn but I now think it is a much more, um, limited instrument than the guitar. I'm glad I play guitar. I no longer have sax-envy. And what I love about the guitar is that it is, well, the guitar. I don't use distortion or anything like that, just a Polytone with a bit of reverb, and the guitar. I admire great country / bluegrass guys for all they can get out of an acoustic guitar, and gypsy players too. That sounds much more exciting to me now that distortion does. And, frankly, most horn players anymore. I still love Sonny Rollins. But I think Miles was right when he said a lot of those guys need to go to "Notes Anonymous" because they play too much. Originally Posted by henryrobinett
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Yeah. I get that too. But I don't have sax envy. I'm glad I play guitar. I love the guitar. I just don't listen to guitar players a lot. I dig guitar tones and love all variation of distortions, crunch, clean and effects that go with more modern guitar sounds.
I think the guitar is incredibly expressive. In most ways more than the sax. But until recently guitarists just didn't seem as sophisticated or as developed as the better jazz pianists and horn players. The language and created lineage of jazz seemed more in the domain of trumpet, sax and piano than it did guitar. The real innovation did not happen with guitar. Guitar copied, until recently. But then when guitarists started to develop their own thing it was unsophisticated, in comparison. Fast modal but none of the real intricacy of Coltrane influenced players like Liebman, Grossman, Corea, McCoy, Brecker or melodicism of Jarrett or swinging chops of Hubbard, Peterson, Cannonball.Last edited by henryrobinett; 05-29-2014 at 02:45 AM.
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Further clarification. I never wanted to play a horn. Piano yeah. But I've NEVER had sax envy. My thing has ALWAYS been trying to adapt the lines and or sophistication and phraseology of some sax, trumpet and piano players. But for me it's never been the instrument, ever. It's the player I'm attracted to. I like the mind of the player; specific players like Corea, Miles, Trane, Rollins, Bird, etc.
I like the mind of Scofield too. Luge and Adam Rogers too. But at this point I'm just not interested in trying to copy anyone. My style is well developed already. I certainly am not interested in sounding like anyone else.
For me jazz has always been about finding your own style. It just never made sense to me finding your own style by stealing from others. I know that goes against common wisdom. But what can I say? It's me.
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I'm with Henry... I like sounding like a guitarist. I also have to say most guitarist play with what technique they have.
If your able to articulate whatever your playing... like you want... or how it's notated... or how the line is or was meant to be played... who cares.
I apologize up front... how many of you can come close to actually pulling that off. With out woodsheading for a week.
I remember having a discussion with Rich about being able to articulate up strokes at 300... so I posted a vid of just that.
I think if your going to be an expert at picking... you need to be able to cover, actually on your guitar.
How many of you can play lines with articulations... and have them repeat a week later with out memorizing what your doing.
With out some type of reference for what or why your using a picking style, how can you really be an expert or have a logical reason for what style you believe is "Right".... and if you can't cover both or some combination of... how can you really even know.
If the OP want's to change his picking style because he want's to... great. Like Henry said...it's me. There is never anything wrong with that. Generally those are the people that actually create etc...
But if your going to be an expert and give advice as an expert... you need to be able to cover.
Disclaimer... personal opinion... (but I can cover)
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