Troy Grady - Two way pick slanting (Cracking the Code)

[MatsP]

I Just want to chime in and share my thoughts on Yngwie's technique a bit more. The "downward pick slanting" that he uses is somewat limiting in that you can't use straight alternate picking at all times without some pull-offs or hammer-ons in between, since the pick has to leave each string on an upstroke (except when going from lower to higher string, then just "sweep" to it), or it will be very awkward to go from a higher string on a downstroke to a lower on an upstroke due to the slant, for logical reasons. But one "good" thing about this is that it will automatically introduce some interesting variation in the otherwise so static all-time straight alternate picking, which can become very mechanical in the long run. I'm not saying this variation can't be done in other ways, but it's an interesting by-product of the technique.

I'm currently trying to apply Yngwie's technique on jazz, and it will take some restructuring of phrases alright, but there are some very strong points about downward pick slanting (hate those buzz terms, though), one of them is that the rotational movement of the wrist (in/out in relation to the string, sort of) is very lean on your muscles, and virtually non-fatiguing if you do it the right way. This is the next most non-fatiguing motion after the Bruno technique to me, although with more "snap" and definition of the tone in my book. Whether that's preferable or not is of course subjective. Some like it mellow.

EDIT: "Downward pick slanting" resembles gypsy picking in a way, at least in terms of the downward slant of the pick, and that's what contributes to the snappiness of the tone.

[christianm77]

That's what I tried and it was a disaster on that particular line. I think the slant in the direction of the sweep works best for lines that are primarily one direction or the other, not on lines that change direction constantly...

Yeah probably right - myself I find that doing the 'thumb bump' thing helps me with doing naughty upsweeps in Gypsy Jazz... I was playing around with that today - helps out a lot.

It's also good for alternate picking patterns - you don't have to do much of it at all to have it help out with awkward cross picking combinations...

That particular line is a fecking bloodbath. I'm not going anywhere near it ;-)

[christianm77]

I Just want to chime in and share my thoughts on Yngwie's technique a bit more. The "downward pick slanting" that he uses is somewat limiting in that you can't use straight alternate picking at all times without some pull-offs or hammer-ons in between, since the pick has to leave each string on an upstroke (except when going from lower to higher string, then just "sweep" to it), or it will be very awkward to go from a higher string on a downstroke to a lower on an upstroke due to the slant, for logical reasons.


But one "good" thing about this is that it will automatically introduce some interesting variation in the otherwise so static all-time straight alternate picking, which can become very mechanical in the long run. I'm not saying this variation can't be done in other ways, but it's an interesting by-product of the technique.

I actually prefer the sound of dwps picking to alternate, so actually see the inability to alternate pick as an advantage - I actually like the flow and assymetry of the dwps style - it's horn like...

On the other hand, Al Di Meola and McLaughlin - every note sounds the same and a it's like being machine-gunned.

But others don't like the lack of control and ability to micromanage accents etc, which I can respect...

I'm currently trying to apply Yngwie's technique on jazz, and it will take some restructuring of phrases alright, but there are some very strong points about downward pick slanting (hate those buzz terms, though), one of them is that the rotational movement of the wrist (in/out in relation to the string, sort of) is very lean on your muscles, and virtually non-fatiguing if you do it the right way. This is the next most non-fatiguing motion after the Bruno technique to me, although with more "snap" and definition of the tone in my book. Whether that's preferable or not is of course subjective. Some like it mellow.

Just to check - you do realise dwps picking is pretty common among jazz guitarists? Joe Pass springs to mind, as does Tal Farlow... And of course there's Django. And George Benson and Wes have their own special variants. Most of these players are floating wrist, but if you want to mute - Yngwie style - it shouldn't affect the mechanics too much.

People have asked me if Gypsy style playing is limiting for non-gypsy jazz. I don't find it terribly limiting although I do find the odd combination which is a bit awkward. I think this is because in general, jazz is not aiming for the sheer speed of Yngwie-style rock so a lot of the issues that worry Troy aren't quite so pressing.

I tend to think fast repeating licks and sequenced scale runs sound incredibly naff in jazz context.

I do need to think about left hand fingerings, but I think this always needs attention TBH, one way or another. I can certainly play bop heads at reasonable tempo (I want to post some videos of this soon) and I play a lot of bop language in my solos.

Tonally - explore edge picking and practice picking at different dynamics. Be able to play the same phrases loud and soft...

IMO -if you really want to master dwps - practice this - down up down down up down on one string - every day. Triplet picking right?

EDIT: "Downward pick slanting" resembles gypsy picking in a way, at least in terms of the downward slant of the pick, and that's what contributes to the snappiness of the tone.

It's perhaps more accurate to say that Gypsy picking (which I prefer to call rest stroke picking) is a one type of downward pick slanting technique with some specific extra characteristics.

I get the feeling GJ style picking was once ubiquitous or very common back in the days before amplification.

[jzucker]

great stuff on this thread! Thanks to everyone participating. Lots of good insight by christian, matsp, ghoststrat and others!

[MatsP]

I actually prefer the sound of dwps picking to alternate, so actually see the inability to alternate pick as an advantage - I actually like the flow and assymetry of the dwps style - it's horn like...

On the other hand, Al Di Meola and McLaughlin - every note sounds the same and a it's like being machine-gunned.

But others don't like the lack of control and ability to micromanage accents etc, which I can respect...



Just to check - you do realise dwps picking is pretty common among jazz guitarists? Joe Pass springs to mind, as does Tal Farlow... And of course there's Django. And George Benson and Wes have their own special variants. Most of these players are floating wrist, but if you want to mute - Yngwie style - it shouldn't affect the mechanics too much.

People have asked me if Gypsy style playing is limiting for non-gypsy jazz. I don't find it terribly limiting although I do find the odd combination which is a bit awkward. I think this is because in general, jazz is not aiming for the sheer speed of Yngwie-style rock so a lot of the issues that worry Troy aren't quite so pressing.

I tend to think fast repeating licks and sequenced scale runs sound incredibly naff in jazz context.

I do need to think about left hand fingerings, but I think this always needs attention TBH, one way or another. I can certainly play bop heads at reasonable tempo (I want to post some videos of this soon) and I play a lot of bop language in my solos.

Tonally - explore edge picking and practice picking at different dynamics. Be able to play the same phrases loud and soft...

IMO -if you really want to master dwps - practice this - down up down down up down on one string - every day. Triplet picking right?



It's perhaps more accurate to say that Gypsy picking (which I prefer to call rest stroke picking) is a one type of downward pick slanting technique with some specific extra characteristics.

I get the feeling GJ style picking was once ubiquitous or very common back in the days before amplification.

Nice to hear that you agree on the mechanical character of alternate only picking. That's one reason I never really liked Al Di Meola, although he's got the chops alright, no doubt about that.

Regarding rest stroke picking (I prefer the term rest stroke picking as well actually, it was slightly misleading to use "gypsy picking"), Yngwie's technique is no more similar to rest stroke picking than that downward slant, of course. And the slant is not as extreme as in rest stroke picking, for that matter, partly because there's no need to land on the next string with the pick.

And I think you're right that rest stroke picking was more prevalent back in the unamplified days, when it was necessary to cram more out of the guitar in order to match the rest of the musicians.

[MatsP]

great stuff on this thread! Thanks to everyone participating. Lots of good insight by christian, matsp, ghoststrat and others!

Nice to hear that my small contributions are appreciated for once I'm far from a fanboy of any particular sort, as you probably thought when I was ranting here the last time. Granted, Frank Gambale, as you mentioned as an all-time favorite of yours, is a great guitarist, but he's not the only one out there, and his right hand technique (actually resembling Al Di Meola's in a way) doesn't fit me that well, with that seemingly firm anchoring of his wrist to the bridge, at least as far as I can judge by videos I've seen. I might be wrong, of course. Anyway, it works for him, but personally I'm much better off with a *light* anchor of the *bent* pinky and possibly ring finger against the guitar body (note that I'm *not* putting the finger pads against the body, but rather the nails, so that the fingers will easily glide against the body, acting more like "antennas" rather than fixed anchor points) and the occasional touch of the bridge, primarily to dampen ringing lower strings now and then, and of course, in rock (sorry, but I like that type of music as well), for more permanent muting.

Now, Jimmy Bruno's "elbow technique" was something I embraced fully before, but I have also come to appreciate Yngwie's downward pick slanting stuff due to the increased definition and "oomph" of the notes it creates, and the minimal stress on the muscles, thanks to the rotational movement. I'm a bit ambivalent here. It's of course possible to combine the two, depending on the phrase in question. The experiments continue. The guitar is such a hard instrument in a way, since there are so many different ways to pick. I also play the cello, and occasionally piano/keyboard, and the rules are simpler in those departments.

[EDS]

I actually prefer the sound of dwps picking to alternate, so actually see the inability to alternate pick as an advantage - I actually like the flow and assymetry of the dwps style - it's horn like...

On the other hand, Al Di Meola and McLaughlin - every note sounds the same and a it's like being machine-gunned.

But others don't like the lack of control and ability to micromanage accents etc, which I can respect...

I've heard this idea expressed before, that alternate picking is inherently "machine-gun" like.

I'm wondering what the reason for this is?

Is it a general lack of legato among strict alternate pickers? The natural repeating accents resulting from strict down-up playing? Perhaps a broader pick stroke by alternate pickers results in them hitting the strings harder, thus sound less legato.

I'm a strict alternate picker who has been guilty of this type of playing. Although, I tried somewhat half-heartedly to change, I simply can't economy pick. I do pick slant both ways depending on what I'm doing though.

So I'm trying to break out of this habit and have a more varied articulation to what I'm doing.

Perhaps this is getting too off-topic though? If so, I can move it to a new thread.

[ghoststrat]

great stuff on this thread! Thanks to everyone participating. Lots of good insight by christian, matsp, ghoststrat and others!

I feel the same way! I'm learning a lot from it.

[MatsP]

I've heard this idea expressed before, that alternate picking is inherently "machine-gun" like.

I'm wondering what the reason for this is?

Is it a general lack of legato among strict alternate pickers? The natural repeating accents resulting from strict down-up playing? Perhaps a broader pick stroke by alternate pickers results in them hitting the strings harder, thus sound less legato.

I'm a strict alternate picker who has been guilty of this type of playing. Although, I tried somewhat half-heartedly to change, I simply can't economy pick. I do pick slant both ways depending on what I'm doing though.

So I'm trying to break out of this habit and have a more varied articulation to what I'm doing.

Perhaps this is getting too off-topic though? If so, I can move it to a new thread.

No, it's definitely on-topic to me. Yeah, I think you're nailing it there regarding alternate picking. Take Al Di Meola for example, he's not using a lot of hammer-ons or pull-offs (i.e. legato, in essence), it's mostly straight alternate picking all the way, at least judging by my ears. That's the reason he's not a favourite of mine, since it tends to sound like a burst of a machine gun many times, although once again, his chops are undisputable.

Herb Ellis once made an analogy of playing saxophone or singing, if I remember correctly, and you hardly spit out each note separately when singing or playing sax. I'm personally trying to include more legato in my playing at appropriately chosen places.

EDIT: Good places to use legato in jazz IMHO are between the last note in a (possibly with absent middle note, pretty common in fact, those "swinging" eighth notes) triplet and the first note in the next one. This isn't something revolutionary that I've suddenly invented myself, I'm just observing things...

[MatsP]

It just hit me that Joe Pass uses exactly the same motion mechanics as Yngwie Malmsteen in the following video, look at 0:30, there's a nice close-up of his hand. He's going slightly "in and out" of the strings, rotating his wrist, and he uses the *bent* pinky and ring finger and possible long finger, I don't know, as "antennas". The crucial point is that they are bent, and that they glide freely on the guitar body.

[ghoststrat]

This might be a little bit off topic, but my co-ordination has been atrophying over the past few years, and it's worrying me. I listen to recordings of my playing from 10, or 15 years ago and it's much more 'together'. Now when I play/shed it seems to just keep getting worse. Nothing else seems to be falling apart, so I don't think it's neurological. Anyone else experience something like this?

[Shadow of the Sun]

So, I've been experimenting with ways of managing to strictly alternate pick lines without needing to deal with having to change pick slant or anything, and this is what I've come up with. I think it would fall into what Troy calls crosspicking, albeit different than Albert King or Carl Miner have done.

My picking comes from a rotational movement of my wrist with my hand floating about the strings. If I'm alternate picking on the A string, a downstroke will start hovering above the low E string, make a curved movement, sounding the A string, and end hovering above the D string, and the reverse for an upstroke.

If I'm changing strings, that movement comes from the elbow - my hand floats above the strings unless I'm muting, with my wrist making that rotational motion, and I choose which string I'm playing on by moving my elbow.

If I'm including sweeps, they are completely motivated by the elbow, since I'm changing strings. If so, I just change strings right after the pick has intersected the string, before it's moved out of the plane of the strings, and "sweep" through to a rest stroke.

I've mostly based this on what I've seen about playing single line scalar runs with free strokes on a classical guitar - in that case, the index and middle fingers alternate and mostly stay in the same position, and if you want to change strings, you change the string your thumb is resting on.

I don't know if I'll be able to maintain fidelity with this picking method at blazing speeds (I'm working at slow speeds at the moment to develop the technique more), but to my mind is seems like a logical method of doing all alternate picking without having to worry so much about pick-slanting, swiping, etc, and I can incorporate sweeps into my lines if I want too as well.

Anybody got any thoughts about the method I've described? It's mostly just my personal approach, so I can't really say it's the most efficient or effective way of playing, but it does feel pretty solid and logical as these things go.

[MatsP]

So, I've been experimenting with ways of managing to strictly alternate pick lines without needing to deal with having to change pick slant or anything, and this is what I've come up with. I think it would fall into what Troy calls crosspicking, albeit different than Albert King or Carl Miner have done.

My picking comes from a rotational movement of my wrist with my hand floating about the strings. If I'm alternate picking on the A string, a downstroke will start hovering above the low E string, make a curved movement, sounding the A string, and end hovering above the D string, and the reverse for an upstroke.

If I'm changing strings, that movement comes from the elbow - my hand floats above the strings unless I'm muting, with my wrist making that rotational motion, and I choose which string I'm playing on by moving my elbow.

If I'm including sweeps, they are completely motivated by the elbow, since I'm changing strings. If so, I just change strings right after the pick has intersected the string, before it's moved out of the plane of the strings, and "sweep" through to a rest stroke.

I've mostly based this on what I've seen about playing single line scalar runs with free strokes on a classical guitar - in that case, the index and middle fingers alternate and mostly stay in the same position, and if you want to change strings, you change the string your thumb is resting on.

I don't know if I'll be able to maintain fidelity with this picking method at blazing speeds (I'm working at slow speeds at the moment to develop the technique more), but to my mind is seems like a logical method of doing all alternate picking without having to worry so much about pick-slanting, swiping, etc, and I can incorporate sweeps into my lines if I want too as well.

Anybody got any thoughts about the method I've described? It's mostly just my personal approach, so I can't really say it's the most efficient or effective way of playing, but it does feel pretty solid and logical as these things go.

Very clearly explained regarding your picking approach. Yes, I suppose the best way is to keep the slant close to nil if you want to do all-time alternate picking without inserting hammer-ons or pull-offs now and then, which is necessary when using downward pick slanting. There is of course Jimmy Bruno's technique, where the main motion is from the forearm, but that takes a very relaxed forearm in order to avoid fatigue. The problem *I* have with wrist rotation and a non-slanted pick is that it feels somewhat "unhinged" and random to me. To each his own, of course.

EDIT: There is of course also the sideways wrist motion approach, but I never felt comfortable with that one. It's probably not very good for the tendons either.

[Shadow of the Sun]

I personally use either the back of my fingers (usually my ring finger) or the brawn of my thumb lightly touching the strings I'm not playing as a way to orient myself while still technically floating. Allows me to maintain my rotation in the same place and to track my string changes without too many issues.

[EDS]

So, I've been experimenting with ways of managing to strictly alternate pick lines without needing to deal with having to change pick slant or anything, and this is what I've come up with. I think it would fall into what Troy calls crosspicking, albeit different than Albert King or Carl Miner have done.

My picking comes from a rotational movement of my wrist with my hand floating about the strings. If I'm alternate picking on the A string, a downstroke will start hovering above the low E string, make a curved movement, sounding the A string, and end hovering above the D string, and the reverse for an upstroke.

If I'm changing strings, that movement comes from the elbow - my hand floats above the strings unless I'm muting, with my wrist making that rotational motion, and I choose which string I'm playing on by moving my elbow.

If I'm including sweeps, they are completely motivated by the elbow, since I'm changing strings. If so, I just change strings right after the pick has intersected the string, before it's moved out of the plane of the strings, and "sweep" through to a rest stroke.

I've mostly based this on what I've seen about playing single line scalar runs with free strokes on a classical guitar - in that case, the index and middle fingers alternate and mostly stay in the same position, and if you want to change strings, you change the string your thumb is resting on.

I don't know if I'll be able to maintain fidelity with this picking method at blazing speeds (I'm working at slow speeds at the moment to develop the technique more), but to my mind is seems like a logical method of doing all alternate picking without having to worry so much about pick-slanting, swiping, etc, and I can incorporate sweeps into my lines if I want too as well.

Anybody got any thoughts about the method I've described? It's mostly just my personal approach, so I can't really say it's the most efficient or effective way of playing, but it does feel pretty solid and logical as these things go.

I assume you mean Albert Lee, not King?

I think this is close to what I do as well, though I do slant sometimes as well - maybe its not a coincidence that I've studied classical guitar extensively as well. However, I don't have my wrist floating above the strings but rather resting on the strings/bridge.

What does rotational movement mean? Is this different than the standard up/down wrist picking motion?

Perhaps post a video of your playing focusing on the right hand/arm movements - this is one of the those things where a picture is worth a thousand words.

[MatsP]

I personally use either the back of my fingers (usually my ring finger) or the brawn of my thumb lightly touching the strings I'm not playing as a way to orient myself while still technically floating. Allows me to maintain my rotation in the same place and to track my string changes without too many issues.

Yeah, that's one way to do it. In any case, one needs some height reference to the strings in my book, or it will be a very haphazard experience.

[christianm77]

It just hit me that Joe Pass uses exactly the same motion mechanics as Yngwie Malmsteen in the following video, look at 0:30, there's a nice close-up of his hand. He's going slightly "in and out" of the strings, rotating his wrist, and he uses the *bent* pinky and ring finger and possible long finger, I don't know, as "antennas". The crucial point is that they are bent, and that they glide freely on the guitar body.

Birelli's electric technique:

And with gain:

I think he may have gone through an Yngwie phase....

[christianm77]

So, I've been experimenting with ways of managing to strictly alternate pick lines without needing to deal with having to change pick slant or anything, and this is what I've come up with. I think it would fall into what Troy calls crosspicking, albeit different than Albert King or Carl Miner have done.

My picking comes from a rotational movement of my wrist with my hand floating about the strings. If I'm alternate picking on the A string, a downstroke will start hovering above the low E string, make a curved movement, sounding the A string, and end hovering above the D string, and the reverse for an upstroke.

If I'm changing strings, that movement comes from the elbow - my hand floats above the strings unless I'm muting, with my wrist making that rotational motion, and I choose which string I'm playing on by moving my elbow.

If I'm including sweeps, they are completely motivated by the elbow, since I'm changing strings. If so, I just change strings right after the pick has intersected the string, before it's moved out of the plane of the strings, and "sweep" through to a rest stroke.

I've mostly based this on what I've seen about playing single line scalar runs with free strokes on a classical guitar - in that case, the index and middle fingers alternate and mostly stay in the same position, and if you want to change strings, you change the string your thumb is resting on.

I don't know if I'll be able to maintain fidelity with this picking method at blazing speeds (I'm working at slow speeds at the moment to develop the technique more), but to my mind is seems like a logical method of doing all alternate picking without having to worry so much about pick-slanting, swiping, etc, and I can incorporate sweeps into my lines if I want too as well.

Anybody got any thoughts about the method I've described? It's mostly just my personal approach, so I can't really say it's the most efficient or effective way of playing, but it does feel pretty solid and logical as these things go.

Those cross picking guys are heavy....

I've never had the patience to persist with rotational floating hand alternate picking. Good luck!

[christianm77]

I assume you mean Albert Lee, not King?

I think this is close to what I do as well, though I do slant sometimes as well - maybe its not a coincidence that I've studied classical guitar extensively as well. However, I don't have my wrist floating above the strings but rather resting on the strings/bridge.

What does rotational movement mean? Is this different than the standard up/down wrist picking motion?

Perhaps post a video of your playing focusing on the right hand/arm movements - this is one of the those things where a picture is worth a thousand words.

You rotate your whole wrist rather than translating the hand from left to right. It's like screwing in a light bulb.

[MatsP]

Birelli's electric technique:

And with gain:

I think he may have gone through an Yngwie phase....

Hehe... well, I don't know Great guitarist anyway. In any case, he doesn't slant the pick a lot judging by the videos there, he does rotate the wrist though, rather than moving it sideways.

[MatsP]

Those cross picking guys are heavy....

I've never had the patience to persist with rotational floating hand alternate picking. Good luck!

Exactly my sentiments. It feels too "loose" to me. The "anchor" Yngwie and Joe Pass with that Jazzmaster uses is not really an anchor, though. The fingers act more like freely moving "antennas" as I mentioned before. And Yngwie often keeps his hand above the bridge/strings when doing his really speedy stuff. As long as you have those "antennas" as a height reference, it works quite well.

[jazz4ever]

I think twps came out of analyzing MAB alt picking 3nps lines
Once you get into sweeps its a little different context - then : yes the directional aspect flows out of how the line is constructed.

That's the thing about strict alt picking - you impose an arbitrary limit on the material. one goal/result of alt picking is the uniformity of sound (which includes uniformity of pickslant)

Part of it depends on where you're at. Some people are already good at both up and downstrokes.

Others need to work on one direction or the other. For me its upstrokes.

I'm not that great at it...but one thing that helped me was JP's rock discipline vid. especially the "example 4"
the exercise has quite a few picking variations which are all important in "even-ing out"
the picking.

As far as the OP, upward slant and ascending lines...I guess you can reverse the question.
How do you handle downward and descending?

Some of that might have to do with "string tracking"

As far as the "feeling" of upward pickslant...the forearm is "bottomed out". This means the picking motion comes more from the wrist : deviation and extension (as demo'd in the Marshall Harrison vids).

Though have to be careful as far as analyzing pickslant vs. pick tech. (e.g. sweep vs. alt) as stated above.

As Grady mentions it (twps) doesn't have to be drastic. And in fact some people "swipe" and don't quite clear the strings.
The "two-way" pickslanter might have a more even plane of motion.
(this, in relation to strict alt picking 3nps scales)


Like I said within that is how comfortable someone is with upstrokes and downstrokes.

There is a bit of overlap in learning one type of picking tech that will help with other tech.

e.g. I think economy picking helps with upward pickslant. specifically descending economy picking
Basically, anything to get on the upstrokes.

None of that will matter if you already have a grasp on those things.

[MatsP]

jazz4ever, I used to use Jimmy Bruno's "catch-all" forearm technique, which essentially results in "automatic slanting" of the pick, since the loose hand glides over the strings, and the main motion is from the forearm. But I'm actually starting to prefer downward pick slanting, in spite of its limitations (you have to plan your strokes by inserting hammer-ons and pull-offs so that the pick leaves the string on an upstroke. Sometimes there are no alternatives but breaking this rule, of course). The tone gets more distinct, since this technique is halfways to rest stroke picking in a way. And the wrist motion that results from it is virtually non-fatiguing if you do it the right way, once again. To each his own, as usual

[jazz4ever]

jazz4ever, I used to use Jimmy Bruno's "catch-all" forearm technique, which essentially results in "automatic slanting" of the pick, since the loose hand glides over the strings, and the main motion is from the forearm. But I'm actually starting to prefer downward pick slanting, in spite of its limitations (you have to plan your strokes by inserting hammer-ons and pull-offs so that the pick leaves the string on an upstroke. Sometimes there are no alternatives but breaking this rule, of course). The tone gets more distinct, since this technique is halfways to rest stroke picking in a way. And the wrist motion that results from it is virtually non-fatiguing if you do it the right way, once again. To each his own, as usual

yes ... its all good. Before the grady series the main tech I studied was strict alternate and sweep. The style you're describing sounds kind of like what Yngwie does - dwps with strategic hammer-on/pulloff.

Its definitely a tech. I'm interested in studying - just haven't done too much work with it.

I subscribe to the master series - Grady has a JB interview/analysis but I haven't checked it out.

the main benefit I've gotten from the series is to re-visit economy picking in a more serious study. I sort of avoided it for a long time. And one thing I noticed is studying economy picking helped my alternate picking (for the reasons described - mainly more comfort with uwps/upstrokes)

Like Zucker says though...there are a lot of gems in any of the episodes.

[MatsP]

yes ... its all good. Before the grady series the main tech I studied was strict alternate and sweep. The style you're describing sounds kind of like what Yngwie does - dwps with strategic hammer-on/pulloff.

Its definitely a tech. I'm interested in studying - just haven't done too much work with it.

I subscribe to the master series - Grady has a JB interview/analysis but I haven't checked it out.

the main benefit I've gotten from the series is to re-visit economy picking in a more serious study. I sort of avoided it for a long time. And one thing I noticed is studying economy picking helped my alternate picking (for the reasons described - mainly more comfort with uwps/upstrokes)

Like Zucker says though...there are a lot of gems in any of the episodes.

Bruno's technique is all about economy picking, and it combines seamlessly with his forearm motion. It's a very relaxed way of picking, albeit with a tendency to become somewhat indistinct compared to other techniques, Fits well for jazz, but not so well for other genres, perhaps.