Alternate Picking a Two-Octave Major Scale at 300bpm or higher

[Vladan]

IMO, 2nd position can mean only one thing:
index finger on 2nd fret, middle finger on 3rd fret, ring on 4th pinky on 5th,
index and pinky can stretch to adjacent frets.
Sliding would not count, IMO.

- Standard major scale fingering is (string/ finger, no stretches),
Roots are: 6/ 2, 4/ 4, 1/ 2:

6/ (1) 2, 4
5/ 1, 2, 4
4/ 1, 3, 4
3/ 1, 3, 4
2/ 2, 4
1/ 1, 2, (4)

- I do not see any problem in starting 2nd octave on upstroke, probably because i do not hear it as octaves in succession.

- Troy Grady, at least in his free offerings, will not be of help, IMO. Maybe the material he charges for, I do not know, but his free stuff is more less useless.

- In any case, the trick is in properly applied well known standard approaches and techniques, like positioning hand above the string, using different groups of muscles for different things, aiming fairly precisely ... all the slanting BS falls into place on it's own, you already do it that way, whichever way you do it, standard, Benson, circle ... does not matter. It is not something you should think about. Just take care not to do it overly sloppy.

- The hardest part is to develop right hand to reflexively switch motion in seemingly controlled manner, to really use return motion as picking motion without sending separate command. That is the core of what Troy Grady does, he just talks a lot about other stuff.
It can happen, though, that while struggling with unimportant, you accidentally fix something that really matters. For example, you could be working on "slanting" BS, or other "revolutionary discovery" from some other presenter, and have accidentally improve hand positioning in the process, or something ...

- Practice your butt off .... Exactly!!! For example, all the "special technique solution" sellers have no other thing in their lives to do except for to practice their butts off on example licks they use to sell their products.

[christianm77]

I'll try this tomorrow.

I predict, upward, no problem.... downwards will be an issue for my technique.

[sgcim]

As it relates to actual playing situations, isn't this all too calculated? Counting how many notes per string you are going to play so you can land on either a downstroke or an upstroke. It reminds me of the downward/upward pickslanting thing. Do players actually calculate how they are going to pick as they are playing? "OK, now I have to play three notes on this string in this ascending lick so I can land on a upstroke on the next string." Shouldn't improv be more spontaneous than that?

That's the whole point of practicing stuff like this; so you don't have to think about technique when improvising.
As I've said a few times in this thread, I only practice technique so I can be completely spontaneous in my improvisation, and play relaxed.
IMHO, that's the fun part about playing jazz; you're going on a new musical journey each time you have a solo.
Improvisers like Lee Konitz claim that nobody really improvises anymore. Read gary burton's autobiography about Pat Metheny "putting little fixes in the studio" on all his solos on all the albums he played with Burton.

Metheny is concerned with putting out a perfect product that people will enjoy. There's nothing wrong with that, but don't call it spontaneous jazz.
Today there is more pressure than ever to put out a 'perfect product' in jazz. As Konitz says, it's all rehearsed improvising rather than spontaneous improvising.
I've mentioned before that I saw Jim Hall and Ron Carter live at the Village West club once, and he was playing all the solos from his 'Alone Together' album almost note for note. Ron Carter was improvising all of his solos.
There are tons of examples of Miles Davis playing the same solos in his out takes that he played in the released versions of his tunes.
Pepper Adams said that when he played live with Miles, he was able to play Miles' solos with him down 8va because he played the same solos every night, and Pepper memorized them. He also got himself fired because he did that.
Anyway, the reason I practice this stuff is so I can get to whatever I spontaneously come up with. Otherwise, I'd be playing classical music or other non-improvisational music.

[sgcim]

I'm a bit unsure what you mean by 2nd position. Could you post where on each string you can the scale played.

Do you mean just the simple
(low E sting) 35
(A) 235
(D) 245
etc.

Yeah.

[JakeAcci]

Re: calculation: Calculate things in the practice room, get them ingrained and internalized to the point that you can improvise with them. It's the same with any harmonic or fretboard stuff - might be pretty mathy in the initial stages, but a good 'integration process' allows the concepts to start becoming a natural part of improvisation. I don't think we should ever really fear technical details, either of harmony/rhythm/technique/positioning, etc, we just need to know that if we find something valuable it may take a while before it is ingrained and ready to be used for improv.