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→Alternate Picking
|C Major in Open Position and Alternate Picking#Practice|Practice}}
The idea of acquainting yourself with the above scale is to get good enough so that you don't need stringent focus on your left-hand. We're about to start some <u>alternate picking</u>. All that means is we alternate from down stroke to up stroke for each note. Let's see what I mean:
1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1
=== The Upstroke ===
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|C Major in Open Position and Alternate Picking#The Upstroke|Upstroke
|C Major in Open Position and Alternate Picking#Economy Picking|Economy Picking
For an upstroke, the opposite edge of the pick will make contact with the string. You are simply doing the exact reverse motion of a downstroke. It will feel different because before you had to ''push down'' through the strings, but now you are ''pulling up'' through them. The main point, though, is to avoid trying to "set up" the upstroke, by changing the way you hold the pick or otherwise taking valuable time to angle the pick differently.
The biggest issue a beginner usually has with an upstroke actually originates from an incorrect downstroke. He angles the pick during his downstroke, so that the tip of the pick lags behind the top of the pick, causing the strings to easily slide off the pick without having to push through them. This may lead to a loss of power and expression during downstrokes but isn't a huge problem in itself. The problem is when holding the pick at the same angle during an upstroke leads with the pick tip, hooking under the string and causing it to slide up the pick towards the right-hand thumb and index finger holding the pick. The pick angle must be altered mid stroke, or the stroke strength must be increased to a ridiculous level. The end result is that downstrokes are easy while upstrokes take far more effort. This will prevent decent alternate picking technique, where each note has consistent dynamics and timing.
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=== Economy Picking ===
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|C Major in Open Position and Alternate Picking#The Upstroke|Upstroke
|C Major in Open Position and Alternate Picking#Economy Picking|Economy Picking
|C Major in Open Position and Alternate Picking#When to Alternate Pick|When?/Usage}}
Be careful. Many beginner players get sucked into <u>economy picking </u> as follows:
d u d d u d d u d d u d u d d u d
E F G A B C D E F G A B C D E F G
Notice this carries down-strokes downstrokes over from one string to the next - you are using one pick stroke for 2 notes. Economy is generally good; however, if you start getting into this habit, your ''real'' (or strict) alternate picking will suffer because you aren't practicing it. '''My advice is to focus on true strict alternate picking.''' If you later feel like you need more speed and want to develop economy picking, you can do so then. But alternate picking tends to be easier to keep consistent rhythm and dynamics and really strengthen the picking hand.
I fell into the economy picking trap on accident. After I realized I was always economy picking, I thought it was simpler and easier than true alternate picking. But after recording my playing and listening to how off my rhythm could be, I knew that I had to break the habit. It took a solid month to completely reverse all the bad habits I had unwittingly used for almost a year. But my rhythm and dynamics consistently improved quite a bit.
=== Rests and Unequal Note Duration ===
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|C Major in Open Position and Alternate Picking#The Upstroke|Upstroke
|C Major in Open Position and Alternate Picking#Economy Picking|Economy Picking
1 2 3 4 1
--3--
d u d (u) d u d u d
---0--0--0-----0-0-0-0----|0-
Notice how there are 3 notes in the 3rd beat, marked above by "--3--"? That's a ''<u>triplet''</u>, which can be a bit tricky to time, especially this early. Not only the timing, but also the picking pattern is disruptive. Notice how if we alternate pick, we end up with an upstroke on the 4th beat? That's just something we have to deal with. Notice how we go back to using downstrokes on-beat in the next measure. This is favorable if possible, as you will likely get used to "grounding" yourself to the beat with downstrokes. But sometimes, we don't have the opportunity to do so (such as if there was another note in between the 4 and 1 beats). We have to roll with the punches so to speak until we catch a break and can re-focus. This is unusual, however. Triplets tend to either come in pairs or before an emphasized note.
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=== When to Alternate Pick ===
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|C Major in Open Position and Alternate Picking#The Upstroke|Upstroke
|C Major in Open Position and Alternate Picking#Economy Picking|Economy Picking
Alternate picking serves two main purposes: tone and speed.
The tone of alternate picking differs from straight down-picking simply because downstrokes and upstrokes have a slightly different tone. This gives alternate picking a kind of A-B-A-B sound, vs. A-A-A-A or B-B-B-B. A drummer gets the same effect by playing alternating left/right hands. Depending on the context of tone desired, alternate picking may or may not be desired. For instance, Metallica likes to only down-pick their rhythms to give it a repetitive percussive sound. Rockabilly players, in contrast, like to alternate pick to get a kind of swing sound.
Of course, tone only matters if you can actually play it different ways. If a passage is fast, it may require to be alternate picked vs. strict down or up picked. There's no firm cutoff point where you should say, "This is fast, so I'll alternate pick." So long as there's no tonal requirement, the choice is totally yours - you may be more comfortable alternate picking even a slower passage. Usually a song will have a common note duration, like quarter or eighth notes. If I'm comfortable downpicking them, I will, saving alternate picking for anything faster than that. The downpicking helps ground your rhythm to the beat, which actually helps you alternate pick in time by having the downstrokes line up on the beats.