This is something I've been wondering about for a while. The majority of "learn to play guitar" books I've read say that you should alternate pick, follow a downstroke with an upstroke. The way it's written though, it seems to imply that you should always follow a downstroke with an upstroke, even when it's more convienient to use two downstrokes (i.e. playing the g and high e strings right after each other). Am I right in this interpretation, and if so, why would you do this? It just seems inefficient, though I have noticed I'm a little more accurate if I do it this way.
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Alternate picking is a method which improves speed, with economy of movement. That is the sole purpose of doing it. Usually you don't want to lift the pick over a string to pick it in the other direction.
If your pick is between say the G and B strings and you want to play the G, you pick up and if you want to play the B you pick down regardless of which string you last played.
If you picked the A string and you were going to the high e you could do it either way. I would pick up because it is easier.
These rules are not written in stone. You want economy of movement for each note and for each riff. There are times, because of the direction you will be heading, you will cross over a string and pick in the other direction.
So now I guess I have throughly confused you.
Good luck
Cheers,
Max
In most cases it sounds better too.
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There are a lot of ways to pick. Most of us start with all downstrokes, until we get at least a touch of picking hand control. After that, the downstroke is still handy for counting - if you're moving down on the beat, you tend to not loose your place so often.
The 'best' picking method is going to depend on what you're playing. However, the best picking method will almost certainly include both downstrokes and upstrokes - and alternate picking is a good way to practice both. Although it might not be the most efficient in all cases, it's a great way to get from here to there - to develop the skills for upstroking on any string, having just played any other string.
Once you've got that talent down, there are two major schools of picking. 'Economy' picking keeps the pick moving in one direction as long as possible. If you have consecutive notes on the A, G, and high E strings, you'd pick them in one downward motion, skipping over the D and B on your way. That's a lot easier said than done, though... it takes quite a bit of practice.
The other school is similar (and in fact, it's older than straight alternate picking) - downstroke on the beat, followed by whatever gets you the notes in between the beats in the most efficient way. That can be best illustrated with triplets on a single string - alternate or economy picking will both have you going DUDUDU, while 'beat' picking (for lack of a better term) will have you going DUDDUD.
If you want to be as versatile as possible, you'll work at all of them - and the variations, like reverse alternate picking... which is just regular alternate picking that uses upstrokes on the beat.
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Alternate picking is a method which improves speed, with economy of movement. That is the sole purpose of doing it. Usually you don't want to lift the pick over a string to pick it in the other direction.
If your pick is between say the G and B strings and you want to play the G, you pick up and if you want to play the B you pick down regardless of which string you last played.
If you picked the A string and you were going to the high e you could do it either way. I would pick up because it is easier.
These rules are not written in stone. You want economy of movement for each note and for each riff. There are times, because of the direction you will be heading, you will cross over a string and pick in the other direction.
So now I guess I have throughly confused you.
Good luck
Okay, thanks. I understand now.
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The nice thing about alternate picking is that you don't have to worry about which way to pick next. You just keep going back and forth.
