From Alternate Picking to Economy Picking in Easy Steps - Chris Brooks Guitar

[@TheScmtnrider]

I'm old. 63 Playing daily for over 50 years. You touched on having to pick jump, switching strings after a down stroke. NOT LEARNING THAT prevented me from achieving consistent speed for decades. A wall I could never "scale" for 40 years. And I could NEVER figure out why it was happening! Why sometimes I sounded great and other times I choked. Not until I saw another KZbinr's journey to figuring it out on his own, about ten years ago. Al De Miola is about the only one I've ever seen who can alternate pick anything regardless of ending on up or down strokes on any particular string when ascending or descending. That is inhuman skill and precision few can develope. Certainly not I! It took awhile to get comfortable with Malmsteen's one string sweeps and then... A second unnoticed problem of mine was illuminated. Unconscious Repetitive Muscle Memory Fretting Patterns! Focusing on picking forced me to abandon them. And to become melodic, dynamic and diverse as well as fast or slow. It made improvising fun. I've enjoyed watching you play for a couple years now. Your precision and speed. Your vibrato, your instructive patience and your humility all shine through in your content. Looking forward to your instruction on slant reversal, to enable this method to work on on both ascending and descending scales and patterns. For the kids out there who are benefiting from your instruction? Fingering, fretting and slant reversal are all equally important to develop strategically. Practice will build synchronization between the two hands. Those are the four imperative aspects of shredding that will allow you to "scale" the wall and go anywhere on the fretboard. Of course there's legato, and hammer ons / hammer offs that can negate the odd-even notes per string problem that can trap your pick between strings on downstrokes as well as slant reversal but they all become tools in the toolbox, along with vibrato while string bending. So learn these techniques and practice six days a week. And don't forget to thank Chris here, like and share his videos. They are pure gold. Thanks Chris! 🙂🎸

[@ChrisBrooksGuitar]

Thanks so much for the kind words and detailed thoughts. I approached the opposite orientation in the video content of my alternate picking book a few years back. But, to be honest, I've retired that aspect of my technique as I don't enjoy it. I'm back to full time economy picking in both directions and also doing the assymetrical approach of the Yngwie style that my course is about. I just got to a point where I asked myself "who am I doing this for?" with two-way picking orientation. I haven't thought that way in terms of vocabulary since the 90s and I decided after the alternate picking book, I was finished with doing it after passing it on to my readers to decide for themselves. Thanks again!

[@923449]

​@@ChrisBrooksGuitar well, myself, being one of your readers, has remained loyal to your Yngway teachings. Hope you're doing well man.

[@Redcattledog]

Thank you Chris for these great lessons, I've been working on these types of picking for several months now since your earlier videos, I have completely transformed my way of picking and feel so much better at speed, thanks mate your a legend! 🤘🎸

[@ChrisBrooksGuitar]

That's brilliant! Congrats on your breakthroughs!

[@kuruptmetalhead2739]

Cheers for Awesome lesson Chris 👍

[@ChrisBrooksGuitar]

My pleasure!

[@dorielementary]

I recently bought an HX Stomp and it does not seem to track well at all with fast distorted runs. I noticed you have a Kemper back there. Do you have any such issues? Is it something I just need to get used to and adapt to or should I put something like a ToneX or Iridium in the loop to replace the stock amps? Thanks in advance.

[@ChrisBrooksGuitar]

Kemper tracks like a regular amp. I don't have any experience with the other items you mentioned I'm afraid.

[@dorielementary]

@@ChrisBrooksGuitar Thanks Chris. My 13-year-old son is working though one of your books right now. Great stuff!

[@Jimboishere11]

Nice Malmsteen strat. Nice guitars. I'll never sell mine 🎸

[@ChrisBrooksGuitar]

It's a actually an ST72-95DSC - a YJM-adjacent strat made in the early 90s. But it may as well be a YJM. It's just as nice!

[@Jimboishere11]

@@ChrisBrooksGuitar Scalloped frets? Could of sworn I saw them.

[@ChrisBrooksGuitar]

@@Jimboishere11 Yes, scalloped and with DiMarzio HS3/4 pickups.

[@Jimboishere11]

@@ChrisBrooksGuitar 👌🏻

[@josephkane2312]

Great stuff Chris. Chris the last few years ive mastered playing at any tempo i want. However, i notice the faster i get the more muddled the sound becomes. When i switch off all effects it sounds perfect but as soon as i switch it back on again it sounds terrible regardless of which amp im plugged into. My muting of unwanted string noise is addressed and im not overly exaggerating the picking. Could my pickups be the problem? On all my Jackson guitars they still have the default Jackson pickups that came with the guitar.

[@ChrisBrooksGuitar]

If it's all working on a mechanical level, then yeah - tone details would be the next step to look at. I don't know if you have other guitars, but maybe a comparison between single coil, stacked singles, low output humbuckers might be worth experimenting with to see what suits the rest of your signal chain. Practice with lower gain for a little while (like 10-20& less) and see if that makes a difference, then dial it back in and see what happens.

[@timothy5974]

Hello Chris, thank you for this. Growing up playing in my Orchestra as a Violist, I would count this as 1e&a - 2e&a - 3e&a - 4e&a 1e a. It sounds as though this example is sextuplets, 123456. Am I missing something very simple here ? Hope this doesn’t sound silly.

[@ChrisBrooksGuitar]

You might be correlating the rhythm of the first (alternate picking) example with string changes since there's no beat for reference. Either way you hear it is perfectly fine because it's simply a quick demo of the way even numbers of notes per string in regard to string changes and pick strokes. I often play melodic ideas of threes and sixes across rhythmic fours and sixes, so the ambiguity is on me. In the main example however (Example 4.6), it's a gallop rather than triplets.

[@danidcr]

economy picking from 6 to 1 string, ok,,, but what about from 1 to 6 string?? .... becouse I think it is more dificult (sorry my english). ps... I have your big book 'The complete guitar technique speed strategies collection'.. but still I haven't opened it yet 🤭.. I have it in the pile of unread books😅..

[@ChrisBrooksGuitar]

Descending rest strokes and opposite picking orientation. I'll keep it short because you already have over 300 pages to catch up on haha.