Bad Habits

crowhue · Post by **crowhue** » Sat Mar 19, 2011 11:54 am

Whats the difference between economy and alternate picking?

stuartbahn wrote:You should also try economy picking, it is far faster than alternate picking and relatively easy to do.

chainsawguitar · Post by **chainsawguitar** » Mon Apr 18, 2011 9:23 pm

crowhue wrote:Whats the difference between economy and alternate picking?

It's about picking direction.

With alternate picking, your picking direction alternates (up - down - up - down) constantly; with economy picking, you always pick towards the direction of the next string. So if you're going from the G string to the B string, it would always be a downstroke (and vice versa).

Some people think that economy is faster, but I think the most difference is in the sound.

Instructor · Post by **Instructor** » Tue Apr 19, 2011 3:44 am

Hey Chain - good to see you here man! Chain knows his stuff! Chain's a good guy. Listen to him, you'll do well.

(This is Sean from UG BTW)

Instructor

chainsawguitar · Post by **chainsawguitar** » Tue Apr 19, 2011 11:00 am

Hey Sean!

...and thanks

Good to see you here too!

crowhue · Post by **crowhue** » Fri Apr 22, 2011 8:06 am

Gotcha. Ive seen various DVDs that show how to economy pick as youve described. Ive got to admit that there is no way on earth my brain is going to cope with computations like that, mid-lead break.

I can just about do alternate picking and think that its essential if you want to get anywhere with the guitar.

Re. the question of the pinkie, its use it or lose it really.

Its an eternal struggle to get it strong but hours of trills, stretches, 1-2-3-4 type exercises will pay off eventually.

Maddy · Post by **Maddy** » Fri Sep 16, 2011 5:50 pm

iniesta wrote:my bad habbits?
it's stranged... i like soloing very much till i don't focus on chording.
i can play some quite fast solos, flamenco and classical but when comes to changing few chords rapidly as deep purple's songs... i can't give the clean sound...

L.o.l v have same bad habits

crowhue · Post by **crowhue** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 9:33 am

Olly wrote:When I was learning the guitar I developed two bad habits which took me a long time to break.

One was the fact I never used my pinky (little finger) to fret any notes. This meant that whilst my other fingers were building in strength the pinky was getting weaker.

This turned out to be a major problem when I started learning Satriani numbers as you *have* to use all four fingers.

The other was that I did not always use alternate picking so I had to relearn this.

Has anyone else experienced anything like this?

I had both of those exact same problems and just forced myself to practice with the pinky and to pick alternately. Now they are both better but not quite there yet. Best bit of advice I read was practice what you find difficult eg trills with your pinky, not what is easy. I think it was Yoda LOL.