Economy Picking.

Up until now we have been using the Alternate Picking technique, which is a very efficient picking technique. However, there is an even more economical method, known as Speed Picking, Sweep Picking or more appropriately: Economy Picking.

The idea is to eliminate any unnecessary movements and minimise the amount of work that your picking hand has to do to play a passage of notes, thus enabling you to play as fast as possible.

The next scale patterns we will look at are all based on the idea of playing three notes to each string. When we play these patterns, we can minimise our picking effort in the follow way;

When playing a scale going down the strings in the order E – A – D – G – B – E (from thickest to thinnest), we want to start every new string with a down stroke. Because we are playing three notes per string, the picking pattern will be -

Sixth string - Down, Up, Down

Fifth string - Down, Up, Down etc.

To illustrate the benefit of this technique, let us examine the movements needed to play using the alternate picking technique.

Sixth string – Down, Up, Down

Fifth string – Up, Down, Up

Fourth string – Down, Up, Down and so on….

In order to play the upstroke on the first note of the 5^th string, we must first pass over the top of the string, then come back with the up stroke to play the string! As we strike the final note for this string with an up stroke, we then have to pass back over the string before we can strike the next new string. With this method, it has taken 11 picking hand movements to play 9 notes!

Now, by using the new Economy picking method, we can refine our picking action until it only takes 7 movements to play the same nine notes. The trick is to play first note of each string in the same motion as the last note of the previous string. The picking pattern now looks like;

Sixth String - Down, Up, Sweep Down to next new string,

Fifth String - Up, Sweep Down to next new string,

And so on for the remaining strings.

The same technique can be used when coming back up the strings (from thinnest to thickest) in the other direction. This time we need to start each new string with an up stroke, sweeping upwards from the last note of the previous string.

First String - Up, Down, Sweep Up to the next string,

Second String – Down, Sweep Up to the next string,

And so on for the remaining strings.

By no means is this technique easy to master! It is, however, the most efficient picking technique that I know of, and once you get the hang of it, it will allow you to do things (mainly playing very fast) that would be extremely difficult using conventional picking techniques.

Due to its reliance on playing in three-note-per-string patterns, not all of the exercises and licks contained on this website will be suitable for the economy picking technique. There are obvious limits to where this technique can be applied, but I strongly recommend that you practice this technique and employ it in your guitar playing as much as possible.

As with anything else, the more time you devote to it, the sooner it will become second nature. And it is a lot easier to learn it from the start, rather than having to ‘un-learn’ an inferior picking technique when you realise that it is restricting your progress as a guitarist. In my opinion (and experience) practicing the economy picking technique will eliminate the need to practice alternate picking.

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