Double Down Up Guitar Picking Technique
August 5th, 2007
I’m having a dry week. I want to post some stuff, but I just don’t have the motivation or don’t really know what to write about. So here is something that has been sitting in my drafts for like a year.
Here is a guitar technique that I stumbled across while browsing some YouTube videos called double down up. It is sort of a switch-up for alternate picking (down up, down up) that you can use when skipping strings. Instead of following the down up pattern when you skip down one string you want to use two down picks and then pick the second string up again.
Once you build up some speed it can be a really great sounding technique as is shown in this video. The first half is really show as he shows the technique, but if you skip to the 3/4 mark you can hear it in action.
I think this guy totally over does it, but if you were to master this and just toss it in for a few notes every once and a while it is one of those tricks that could really make your playing stand out from others.
Tags: Guitar Videos, guitar-technique
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September 26th, 2007 16:11
Kind of reminds me of Frank Gambale’s signature picking style that he came up with.
October 4th, 2007 14:20
i just think that when we try to play guitar with super speed, the most hard is to syncronised the right hand(picking) with the left hand.
October 30th, 2007 10:53
It sounds boring by itself but once he added it to his normal playing it was alright.
November 11th, 2007 06:15
This guy’s a pretty good flatpicker, but this is NOT a new technique (and he definitely didn’t invent/discover it). This is a rather elementary arpeggio technique that is the fundamental from which ’sweep picking’ is derived. A previous commenter said it reminded him/her of Frank Gambale’s technique, and they would be correct, as Frank is generally credited with having created/disovered sweep picking.
November 28th, 2007 08:57
Indeed, this was my impression too. I had the video lesson somewhere, Fast picking or something like this, by Frank Gambale.
December 11th, 2007 12:39
Anyone wanting to learn some great guitar methods can check out my website and forum!
March 5th, 2008 00:56
I really enjoyed that video and the song he plays at the end. The technique is very cool but yeah it is a lot like Gambale but if the guy discovered it on his own, more power to him. He’s great.
March 18th, 2008 09:56
I agree.. i might have heard it somewhere before…but it sounds good anyway!!
Also check this site out, its an upcoming Indian guitar site:
http://guitarheat.com/
April 10th, 2008 19:59
I was expecting it to be a flatpick version of hybrid picking to play banjo riffs, but it seems to be a little more than just that. Great picking, wish I could play that fast (and that clean!)!
August 14th, 2008 11:32
This is a really great technique. Its always about the little things. There’s millions of picking approaches that have yet to even be discovered and its good to know that people are experimenting. Really awesome. I’m definitely going to try this one.
September 9th, 2008 14:04
Hey Matt,
Are you done with blogging? I’d love to see you get back into it.
cheers!
jp
September 15th, 2008 10:13
Thanks JP.
I stopped having enough time to really take this were I wanted to and my interest in it sort of ran out.
It is here because I have had no reason to take it down, and I do hope I can find some more motivation to do something decent with this site in the future, but its not happening right now.
Thanks for the encouragement though!
Matt
May 25th, 2009 01:06
Hi, outgoing posts there
thank’s for the compelling information