Double Down Up Guitar Picking Technique
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.
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- Alexi Laiho & Paul Gilbert Sweep Picking Lesson
- John Petrucci Chromatic Picking Exercise
- Alexi Laiho Guitar Lessons and Instructional Videos
- Awesome Dimebag Darrell Harmonics and Squealing Video Lesson
Tagged with: Guitar Videos • guitar-technique
Filed under: Guitar Videos
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Kind of reminds me of Frank Gambale’s signature picking style that he came up with.
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.
It sounds boring by itself but once he added it to his normal playing it was alright.
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.
Indeed, this was my impression too. I had the video lesson somewhere, Fast picking or something like this, by Frank Gambale.
Anyone wanting to learn some great guitar methods can check out my website and forum!
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.
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/
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!)!
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.
Hey Matt,
Are you done with blogging? I’d love to see you get back into it.
cheers!
jp
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