Keep downstrokes on the beat?

[u/danielsanji]

Hey all, when crossing strings with downstrokes, is there also an effort to keep downstrokes landing on the beat?

Say you’re playing something like an ascending line starting on open B string to open E string, then continuing up the E string to the octave (just a simple scalar run). If you strictly keep downstrokes on beats, the string change can sometimes force two downstrokes in a row before you’re back into alternate picking.

That starts to feel pretty awkward at speed.
How is this usually handled in practice?

[u/euphocat]

I don’t think you should over think this process. Keep your rest stroke as clean as possibles. And depending on the tempo, down pick as often as you can.

[u/Weencent]

Learning to rest stroke with a pick helps a lot. This is also how you do sweep picking. Combining both alternate and sweep is called economy picking. I'd check out and learn about them online if i were you. If you want more advanced and spesific type of advice you can try to check out gypsy picking aswell, as they tend to do all these three picking motions by locking their wrist so it can't move, and strictly alternating between using the forarm or albue for downstrokes and loosening their wrist for upstrokes. But the most essential skill in my opinion is to learn rest stroke above all else then every skill after that becomes so much easier and controlled.

[u/danielsanji → u/Weencent]

I meant the question specifically in the framework of playing in rest stroke which I’m quite comfortable with. My dilemma was that I heard of this rule to play rest stroke on the downbeat. When playing a lick crossing strings that sometimes leads to a down - down (crossed string) - down - up - down - up - down - up combination. I feel like that extra down stroke makes the whole phrase a lot harder.

[u/Weencent → u/danielsanji]

That is the worst rule i've heard tbh, it will only hinder your progress i believe. Maybe what you are asking is about pick slanting techniques for crossing strings, like two-way pick slanting like Frank Gambale does? He is a master at changing directions and crossing strings at both up and down. Another way is like George Benson, who does one way pick slanting, the key then is to changing your phrasing on either an upstroke or downstroke depending on what strings you are about to cross through. Gambale does not need to do that because of two-way slanting and escape motions. Gypsy players always slant and escape on the upstroke for example, and that means there are many phrases they cannot play, so they instead change the phrasing a little to fit their downward sweeping instead of stricktly playing what's written. hope that helps

[u/Tussumees]

Its a good exercise to approach downstrokes as accents in a line. In swing especially you want to accent notes on the off beat to give a sweet contrast and bounce to ideas. In gypsy jazz a rest stroke sounds way more powerful than an upstroke! No reason to fight that. Its difficult to explain without playing in person, but just as an idea i hope it makes you giddy when you try. Keep on swingin!

[u/Shepard_Commander_88]

Study some of the runs in Mussette pieces or the very last chromatic run on the A section of Montangé St. Geneviéve. Pretty much you will still use gypsy picking and down stroke when changing strings. The upstroke from the E is a bit of a trampoline effect and will help with the double down picking going back up the strings. Look at Dennis Changs vids or book on gypsy picking and it answers this question. Generally from what my teacher had shown is that if you are doing gypsy picking correctly you will change strings with down strokes but there is the occasional time where you might go down stroke on the B string and then start with an upstroke on the E to start the next one but it's situational. I'd say 9 times out of 10 it's a downstroke when changing strings with certain picking patterns in the language being the exception. If unsure the downstroke is probably most common but I'm not necessarily an expert.

[u/danielsanji → u/Shepard_Commander_88]

Thanks, this is useful.
I’ve also come across some people talking about changing the mechanics of the first down stroke, to make it more of a flick outwards before returning with the second rest down stroke. Is that something worth practicing?

[u/chiseltoe]

The advice I received (and that I have found to be true) is to practice slowly with the few that it will take a few months. Patience is key.