Practice Your Upstrokes!

Quick post on an exercise I've created for myself that I'm finding to be helpful in my quest to master alternate picking.

BTW, that's been going well. It was tough at the outset; if you read my last post on alternate picking, you know that I decided to tear my technique apart and start all over, because I'd been watching too many Steve Morse and Paul Gilbert instructional clips on YouTube.

It's been worth it; in just a couple of months, I've found my reapplied techniques starting to emerge naturally in jams and rehearsals, which is gratifying, because I find that, even if you're nailing a reworked technique while you practice at home, it's really hard to stick to it when you get to rehearsal. You're paying attention to the band and your song, so 100% of your attention isn't focused on the technical aspects of your playing, so it's easy to slide back into habits you're trying to break.

One area in particular I discovered needing some strengthening was my upstrokes. Although I was hitting the notes in my runs effectively, I did find that, at higher speeds, my pick wasn't really cleanly executing the upstroke, I was depending a lot on the fretting of the string and a sort of implied half-pick to get the note. You really couldn't tell unless you were listening closely, but I decided to brand it sloppy and lazy; I mean, if I'm trying to get harmonic minor runs Steve Morse clean, it's all gotta be there.

Anyway, so as part of my regimen, I started playing scales and runs that I normally use alternate picking on entirely in upstrokes.

For example, ascending and descending up and down the Aeolian shape (start at any fret, but always try to know the key, for instance, if you start this at the 5th fret, you're playing A natural minor, or A Aeolian):

-R-xx-
-xx-x-
xx-x-
-x-R--
-x-xx
-R-xx-

Play it all the way ascending, then all the way descending, using upstrokes, all of it, first and last notes included. No downstrokes at all. Play it cleanly, to a metronome a few times, and then rubato (flexible, not entirely on the beat, but still resolving on the 1s properly). It's not as easy as it sounds.

I also work it with some simple arpeggios, like this A major one, starting with the 1, 3, 5 Ionian shape, and then just repeating the shape at the octaves (in this case, the roots are all A tones):

4
-----x--x----------
------R------------
--x--x-------------
---R---------------
x--x---------------
-R-----------------

This has a number of benefits:

- You are practicing you upstrokes.
- When switching strings, you are getting used to shifting your pick all the way over the last one, to the upstroke position of the next one. Being conscious of where your pick is at all times can be difficult to focus on, because so many of us take our picking for granted, so any exercise that makes you do something unusual with your pick hand will force you to focus on it.
- Upstrokes can give you a different tone than downstrokes; you can get a really sharp, staccato sound from upstrokes that is difficult to duplicate with downstrokes, which tend to be more legato (for my anyway). More options in tone is a very powerful tool, as it adds interest and variety to your playing.
- You're playing guitar, and thinking about it while you're doing it. That's good.

Have fun with that. As always, thanks for visiting.