[Paleolith54]

Originally Posted by kevets

First to note is I am a fingerstyle player of classical and jazz.

But I am adding some flatpicking for fun, and may even work on hybrid picking.

A book I recently looked at mentioned what he called economy picking. It sounds logical, but nonsense often sounds logical. And it is the only time I have seen this referenced.

Everybody else says alternate up and down picks, or at the very least up-pick on the upbeat.

This guy says only alternate on the same string, and that when moving to another string pick in the direction of moving. So, downstroke gon the A string and next note is on D string, downstroke that too.

I'll have to go back and read it again, because I don't know what his advice is when you have up-picked an eighth note on A and then go to D. But his premise was don't cross a string unnecessarily.

Which sounds good, except I've never seen nor heard that advice anywhere else.

So what do you do? And (I'm not so observant), what do you see pros do? I guess I consider bluegrass the ultimate single note flatpicking challenge, and I believe I've only ever seen alternate picking.

Here you go. http://www.guitarworld.com/controlle...conomy-picking.

It's an advanced technique for single-note lines, which offers benefits I'll never be good enough to enjoy. It's more about fluidity than speed. It has nothing to do with rhythm playing.