Economy picking. The basics.

Economy picking is basically a crossing between alternate picking and sweeping. The difference from alternate picking is, that instead of crossing the string with upstroke to down stroke (or vice versa), you always cross the strings by sweeping from one to the other.

Either two downstrokes in a row when ascending, or two upstrokes in a row when descending.
This will give you a more fluid sounding picking than alternate picking, but is quite a mind twister if you already know your way around alternate picking. This technique is basic math. Whenever you are climbing strings you need odd numbers (1,3,5 etc) and whenever you need to turn the direction of your picking path, you need even numbers (2,4,etc).

Try these basic exercises, and make sure you start very slow until you fully get the concept of this technique. Make sure you “flow” from one string to the other. Keep steady time and use a metronome.

• Download this exercise - Economy picking, the basics. (Ptb file)
• Download this exercise - Economy picking, the basics. (Zip file)

If you are experiencing problems with the Ptb (Powertab) file try the zipped version. Use Winzip or other compression programs to uncompress the file.