Economy picking

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Economy picking is a guitar-playing technique, for a guitarist who uses a pick. A hybrid of sweep picking and alternate picking, economy picking involves using alternate picking except when changing strings. In this case the guitarist changes to sweep picking, picking in the direction of travel: an upstroke if changing to a lower (pitch) string, a downstroke if changing to a higher (pitch) string. The aim is to minimize movement in the right hand, and avoid the motion of "jumping" over a string prior to picking it, as often occurs in alternate-picking. Thus the picking pattern of an ascending three-note-per-string scale would be: D-U-D-D-U-D-D-U-D, and the descending pattern would start just like alternate picking (up stroke first): U-D-U-U-D-U-U-D-U-U. Country musician Tony Rice uses economy picking.

[edit] Further reading

Economy Picking Lesson from Ultimate-Guitar

Guitar shredding techniques
Alternate picking - Economy picking - Hammer-ons - Hybrid picking - Legato - Pull-offs - String skipping - Sweep-picking - Tapping - Tremolo picking - Wide intervals
Shred Genres
Classical - Bluegrass - Country - Flamenco - Hard rock - Heavy metal - Instrumental rock - Jazz - Jazz fusion - Neo-classical metal - Progressive rock