I had a question… When improvising should I worry about the direction of my pick strokes?
Pick strokes when improvising
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Good question! It’s for experts to answer.
Some things to consider though…
Down-Down-Down-Up for chord arpeggio
Down-Up-Up-Up for chord arpeggio
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In a way, yes and no. They are absolutely critical, but it’s hard to improvise (at your normal speeds) and actively think about your pickstrokes at the same time - it’s really a habit that we have to build across all our playing through slow practice (which can still be improvisation if you can). It’s a bit like the engine in our proverbial guitar-playing car; you don’t want to worry about your engine when you drive, but it’s gotta be running. However, I would always lean towards “yes” if you don’t have that habit-engine running all the time yet. Any time you can use to practice that habit is time well spent.
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I find that my improvising gets better the less I think – about anything. That goes for thinking about pick strokes, but also trying to remember exact arrangements or tabs, trying to think about scales, up-the-neck positions, etc. The more I’m consciously thinking about these things the less brain space I have available to actually just engage with the music and the more likely I am to make a mistake or lose my place. However, to be able to think less during improvising requires a lot of time deliberately practicing these things when not improvising.
So my advice would be to absolutely focus on your pick strokes as part of your practice routine but not to worry about them too much while you’re jamming. Eventually correct pick direction will start becoming second nature and you won’t have to think about it during either practice or improvisation (I say this as someone whose picking direction was totally random about a year ago).
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