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Guitarist.
Evan Desaulnier is a versatile guitarist and composer with more than two decades of performing experience. As a bandleader, Evan’s groups range from instrumental jazz compositions (Evan Desaulnier Trio) to organ funk and soul music (The People Say, Start Run Radio). As a sideman, he is often backing up singers (The Elora Singers, Sandra Bouza, Joanne Morra) playing everything from R&B, to jazz standards, and folk music. He has performed on countless stages throughout North America and Brazil, playing jazz and big-band music (Carnegie Hall, 2010), and was also a semi-finalist at the International Blues Contest in Memphis, TN in 2020.
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Teacher.
‘Alternate Picking’: Lessons in Bluegrass (and Moustache Grooming)
If you’ve ever tried to improve your picking, you’ve probably come across something called ‘alternate picking’, or what bluegrass guitar players call, ‘cross picking’. Now to be fair, ‘cross picking’ also tends to refer to a specific guitar style as well, but we can simplify: picking that always alternates between down strokes and up strokes.
Sounds easy, right? Well, yes, until you consider that ‘down’ and ‘up’ can only perfectly alternate on a line or phrase that is a completely full of 8th– or 16th-notes (meaning: no breaks or rests). Try it on an open string where you start with a down stroke and pick back and forth between down and up. You’ve probably done this hundreds of times without even thinking about it!
Check out this example – we’re going to be picking it apart in a minute (no pun intended).
As soon as you introduce any kind of rhythm or duration to a line, the picking has to stick to our original pattern – which means that alternate picking is ultimately dictated by rhythm!
Counting 8th-Notes vs. 16th-Notes
Eighth-notes are a bit easier to start with. Try tapping your foot along with full 8th-notes and you’ll find that the motion of your foot matches your wrist. When your foot goes down (on the beat, numbered below), your pick goes down; when your foot comes up (off beat), your pick comes up. Simple!
When applying this to 16th-notes, you just have to imagine the picking of the 8th-notes, only occurring twice as fast. Try counting 16th-notes as, ‘1-e-and-a, 2-e-and-a, 3-e-and-a, 4-e-and-a’ and suddenly the ‘1’ and ‘and’s become down picks, and the ‘e’ and ‘a’ are up picks. Foot taps still happen on the beats, numbered below.
So far, so good. The big takeaway here is that: if rhythm is responsible for the picking pattern, then you would pick a line the same way every time, no matter where you play it on the neck. This means that we now have a kind of standardized method for picking — this is great news. Remember: we’re likely to physically improve on the instrument with focused repetition. Slowly and gradually.
Enter Tony Rice (Rest in Peace)
The real strength of ‘alternate picking’ doesn’t stop there, though. The whole basis for picking this way carries a specific, driving sound to it. It’s hard to explain but you might have noticed that your picking might feel and sound a little stronger already. This is where the idea of ‘cross-picking’ as a style starts to make sense. One of the greatest cross-pickers of all time is here below, Mr. Tony Rice, moustache and all.
This is an excerpt from a classic instructional video and I highly recommend it. Here he’s showing us how to play a classic tune called, ‘Goldrush’. And it’s the ‘B’ Section of this tune that I want to check out (Starts at 0:19 https://youtu.be/8XBJNaPYfEg?t=19).
Here it is.
Check out the first descending line that outlines a ‘G’ chord. So many players would instinctively favour upstrokes as much as possible here with a pick sweep (also since the tune clips along so fast!). You need to stick to your guns though and play with ‘alternate picking’ as notated above.
A very important thing to note here is that the feel here is mostly 16th-notes — we’re going to use that system for the whole thing even though there are 8th-notes here and there.
You’ve probably noticed that your pick might not be taking the quickest route as it is often passing ‘across the string’ in order to pick in the proper direction (hence ‘cross’- picking). It is important to recognize that it’s not as inefficient as it seems, in fact quite the opposite. Cross-picking encourages you to become extremely efficient because you are training yourself to one thing really, really well.
To put it another way, imagine that you have 1000 puzzles to solve. By aiming for technical mastery at cross-picking it would be like finding one solution that can be applied to 1000 different puzzles rather than looking for 1000 unique solutions, one for each puzzle.
Try it out and feel the difference for yourself. I think that cross-picking is a big trick behind not only the abilities of some of the great cross-pickers but also contributes to their wonderful sound (and their commanding facial hair).
– ED
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This FREE ebook is specifically designed for intermediate players who are trying to take the next step in their practice. The exercises and ideas within help to encourage a fundamental understanding of the entire fretboard and how to break out of patterns and shapes.
This FREE ebook is specifically designed for intermediate players who are trying to take the next step in their practice. The exercises and ideas within help to encourage a fundamental understanding of the entire fretboard and how to break out of patterns and shapes.
