economy picking in gypsy jazz...is that OK?

toddg

this has most likely been asked....so one more time for us newbies.

voutoreenie

Yes but ideally with a floating wrist so it's still within rest stroke technique - most of the best players utilize some form of economy picking and multi-string sweeping as well.

Beato actually discusses economy picking with Antoine Boyer in the recent interview (and Antoine shows a few examples with major scales)

voutoreenie

*should add if you're a complete beginner to rest stroke, I personally don't think economy picking would be an ideal area of focus for starting the process of developing your right hand.

paulmcevoy75

You can do whatever you want. When I hear people who use stuff other than Gypsy Jazz picking for GJ, it sounds sort of weak sometimes because it's really hard to keep up volume wise without that wrist rotation in my opinion. But there's great players who have a more neutral wrist, I think. Olli being maybe the most well known? I haven't looked at his wrist too much but I think he's much more an alternate picker.

But gypsy picking is a very valid strategy for playing the guitar in general. It certainly pays to invest your time in learning it as I think it teaches a lot, and you can apply that to other music.

I've been digging into the Troy Grady Cracking the Code stuff and his series with Joscho and it's very very good material.