Convince me of the value of strict DUDU picking?

[Caberguy]

I've been playing guitar for many years, and mandolin for a couple, and am basically self taught. I'm a fairly competent flatpicker on guitar, and can comfortably play a number of fiddle tunes on mandolin (though I'm still working on putting things together).

I've recently started taking mandolin lessons to help get a better understanding of the instrument, put some things together, learn how to better play with others, etc.

My teacher is insisting (not unkindly) on strict DUDU picking, and one of the things I'm trying to do is break my bad habits, so I'm ok with practicing it.

But, empowered by the advocacy of Tony Rice, among others, in my guitar playing, I usually employ "economy picking," because it just makes more sense to me... it's more efficient. Why would I bypass the string I want to play to so that I can pick down on it, when I could have just caught it on the way up (or vice versa)... it's clearly wasted motion, and less efficient, potentially doubling, and even tripling the picking path when moving between courses.

I'm willing to practice it as an educational exercise (though, admittedly I'm having a bit of trouble with it). I even understand a pedagogical reason that teachers would want to standardize/systematize the process rather than just have a haphazard approach... it will help with consistency, repeatability, coherence, and help beginners keep time better.

But, in practice, do you actually find it necessary, or advantageous, or helpful? One of those rules you're supposed to learn first before you break it?

(I know this has been discussed before, but it seems that it's been a while)

[Marguerite]

1) gliding through, what you call "economy picking"sounds different than regular alternate stroke. The idea of alternate stroke is that every stroke is as strong and as precise as the next one.

2) it's important to learn to do strict alternate stroke (dududu or ududud). to learn simple alternate stroke, you can use repetition exercises (a regular flow of equal notes, without too many string crossings, and you play every note 4 times, or 3 times, or 5 times or 2 times or 6 times, all of those variants are useful to learn. Once you master alternate stroke as such, it is also important to learn different types of string crossings, either by doing triad exercises that have many string crossings or by doing dedicated string crossing exercises, for example you take an exercise that does regular switches between two strings, say D and A string (one note D string, one note A string, one note D string, one note A string) and then you play it in different variants, like you double the note on the A string, so you get: down on D, up on A, down on A, up on D down on A, up on A, down on D, etc..
I think once you went through those types of exercises and can play them without a problem, you will not ask about "economy picking" any more.

3) the problem with "economy picking" is that what solves a problem at one place might create a new problem at another place.

4) if you keep picking on one course of strings, you will see that going regularly dududu or ududud is the quickest you can do. If you break the rhythm and try to do a few uu or uuu or ddd in between, you will always be slower. So I understand that sometimes, when you cross to a different string, it might be tempting just to glide through, but the problems it created down the road are not worth it. However, you can use gliding through for arpeggio techniques in chord sequences and double stop sequences...

[Mandoplumb]

I agree the way to sound absolutely monotonous is ududidu all
The time

[j4music]

Down/up allows your timing to come out right every time. It's also what John Reischman plays and teaches, and that's good enough for me. Mandolin's not a guitar, and it becomes automatic before long anyway.

[mandocello8]

"Convince me!". Play the Star of Munster Reel at 120 bpm. Convinced? If you play at 60 bpm and have a guitar and a drum to hide wobbly rhythm, sure, any picking would work. some people do have atomic-clock-quality internal rhythm and can do irregular picking rock solid. maybe you are one of them. the rest of us have to walk alternating legs, right foot, left foot, right foot, left foot.

[Caberguy]

Just in case it wasn't clear. My question isn't "why do I have to pick both up and down." It's "why must every 1 2 3 4 be a downstroke and & & & & be an upstroke."

I can play alternating 1/8ths fluidly on the same or adjacent strings, though I'm still working on fluidity going from e course to g course, for example (which seems a pretty unusual occurrence in the real world, but I'm working on it as an exercise).

The "bad habit" that I have is that sometimes I will take an upstroke on a quarter note (or want to alternate pick direction on quarters), or two down or two up if the phrase logically leads me in that direction. And I'm not talking about sweep picking, I'm talking about individual discrete strokes.

Given a couple of the response, I'm not sure that was entirely clear.

[Stopstop]

I agree the way to sound absolutely monotonous is ududidu all
The time

up down up down in down up?

wild

[Stopstop]

Seriously though I expect it has something to do with the percussive element of mandolin. Any deviation from the rhythm is a bit jarring and the likelihood you will be off rhythm increases if you break the pattern, especially at speed. I do agree that "motorboat" dudududu can be monotonous (and sometimes hard to break out of). I wonder too whether doing what you describe could encourage repeating memorized licks rather than freedom in your picking because you might be locked into a distinct shape to express a musical thought? (just spitballing here)

Maybe show us a clip of exactly what you are talking about?

Probably your teacher's point is that you should be able to do it first & once you have mastered it then you're in a better position to do what you want? There are certain times you need to violate the rule too, triplets for instance: du du dud du

[lowtone2]

I don’t know, but this seems like a good excuse to marvel at Tony’s right hand one more time.

[DavidKOS]

My teacher is insisting (not unkindly) on strict DUDU picking,...........

But, empowered by the advocacy of Tony Rice, among others, in my guitar playing, I usually employ "economy picking,"

Down/up allows your timing to come out right every time. It's also what John Reischman plays and teaches, and that's good enough for me. Mandolin's not a guitar, and it becomes automatic before long anyway.

No, mandolin is not a guitar. However -

My experience on both guitar and mandolin is that to be an expressive AND accurate player, one needs to know how to do both since different musical situations require different picking.

Of course this depends on the style of music and the particular tune.

Alternate picking works well for many (but not all) fiddle tunes, ECD tunes, modern jazz, and so on.

But try to play Gypsy jazz without economy picking.

And if you get into choro, bandola llanera, Cuban and Puerto Rican music, you'll need to do a variety of picking patterns, not just strict alternate picking.

Even ITM tunes often need DuD DuD and similar patterns to make it work well.

1) gliding through, what you call "economy picking"sounds different than regular alternate stroke. The idea of alternate stroke is that every stroke is as strong and as precise as the next one.
........

However, you can use gliding through for arpeggio techniques in chord sequences and double stop sequences...
.

I generally agree with your overall points.
Many of the great mandolin method books require "glide" strokes to play certain passages. This is from Calace's book 6:



This cannot be played properly unless you play several notes with the same pick direction. Indeed, the idea is to make each every note in each stroke "as strong and as precise as the next one"

Still, there are places for using economy picking, like I said, it depends on the music.

http://www.djangolizer.ch/tips_n_tri...icking_en.html

"Rule #1
Make a down stroke, when you change the string.

Rule #2
Play alternate picking, when you stay on a string.
Triplets can be played down-up-down_down-up-down_down-up-down…

Rule #3
The last note of a phrase should be played with a down stroke to accentuate it.
"

https://www.jazzguitar.be/blog/gypsy...s-and-picking/

" Every first stroke on each string is a downstroke and then you continue on the single string with alternate picking. This means that if you have and odd number of notes on a certain string, you have to play two downstrokes in a row. When you play this downstroke and then play a note on a string above, you need to continue with the same movement from your elbow to the higher string. For example, if you play a downstroke on the 6th string, and the move on to the 5th string, you have to push your hand further down from your elbow. We call it “sweep”."

For those mandolinists that are playing Gypsy jazz, these essential guitar techniques need to be adapted and used to get the authentic sound.

[Luna Pick]

it's nice to know about different techniques to use as desired and sounds like you're a pretty experienced picker. My take is it's art and you should enjoy it, so do what you want.

[Josh Levine]

The biggest reason is timing and rhythm. It will keep you in time and with solid rhythm that matches the music… I have to assume you are talking about bluegrass. I can’t speak to other music styles as much. It is the strong foundation that you can then deviate from as you see fit.

Your teacher may notice it coming out in your playing in ways that you do not really notice or hear. Maybe record yourself playing and see if you seem rhythmically sound. Also, if you are unable to do it without resorting to other styles of picking perhaps it is a skill to master before choosing to deviate. It’s like playing the melody. Anybody can play a bunch of licks to get through a break, but it should not be done in place of being able to play the melody. You start with the melody and then you deviate from it based on taste. To me this is one of those essential baseline skills that are a jumping off point to all the other options available.

[Josh Levine]

i will also add that once I learned to do this proficiently it made my right hand technique so much easier to do and so much more solid. I did not have to worry about what my right hand was doing because it was doing it on its own like a little engine. Look at any of the best bluegrass mandolin players and look at what their right hand is doing. Just back and forth like a little engine. Actually it is very efficient compared to having to constantly change what it is doing.

[Marguerite]

I don't think you want to be convinced. And if you still want to be convinced, let your teacher do the job.

[Peter Coronado]

Here is an interesting thread about Monroe's use of downstrokes.

https://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/t...l-Monroe-Tunes

[mandocello8]

mixture of 8th and 4th notes, check. I think I see what you ask. Maybe some tune will turn up to provide a good example.

consider a hypothetical fiddle tune, AABB, where A-part of all 8th notes and B-part is all 4th notes (some polkas are like that). If you play the A-part alternate picking 8th notes and B-part alternate picking 4th notes, you will have to slow down by a factor of 2 in the A->B transition and speed up by a factor of 2 in the B->A transition (a speed bump warning!). lacking metronome/drummer/guitar, good luck making A and B parts come out at the same bpm tempo. for some people 8th-notes part would come out faster, for other people 4th-notes part will come out faster (because complicated psychology, I guess). listeners may not mind, say "that was wild!", groupies, flowers, $$$. composer may have written the tune this way to create exactly this effect.

same thing happens if A-part is half 8th notes, half 4th notes, now half of A would be at one speed, half at different speed. this would usually NOT work well. (we can split the hairs further, 1/4+1/4+1/8+1/8+1/4 | 1/4+1/8+1/8+1/4+1/4 | etc).

one solution to this is to play 1/8 notes alternating picking "down/up" and 1/4 notes strictly "down". you can also split 1/4 note into 1/8+1/8 and play them "down/up", with same result (it's permitted!). 1/4+dot becomes 1/8+1/8+1/8, d/u/d or u/d/u, depending on number of preceding 1/8 notes.

this is a very mathematical explanation to a very mathematical problem, how to split a measure of music into 2, 4, 8, 16 sections of equal length using a guitar pick.

and it is not written anywhere that they should be all equal length. for example, waltz 1/2/3 are not equal length, irish jig 6/8 and 9/8 are not equal length, plus you have swing and syncopation.

but we want to control that. irregular picking will cause irregular syncopation, and "customers will complain". so we start with picking technique that produces equal lengths, then learn how to add/control swing, lift, syncopation, etc - all the stuff that makes music music.

[Dagger Gordon]

My teacher is insisting (not unkindly) on strict DUDU picking, and one of the things I'm trying to do is break my bad habits, so I'm ok with practicing it.

Hi Caberguy,

I don't worry too much about strict DUDU technique, but I do think it is very important that your upstroke is strong.

So if your teacher is insisting (rather than merely suggesting) that you need to practise this way, perhaps he/she feels that this is something which needs some work on your part (please don't take offense, I know nothing about your playing), in which case I think I would do it.

In the Celtic world, in jig playing (6/8 rhythm) people say DUD DUD is the way to go, which is clearly at odds with the strict DUDU approach. The logic is (as I understand it) that your downward movement is likely to be stronger than upward, so there is more impact in the second DUD than if you followed a strict DUDU approach and played UDU.

I don't necessarily adhere to this (or even think about it much when I'm playing), but what is consistent in each case would seem to me to be the need for a strong upstroke, so I would bear that in mind in regard to your teacher's advice.

I hope that's helpful.

[John Kelly]

I am completely in agreement with Dagger in his posting above. I too am not particularly aware of my picking direction when playing, but would also reinforce the point about having a strong upstroke. On many slow airs and Gaelic waltzes and slower tunes I know that I use downstrokes much more than upstrokes, in some tunes probably exclusively! Maybe it is a Scottish thing that we do not adhere to strict "rules" but do what we find is best for our own playing style?

[Simon DS]

A mandolin is not a little guitar.
Do you want to have the style: 'another great guitarist who incidentally plays mandolin'?

Or do you want to learn to play the mandolin, along with its many genres and styles?

Strict picking is necessary for certain genres, then as you get better you develop a personal style along shortcuts that work within your chosen genre.

[grassrootphilosopher]

I understand the question of "why is there a principle of DUDU picking". I asked it myself many moons ago. But nobody that wants to prevent sloppy picking will defend the opinion that DUDU is an unfounded claim.

I think that the music itself dictates the general picking structure (DUDU, or maybe in the Monroe downpick pieces as a stylistic element). I found it to be of great interest to look at classical musicians. There are videos from Caterina Lichtenberg who exemplifies my point perfectly:



If you watch closely you´ll see that there are the Bill Monroe downstroke moments als a stylistic element to emphasize a passage of the piece. Then there are DDDD moments, where the length of the notes require this way of picking as opposed to faster passages where DUDU is necessary. I made this observation after thinking about my own picking. I watched it and found out that intuitively I mainly followed this approach. I made changes here and there and lo and behold my picking got (even) better. There are passages where a "sliding" across the strings is okay as well as other approaches, like starting with an upstroke where one might expect a downstroke etc. Such things may present themselves as personal preferences. But DUDU as a general principle stands.

Go anywhere and ask anyone of note (Steve Kaufman, John Reishman, Avi Avital etc.) and you will allways get DUDU as the basic principle. And that´s for a reason.

[Marguerite]

I generally agree with your overall points.
Many of the great mandolin method books require "glide" strokes to play certain passages. This is from Calace's book 6:



This cannot be played properly unless you play several notes with the same pick direction. Indeed, the idea is to make each every note in each stroke "as strong and as precise as the next one"

I mentionned that in my last sentence:

However, you can use gliding through for arpeggio techniques in chord sequences and double stop sequences...

Of course there are lots of arpeggio techniques, from the 18th century and 19th century where gliding through is used. See the methods by Leone, Denis, Gervasio, etc, and as you mentionned, the romantic techniques by Calace and others. However, in those cases the gliding through is regular, it has structure, it is placed there for a certain effect. They don't just glide through because they find a string crossing uncomfortable.

There are even instances where you want to obtain a heavy-light effect and you use upstroke over one string to have this "light" effect, and it could well be that in such a context, a sequence of triplets is played dud dud.

And that comes back to what I said in the beginning: You hear the difference, therefore you use it for effect, not randomly somewhere in the middle of alternate stroke.

So: no excuse for not learning proper string crossings in all variations in alternate stroke. Yes, it is hard, but necessary.

[DavidKOS]

So: no excuse for not learning proper string crossings in all variations in alternate stroke. Yes, it is hard, but necessary.

Indeed...one needs to study and practice ALL of these techniques to build a full, complete mandolin technique. thanks for your comments and references to the rich history of mandolin teaching.

[Iron]

I've been playing guitar for many years, and mandolin for a couple, and am basically self taught. I'm a fairly competent flatpicker on guitar, and can comfortably play a number of fiddle tunes on mandolin (though I'm still working on putting things together).

I've recently started taking mandolin lessons to help get a better understanding of the instrument, put some things together, learn how to better play with others, etc.

My teacher is insisting (not unkindly) on strict DUDU picking, and one of the things I'm trying to do is break my bad habits, so I'm ok with practicing it.

But, empowered by the advocacy of Tony Rice, among others, in my guitar playing, I usually employ "economy picking," because it just makes more sense to me... it's more efficient. Why would I bypass the string I want to play to so that I can pick down on it, when I could have just caught it on the way up (or vice versa)... it's clearly wasted motion, and less efficient, potentially doubling, and even tripling the picking path when moving between courses.

I'm willing to practice it as an educational exercise (though, admittedly I'm having a bit of trouble with it). I even understand a pedagogical reason that teachers would want to standardize/systematize the process rather than just have a haphazard approach... it will help with consistency, repeatability, coherence, and help beginners keep time better.

But, in practice, do you actually find it necessary, or advantageous, or helpful? One of those rules you're supposed to learn first before you break it?

(I know this has been discussed before, but it seems that it's been a while)

I have seen some blazing mandolin pickin that was free style, your teacher wants you to play DUDU because thats the way they were taught.'
Just Play the Mandolin Man......Best/

[grassrootphilosopher]

I have seen some blazing mandolin pickin that was free style.../

Who was the picker?

[Iron]

Who was the picker?

A man I play with Robet Tolbert