alternate picking

[PRS One]

I have a question on alternate picking. Now I realize that downstrokes should be on the downbeat, and pick up on the upbeat. But what about when the music gets more complicated than just eighth notes. Like, let's say you have two dotted eigth notes following each other. Do you pick the first w/ a down stroke, and the next w/ an upstroke?

Also, supposed you have a triplet followed by a quarter note. Would it be:

D U D D?
or
D U D U?

Because technically that quarter note would fall on the downbeat, but it would be hard to do that movement keeping in the lines of alternate picking. If anyone has any input, I'd appreciate it. Thanks

[cyberfret]

Basically it just depends on the situation. If something is primarily 16th notes, then you would pick the 4 16th notes that are in one beat like this.

d u d u
1 e & a

So in that case you are picking down on the beat, and the &. Sometimes your picking will not follow the rhythms at all (though it is very important to understand how pick direction related to rhythm).

For your 2 dotted 8th note example....the good news is that you will never see 2 dotted 8th notes one after the other. There are an infinite number of rhythms that you can play, but the way that they are written follow some specific rules to help make them easier to read. So in that case you would see a dotted 8th, then a 16th note tied to an 8th. This then divides the rhythms up so that you can easily see where the beats are. A dotted 8th and a 16th equals 1 beat. Then you have the tie from the 16th to the 8th in the next beat. If they were not written this way, rhythms would be much more difficult to read.

For your triplet example....both are right. Sometimes you come back down on the beat, and sometimes you would pick up. Since triplets are groups of 3, and picking only has 2 directions....down and up... you will not have a nice neat rule that says pick down here, or pick up here. If there is a whole row of triplets, I would just keep a consisted down and up picking.

As a generalization, keep your hand moving at the speed of the smallest rhythm in a phrase. In the case of something that is primarily 8th notes, that would mean picking down on the beat and up on the &. If something is mostly 16th notes, that means that your would pick d u d u for each group of 4 16th notes.

--Shawn