I have received a lot of emails in the past weeks in response to the recent video lessons I have posted on youtube. Reading them all thoroughly I discovered that a lot of them kind of were questions that concern the economies of guitar playing.

We all know economy picking, but I think there’s way more concepts slumbering under the surface than just plain picking technique.

Analyzing my personal playing principals I would come up with the following points and I hope you guys will add yours too, to get a clear picture for everyone who wants to know:

1. Right arm movement - I rarely move my right arm when playing. I am not “ventilating” for punk and rock. All movement comes from my right hand wrist only. I think sometimes when adrenalin is pumping and you kinda flip around on stage you might swing your entire right arm, but I am sure it’s not the main technique you should use 

2. How much power to put in your playing – Well, this depends on the dynamics I apply. Of course in smooth passages, I don’t push it like there’s no tomorrow. Generally, I try to keep myself aware of the fact that we play amplified, so a lot of power some people put into their playing makes them exhausted, even sore and most of it is inappropriate. My wrists and fingers are always relaxed, never tensed and yes it is possible to kick some severe a** with that method. You don’t have to cramp like a nutcracker at work to make your licks and riffs sound fat.

3. Left hand grip – My left hand grip is “gentle”. I never push my thumb against the neck. It lays soft on the back of the neck. It’s not as if I feel like grabbing or holding the guitar neck. I have witnessed people that lifted the neck all the time, also putting their thumb under the neck. Definitely approaches I wouldn’t recommend. Make sure your guitar is not neck heavy and hangs well balanced around your neck.

4. How high hangs my guitar – Well, I give a sh** about what it looks like, but my guitar hangs exactly as high as required to play accurate and that is pretty high for RNR standards. I hear a lot of people saying “I play better when sitting”, well that’s maybe because your guitar hangs to low when you play stand up. I also suggest always spending at least 15 minutes of your practicing routine stand up. The feel is different and you should be accustomed to both. Personally, I don't believe in the "one plays better seated" rumours - feel free to disagree.

5. Where to play a lick? – Well, well. Over the years I have formed the habit of always learning a lick in every possible position on the neck. You know these people that make little journeys on their guitar neck lose time...lots of time, because they only know one position of a lick... Of course there are licks that require open strings and some licks sound best in one position on the neck, but I always try to stay as close to the area of action as possible. I play locally around the chords most of the time. Be direct, always look for the shortest way first. That’s also essential if you wanna become a faster player.

6. No ornamentation – I like to keep things as simple as possible. I am not imitating puppet strings that I magically pull when bending the string, nor do I tap the 12th fret for that "super cool" harmonic sound etc. You know what I mean. I just concentrate on my playing which is most of the time challenging enough. I am conservative, but conservative is not boring! ;-)

7. Economy picking – I can’t but play everything with economy picking, except of some chordal licks and some typical palm muted riffs. I try to keep the motion of the pick as small as possible. Most of the time it feels like my pick is wrapping the string or even sticking to the string I am playing on. I also like to practice licks starting with an upstroke and then with a downstroke, which really expresses the real life playing situation. I also like to experiment with playing licks in between the strings and then on the outside of the strings. For example two notes, one on the d string and one on the g string.

8. The hand shaker – I’ve seen couple of players shaking their left hand in between songs – I mean they lift their hand entirely from the fretboard and shake it shortly. Well, also here I think you don’t need the shaking when you play relaxed. And who has enought time to do this during a song? At least I don't...

9. Long runs – hang in there and try to sometimes look beyond your own nose. You might tend to play licks in the same length in your solos – don’t deny, you do…for sure…;-) Now go and make them longer  It’s no crime to play triplets or identical rhythm clusters for more than 10 seconds….who cares? You’ll see that you start varying your long runs as soon as you got one method down. I think, when your mind says “go” and “the highway is free”…well why not, as long as you are not destroying the song  To me it’s a part of guitar economies, too. Leaving out potential doesn’t really improve your playing and I am not talking overplaying or neglecting good phrasing.

10. You might think "who the hell asked Jimi75 to molest us with how he sees things", well....I don't know...all I know is that I would love to see you writing down your economies, I have the feeling that this could get a useful thing for newbies and new fretters :-)