ALTERNATIVE(alternate picking)

OK Guys...

This is my first thread in this forum. Being IRISH, The first stringed instrument that i learned to play was the mandolin....followed shortly by the tenor banjo...I was taught that every downstroke should be followed by an upstroke.

OK...Shortly i began to realise that the guitar would be a much cooler instrument to learn and impress chicks with....Anyway i'm a self taught guitarist...Here's my question..Having taught myself i don't exactly follow the rules of alternate picking properly....

Sometimes if skipping strings or if i am moving from one string to the next on a downstroke i will not follow this with an upstroke.....

I have even tried to play as quickly by following the rules of alternate picking but i think i have been playing my own particular way for too long and can't change.....

Is this going to cause me problems in the future....? I hope i have explained that ok...

Thanks in advance :)

What you're doing is fine. When you play one string and the string below it consecutively on a downstroke it is called sweep picking. You don't necessarily have to pick an upstroke for every single downstroke.

Yes, but economy picking is a combination of sweep and alternate picking. Because he was only asking about the part where he wasn't alternate picking, I called it sweeping.

Thanks for the replies guys...and by the way Aiwass....thats some crazy guitar playing you have going on there ....i was well impressed.

So economy picking is more effeicient if i can control it then....its just that i am finding it difficult to speed up my shredding....is it basically all just about using the metronome and hours upon hours of practice???

Mainly the hours and hours of practice part to speed up alternate picking...that's what I should be doing right now, come to think of it.

Man, just the hours and a met is all you need to become killer fast, but you will never be as quick as you want to be, and never as good...
Oh and one thing...one of the biggest myths of all time is that Girls like guys in bands...usually if I mention that I play guitar in a band, the girl I am talking to leaves the room...at a hectic pace.