Dave,
Haven’t worked on that in a while and not quite sure I got it up to 100% tempo but what I do is strict alternate picking and when I come to the 4th note I make a two string bar. I rock the bar to prevent ringing of the second string while I play the fifth note, re-establish the bar and hold that until the 8th note. Now my ring finger stays put while I dowstroke the subsequent chords with the hammer-ons. You’re probably doing the same thing and it’s just fast. The key is holding the fingers in place and lots of practice. Next option (for most of us) is slowing the backing track tempo in your DAW and coming back to it when we develop more picking speed;-)
John

Hi Dave,

Brian plays this part with the 16th notes out of half Bar Chords and so only the Pinky moves. And I think that s the only way, to play that with speed. Also the part with 8th notes are played of half bar chords. The little embelished notes have no own counting, but have to be played also with the Pinky as fast hammer-ons.
For practising perhaps you should divide the whole part in micro steps in super Slow motion. I myself often make the mistake, to hold the breathe at difficult passages. Better is, to remain relaxed and to breathe slowly and regularly.

Dieter

I’ve finally got that lesson down 100% and up to tempo. It took a while. What I do is: When I hit the note on the 7th fret 2nd string, I throw a bridge onto the two highest strings at the 7th fret, play the 9th fret notes with my ring finger, except for the hammer on which I do with my little finger. An easier version is to just play the top two strings on the last two beats, rather than the top 3 strings as Brian has tabbed. Either way sounds good. For picking, my pattern is:

down up down up
up down up down
down down
down down down

All good advice. I do it the way Dieter suggests. I fret the B and e strings with my index finger and the G string with my ring finger, leaving a little fret room so I can get my pinky in there. All the ninth fret notes on the first two strings are played with the pinky. That leaves you in perfect position to slide down to the 5th fret.
I start alternate picking with an upstroke and play all the strums with down strokes.
Whether your first stroke is up or down won’t make much difference, but if you only move your pinky and alternate pick, your speed should pick up.
But you have to play through it very slowly until you can get through it without mistakes, say 5 times in a row, then gradually increase your speed.
Good luck. You’ve chosen a difficult and fast lesson, but it sure sounds great.

Let’s get technical with picking here, as this is a nice example.

There are two main “ways” in which players hold their pick and use it – Downward and Upward pickslanting. After a downstroke, your pick is either “captive” between strings (then you are slanting downward) or “free” above (then you are slanting upward). It’s way easier to change strings when your pick is “free”.

Demonstration of different pickslants:

This comes into play on the fifth note of the bar.

If you religiously alternate pick with downward pickslant, the pattern becomes :

• Down 9 on E (captive)
• Up 7 on E (Free)
• – change strings –
• Down 9 B (captive)
• Up 7 B (free)
• – change strings –
• Down 7 E (captive)
• – change strings – !!! problem !!!
• Up 9 B (free)
• Down 7 B (captive)
• – change strings – !!! problem !!!
• Up 9 G (free)
• … strum …

This becomes problem at higher speeds, as you have to free the pick from captive position and change string, which is a problem.

This “puzzle” can be solved in multiple ways.
You can pick up the 5th note (which forces you to to make a movement from “free above B” to “below E” and then pick E upward, remaining free for a next note.
You can change your pick slant, so that you remain free on downstroke instead of upstroke. That would look like

• …
• Down 9 B (captive)
• Up 7 B (free)
• – change strings, change to upward pickslant –
• Down 7 E (free)
• – change strings – no problem !!!
• Up 9 B (captive)
• Down 7 B (free)
• – change strings – change back to downward pickslant –
• Up 9 G (free)
• strum …

Or you know, just wing it, as sane people do 😉

Really interesting discussion, decided to run through this to see how i play the bars posted

so for the 1st eight notes its

Up, Down, Up, Down,

Down, Up, Down, Up,

the hammer on barred bits are all down-strokes

I had to go over Brian’s fingering and picking pattern in quite a few of the passages on this bars 16/17 I had to work on / alter my picking and end of 19 + bar 20

old habits die hard

It is a wondrous lesson that keeps on giving stick with it Dave