WHEN YOU STRIKE the mandolin strings, that's called a stroke. When you strike downwards it's called a downstroke, and with an upwards movement it's called an upstroke. Pick direction means the "up" and "down" motion of the pick when playing tunes. If you were to play a scale fairly slowly, the likelihood would that all the strokes would be "down". When tunes speed up, however, it is better to use an alternate up-and-down method; it makes your playing more fluid. There is a general rule about pick direction: use downstrokes on the beat and upstrokes between the beat (often portrayed as D-u-d-u D-u-d-u). This is what Niles Hokkanen calls a "default setting" for the right hand which "...ingrains linear rhythmic location within the meter."
Another way of explaining the rule: a 4/4 time signature means four
beats to the bar. If these notes are quarter notes (as in the scales
examples), they would sound like ONE - TWO - THREE - FOUR, ONE - TWO -
THREE - FOUR, and so on. All these notes would be played with a
downstroke. If the bar consisted of eighth notes, there would be eight
notes in a bar, and it would sound like ONE-and-TWO-and-THREE-and-FOUR-and, etc. The notes on the beat (ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR) would be played with downstrokes, and all the "ands" would be played with an upstroke.
Some people despair about this aspect of playing the mandolin, and I'm sure there will be a few of you who will weel they're stepping backwards. However, poor pick direction technique could severely inhibit your ability to make progress beyond entry level playing, so working on it now will improve your playing along the line.
Let's start off with a simple exercise (Exercise 1). The first thing to note is that the first note in the scale is a quarter note, so the second note will also be played on the beat, and will therefore be a downstroke. The big test will be changing from the G note (fifth fret on the D string) to the A note (open A string); most beginners will play two downstrokes in a row. Try to notice what you do, and if you're playing two downstrokes, try to rectify it. Exercise 2 is similar.
Exercise 1
Play the simple exercise below, noting where the beats land, and
therefore where to play downstrokes.
Exercise 2
We're now going to do a series of exercises using just the open
strings, so that you are able to concentrate more on your right hand
technique. In all of these exercises, use a strict down-up-down-up pick direction. Some of it will be easy and feel natural. As the exercises progress, however, it becomes more difficult and more necessary to think about what you're doing. Exercises 3, 4 and 5 were devised by John Moore.
Exercise 3
Remember, all through exercises 3-5 it's a strict down-up-down-up pick pattern.
