One of the things that should be clear by now is that there's a tremendous amount of structure in Mike's playing. What often seems like an unbroken stream of notes is really a collection of patterns, stuck together like Legos. Mike engineered these fingering patterns and scale choices to connect seamlessly with the least possible mental effort during live soloing.

The same is true for Mike's picking technique. One of the consequences of using sixes as building blocks is that a six always finishes on the pickstroke opposite the one on which you start. For example, in measure 9 there's a descending six which starts on a downstroke. As we'd expect, it ends on an upstroke: In theory, a six-note pattern like the one above must end on the opposite pickstroke because it contains an even number of notes. This allows you to repeat the pattern using the exact sequence of pickstrokes you used the first time. One of the principal attractions of playing sixes is that once you nail the picking, it repeats right along with the fingering.

A lot of the patterns in Lightning Fast start on downstrokes. This makes sense, since most guitarists are used to thinking of the downstroke as the "default" pickstroke anyway. So you might be wondering why the lead-off six pattern of the solo actually starts on an upstroke: The answer arrives in measure 9, when we realize that the ascending sixes we've been playing are nothing more than descending sixes played in reverse: As we move from measure 8 to measure 9, our ascending pattern turns around and becomes a descending pattern. But the picking doesn't change. For example, notice that in measure 8 we played the 15th fret of the B string with an upstroke. The same is true for measure 9, even though we're going in the other direction. The two patterns connect seamlessly because Mike planned ahead and started all his ascending sixes on an upstroke. One is literally the mirror image of the other.

The way I transcribed the solo, I chose to write measure 8 with only five notes. This way, the last note of measure 8 could become the first note of measure 9. I could have done it the other way, but then measure 9 would have had only five notes. I figured it would be better to end the previous pattern one note short than to start a new pattern on the wrong note. In reality, that note belongs to both measures. It's the end of one six, and the beginning of the next one. There's no need to repeat that note to keep the picking consistent -- just turn around and go the other way. If you scan the tab for Lightning Fast, you'll see that the general picking rule is this: Ascending sixes start on an upstroke, and descending sixes start on a downstroke. This ensures that a given note on the fretboard is almost always played with the same pickstroke, no matter whether you're coming or going. Pretty sneaky sis.