Economy Picking (ɪkɑ́nəmi pɪ́kɪŋ) is a technique used to conserve energy and increase the speed of playing by a guitarist. It utilizes alternate picking while on the same string, but uses sweep picking while going to a different string. Doing so, minimizes the movement of the picking hand and eliminates jumping over strings which happens when using just alternate picking. Economy picking has been used since the 1950’s with it first being introduced with jazz, but has become wide spread since the 1980’s, being found in a wide variety of genres.