3 Note Per String Help

Playing Technique
#1

As a quick update - CTC has GREATLY helped me to improve my playing in only around 6 months. I just made a lengthy post about it in the Site Feedback section, but wanted to briefly mention it here as I have not been on the forums in awhile.

The one thing I am still having some issues with is getting my 3-note-per-string chops up. TWPS has helped me to feel MUCH more comfortable playing them, but my pickslanting movement is pretty drastic. So when I need to alternate slants every 3 notes, it hinders my speed. As a side note, I noticed that Troy’s TWPS movement is also very drastic/noticeable on the vids he uploads to the YouTube channel. So that shows me that it’s possible.

Do you have any advice/tips for better results with 3 note per string stuff? Should I aim to make my pickslanting moves less dramatic? Or should I just keep plugging away at the metronome, keep everything the same and hope it falls into place?

Thanks for any tips. If a video is needed I could try to get something recorded

2 Likes
#2

Remember that one HO/PO turns 3nps into 2nps, so do you really need 2WPS?

#3

Thanks for the reminder!

I did want to try to do it with strict alternate picking, because the run is supposed to be aggressive sounding and I didn’t want to take any shortcuts for this particular run. It scales all 6 strings so I would need to incorporate quite a few pull-offs, so I would prefer to keep it to 2WPS as the composer uses strict alternate picking for it

#4

Ah, cool, that makes sense. I view “alternate picking” as a “best-effort“ activity that is only really possible when double-escaped or there is no 1nps activity, hence I am happy to momentarily abandon it for reasons of expediency without hesitation.

#5

Gotcha, yeah I guess alternate picking wasn’t the best choice of wording in my OP. I just meant that I wanted to try to pick all of the notes to achieve the more aggressive tone for this particular lick.

I don’t know why but I totally forgot about economy picking. I am not really too good at it but I may use this as an opportunity to get better at it, since there would be way less room for error once I get it down

#6

For me economy is faster, but I can’t really get tight timing out of it. Therefore I ended up sticking with alternate for 3nps stuff, especially if I’m going for a rhythmic feel.

I have also obsessed about 3nps for a long time, so you can check out some of the discussions in my technique critique threads. I hope you find something useful in there :slight_smile:

In general, I would not worry about the size of the movement, but only about whether it feels easy enough/ doable at high speed.

As a guy that did this a lot (and who is always tempted to do endless repetitions of exercises), I’d advise you against it.
My technical improvements always came from changing/realising something about my form and movements, and just going for the lick at full speed.

The consensus around here seems to be that the metronome is only useful with the techniques you already mastered.

2 Likes
#7

Awesome I will most definitely check out those other threads about 3NPS!

And yes I am in the same exact boat with economy picking. I cannot seem to get the timing even. There is always a little bit of a “swing” to the notes when I economy pick, because it is difficult for me to get the speed of each sweep equal to the speed of the picking. I’m sure I could work it out with more practice but I don’t use the technique a lot.

And that’s good to hear about the metronome. It’s interesting you mentioned that, because since I’ve gotten back into guitar I only use the metronome around 10% of the time (just for a particular scale fragment exercise so I can keep note of my speed each day, and monitor improvement). Despite using the metronome far less than I used to, I have noticed some HUGE improvements by simply changing my grip, learning about Pickslanting and just practicing a lot. So I think you nailed it!

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#8

Seconding this. Abandoning the metronome helped me finally get to the speeds I wanted to reach for years.

#9

!!! Oh I forgot that! Now I can focus on downwards pickslanting more. Ty