A try at Troy's crosspicking sorcery

Technique Critique
#1

The video consists of four clips. Troy’s arpeggio at 150bpm and slo-mo and also an outside picked arpeggio at 170bpm and slo-mo.

Feel free to comment on anything that stands out.

The takes are not perfect, but I decided that it is not my goal to impress anyone :stuck_out_tongue: but to correct my mistakes and improve my technique. This is my “average” ability, so I did a take as soon a I warmed up, instead of doing 30 takes and picking the best one.

The funny thing is that I always used strict alternate picking since I first started playing, and only after 7 years of playing I discovered that this is not “mandatory” and that such exotic things as sweeping and economy picking existed. Until that time I alternate picked literally everything.

This has the positive consequence that the whole crosspicking thing does not feel as foreign to me. But still, it feels like I could improve it a lot, especially with scale-stuff. The arpeggio stuff feels relatively easy to me. The outside picking lick, I probably could play at 200bpm or more. It comes from playing Radiohead’s “Street Spirit” intro a few thousand times. The Troy pattern is trickier, since the picking constantly switches.

My dream/goal is to get my crosspicking close to the Martin Miller level, but that would probably take some serious work and even then I don’t know if that is feasible. Right now I’m happy with the level I have for the music I play.

To me it feels that there still is some stringhopping involved in my right hand, but Troy’s video helped me to realize the side-to-side motion, sort of a diagonal smiley curve that makes the picking more relaxed and increases the chance that you clear the strings after the pickstroke. Also, I noticed that I move my thumb downwards (especially with the outside picking), also to clear the string sideways; this is not done consciously, I just noticed it on the video.

Any tips and comments are welcome :slight_smile:

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#2

Fantastic!

Only mini-comment is this: occasionally in the second video you can hear a “chirp”: I think this is the pick grazing an unwanted string and producting a sort of harmonic. I recognise it because it happens often when I try to crosspick: you can hear a few of those in my recent attempt at the Mike Stern lick - typically in inside descending string changes where I may graze the string I just played as I try to avoid it. That being said, your crosspicking is already very good and way better than mine - just nitpicking here :slight_smile:

PS: I may also be wrong - maybe you are always clearing the strings and the occasional chirp may just be due to the stiff pick making contact with the strings! Probably not much of it would go through the amp anyway.

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#3

Thanks for pointing that out Tommo,

It seems that it’s the contact of the pick with the string that is causing the chirp.

The chirp is also amplified by a loose screw in my bridge that rattles against the bridge/saddle. Very annoying, you only hear it when playing the guitar unamplified.

The red picks should not cause any chirp in my opinion when played amplified, I will try to upload a different clip with amplified playing one of these days, so there is a better reference.

Also, very grateful for your kind remarks :blush:

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#4

Great clip, and congrats on getting your crosspicking technique to such a high level! It sounds great and looks like a very reliable technique too.

One thing that stands out for me about your technique is it looks like (I may have the terms wrong here) your thumb and index fingers do some flexion/extension during the string crossings. Do you notice this at all? Also, what happens if you hold the pick static and don’t flex/extend those two fingers? Makes me think of another recent thread where people were talking about the potential benefits of thumb movement when crossing the strings.

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#5

looks and sounds pretty sick to me - excited to see you do stuff with the left hand synced up like 1nps arpeggios higher on the fretboard

edit to add: jealous - I’ve been poking at this for a bit, but in my life it’s hard to get more than 10 minutes here and there to mess with it. Maybe I’ll take a crosspicking vacation :rofl:

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#6

Thank you, Montreal,

I can tell you what I do to reach my highest speeds in the most relaxed manner.

Disclaimer: I do not claim to have the “perfect” crosspicking technique like for example Martin Miller, but it is on a level where I’m generally happy with it, although when I see Miller, I feel like I have a long way to go. Thanks to Troy and CTC I continuously try to improve my technique because I started to practice dwps and upws (and sweeping and swiping). Since crosspicking is a combination of dwps and upws, this helps a lot. Also, some things are just much faster and easier with a certain technique. Certain arpeggios, for example the Yngwie-kind, can be played much, much faster with sweeping than crosspicking. But other arpeggios can ONLY be played with crosspicking, so it is good to be able to do it.

First of all, I hold my pick loosely, the faster I go, the looser it is in a way. The harder I grip the pick, the more tension I feel in my forearm and thumb.

The picking movement feels like shaking the water of your hands when they’re wet. The movement has been compared to turning a key in a lock, but in my experience you have to add the shaking water of your hands movement.

What I see happening is that the pick enters with a downward slant and exits with an upward slant. Which is logical, otherwise it would end up as a reststroke. You trace a “smiley” with your pick trajectory, where the string is the lowest point of the smiley. Finally, the smiley is made diagonally, so starting towards the neck side and ending towards the bridge side.

I hope it makes sense, I will post more clips from different angles and also try to improve on it, because I think it can (and should) be done a lot smoother when you want to use crosspicking to rip through scales and stuff.

In the meanwhile, any comment is extremely helpful.

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#7

Great playing! You’re using Martin’s technique here. A little forearm, a little fingers. This isn’t really the technique I demoed in the other clip, but that’s of course ok. Doesn’t matter how you found it, what matters is that you can activate it at will and keep it clean.

That’s right! Others have mentioned Kiko Loureiro may do this as well - not as familiar with his playing but I’ve seen bits of what looks like that in clips of him.

It may be that the more we look into this, the more find this little “finger lift” on the downstroke is a thing that players hit upon, subconsciously, as they attempt this. Note in all these cases, these are supinated players who like to rest the pinky (i.e. ulnar) side of the hand on the bridge. That doesn’t allow the hand to move, hence the fingers getting involved for the lift.

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#8

Hi Jake,

I saw the other thread where you talk about improving your crosspicking.

As Troy already pointed out, my way of doing it is 90% the way Miller does it (I still have to work on a few issues to make it more relaxed and flowing) but I can give you a few “easy to understand” tips in how to practice the movement, at least the way I do it.

To make the movement feel easier and more natural, it helps doing outside picking on two adjacent strings, like the high E and high B (downstroke on B and upstroke on E).

You don’t have to think about pickslanting at first, after the downstroke on the B string just make sure that the pick clears the E string, even if it’s just a tiny bit. On the upstroke you make sure that you also clear the B string just a tiny bit. That way you don’t have to think about a V or U trajectory and stuff, just think, “I don’t want to get trapped between the strings” and do what you think you should do to stay clear of them.

I’ll upload some things soon to show the way I would teach a student that has no idea how to do it, because it’s hard to put it into words, but easier to show it.

Also, the way your hand feels while picking is not so much like “turning a key in the keyhole” , because that is a pretty rigid movement.

It is more like the movement an orchestra conductor would make with his wand when indicating the time. Imagine holding a pendulum (the string being between your thumb and index finger) and keeping it in motion, swinging side to side; that is the actual motion I use when doing this.

If I was holding a pendulum and would do the key-turning motion, it would get all jerky and shaky and the pendulum would not swing from side to side.

For the moment, this is the best metaphor I have to describe the movement, I will put it in a video to show it.

Until then, good luck and hang in there, help is on the way :grin:

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#9

Thanks for that, I’ll play around! I appreciate you taking the time. Do you think that as you advance with this that it’s more like you can do it quick but it’s hard to be accurate, or that it’s accurate and then the speed gets built up with more comfort?

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#10

In my experience, focus on accuracy first, because the movement has to be right. Speed will come automatically.

It is basically a very accurate technique, because when you are able to do it, you don’t have to think about it, it’s like riding a bike.

But, on high tempos, say 160bpm for 16ths, the technique evolves in being more economical and slanting plays a bigger role.