Advice on picking technique

Technique Critique
#22

They started working now!

#23

Hi @Rdog2326, I think your tremolo picking sounds good. At 0:03 in the last video you have a quick burst and it sounds very sharp, and your arm and wrist look comfortable (are they?). So you’ve got something working well for you there!

Here are several suggestions and thoughts, with a few links to the site https://practicing-guitar.readthedocs.io/ which discusses practice techniques.

I’ve watched a few vids above and it looks like you’re working on a few separate things:

  • single-string scalar lick
  • two-note-per-string lick
  • three-note-per-string lick
  • some scalar stuff

My first suggestion to you would be to choose just one of these things, because each of them have their own special challenges. All have left hand, right hand, sync and shifting challenges, but they’re all different (e.g. single-string is mostly left hand, 2nps is mostly right hand jumping, in my opinion). If you work on all four licks intently, you might end up diluting your focus.

So, let’s say you choose to work on a single-string lick first, a sextuplet thing like this (with accents marking the beat):

-8-5-7-8-7-5-7-3-5-7-5-3- etc.
 >           >

Getting organized

Practicing technique can be tough, so here’s a suggestion: break up your practice time. When I say “work on a lick”, I don’t mean that you’ll spend two hours on it, but rather that you’ll chip away at it day after day, in small chunks. (See this for notes on structuring practice time, and this for extra notes for practicing licks and stuff.)

I used to practice forever on things, and got nowhere. Big waste of time. When I broke things into master-able chunks, I finally made progress.

Break it down

I have a strong feeling that you are working on too much when practicing :-). It’s very tempting to repeat full, long sections forever, and try to increase speed, but I’ve never gotten anywhere with that myself.

So, my first suggestion would be to take just one part of the lick, and make sure you can blaze through it:

-8-5-7-8-7-5-8-5-7-8-7-5-
 >           >

If you can’t pick that at high speed, then you won’t be able to add the next -7-3-5- section, because that hand shift will likely add some tension to your arm.

To work on that -8-5-7- part of the lick, some thoughts:

Fretting hand work

Your tremelo picking is sharp, but this lick requires both hands to be good independently, and then also combined. Are you able to play the lick without picking, using only fretting hand hammer-ons?

-8-5-7-8-7-5-8-5-7-8-7-5-
 H H H H H H H H H H H H

You should be able to hammer this (with fretting hand only) at faster than your target speed, fast and evenly. If you can’t do that effortlessly, both physically and – more important! – mentally, you won’t be able to pick it.

I stress the mental aspect of playing because slow playing is often a result of your brain getting confused and tied up, which then translates to physical tension. So, get that left hand clear, fast, effortless and even (all of these are important!). This may take several days – you won’t see progress in one practice session, because your brain needs time to process it (as discussed here ).

More on hands separate practice here.

Syncing work

Once your fretting hand is going really well, start trying to sync it.

Accents are your friends here. If you play a long stream of notes with no accents, your brain gets lost, so make sure you’re really hitting the first note in each group of six.

Again, I’d start with just the first sextuplet, repeating it, like this:

-8-5-7-8-7-5-8-
 >           >

If you get that fast, really hitting the first and last accents, your brain can deal with it as a single unit.

When you’re feeling good with that one unit, add another one:

-8-5-7-8-7-5-8-5-7-8-7-5-8-
 >           >           >

There’s a similar example here, which discusses chunking. You may have seen some of Troy’s vids talking about “chunking” as well.

Speed work

I mentioned fretting hand speed above, and that may well be your current sticking point. But there are a few other practice techniques that might be useful to try out. Since your tremolo is already good, these might help you explore some aspects of pick timing/accuracy:

The most important thing :slight_smile:

… is to work at it intently for short periods of time, always staying loose and discarding excess tension, and then to rest. It takes time for your muscles and brain to adjust. It’s a game of finesse and coordination, not of strength or power.

Here’s another breakdown of practicing a different lick, following the same ideas as above: Cliffs of Dover Hybrid Picking Lick — Practicing Guitar documentation

Cheers and best wishes! jz

#24

@Rdog2326 the short bit of trem picking I saw in your first video makes me think you have a viable fast picking technique. However, the patterns you’re playing in the 3nps video might be a bit much for you at the moment to develop good speed / coordination on. I would recommend small riffs that you can learn quickly and repeat indefinitely (so minimal, if any, position shifts). Here’s some I posted about before:

#25

Thanks alot man great feedback. I sincerely appreciate it!! I try not to spend my entire practice session on speed, since i am working on other parts of guitar playing. With that being said, Some sessions have been spent obsessing about speed/ picking.

As far as comfort, everything feels great. The tremolo is smooth and effortless. I didnt even really have to think about the motion, i can just break into it.

Pentatonic stuff feels comfortable and pretty easy too. The only thing that doesn’t quite feel easy is the 3nps scale lines across two strings. It just feels like ill never bust out of the ~90BPM sextuplet mark. I like your advice of trying it with hammer ons and pull offs. What also helped me was just trying to play fast on one string(first video) yes it took sometime to get the fretting hand in sync but now it feels pretty much synced up. I am going to spend some time trying to apply my tremolo picking to scale shapes on just one string.

Looking back at my overall progress, i was never able to play at the speed i am playing at now so i believe i am heading in the right direction. Thanks again!!

#26

Cheers, and good luck!

For 3nps across 2 strings, try breaking it up into hands-separate practice, and then combining. With separate hands, aim to execute each of them at higher than your target speed.

For the fretting hand work, use only hammer-ons, no pull-offs. When you’re picking fast, your fingers should not be doing the standard pull-off style motion. Hammers only.

For the picking hand, you don’t even need to finger/fret the notes. You can play muted strings. Aim for snappy and accented pick attack, always accenting the first each group of notes (on the beat).

Then join them up! Cheers, z

1 Like
#27

So heres a new close up video that the wifey took. The metronome is at 90BPM and I start off playing the same string crossing pattern on the B and E strings that I did in the previous videos.

It feels better already from the last video. I actually decreased the edge picking and it just feel so much better. The decrease in edge picking just sort of happened on its own and i picked up on it. I am able to get this a little faster, was playing it a 95bpm sextuplets. The single string stuff I can get it over 100BPM sextuplets.

I cant tell what I am doing as far as pickslanting. It feels and looks as though my downstrokes are escaping??

Hopefully you guys can weigh in. I have been using alot of the advice so far and its helping.

Thanks again

#28
1 Like
#29

Hey @Rdog2326, the previous videos became unavailable so it’s a bit difficult for me to keep track of the before/after :slight_smile:

The last thing I remember is that we asked you to do a fast tremolo picking test, to try and identify if you already have a fast escape motion that we can try to harness (most people discover they they already have one ready to go).

About the current vids I’ll make 2 general comments, hope I’m not sounding too harsh:

  1. It’s not clear to me what you are trying to achieve with these exercises. Any particular reason you… picked them? (pun unintended :slight_smile: )

  2. you are not playing in time with the metronome, so I would probably turn it off for the time being. The metronome can be a distraction when you are still trying to figure out your motions.

Taking a step back, I would recommend to go back to that tremolo picking test and figure out what type of escape you do in it. Then, I would take that same motion and apply it to phrases that are not just “tremolo”, so you can start working on the sync of the 2 hands.

If you want to post that tremolo test again with this new filming angle, I’ll be happy to take a look and suggest some idea to move further :sunglasses:

2 Likes
#30

Ok…Not sure why. Let me know if these work. First video is just tremolo. As far as I can tell I’m UWPS/DSX.

I tried getting a few angles. Im not sure exactly why I keep obsessing over that 3nps string crossing pattern, I guess because its such a challenge. What I have been doing more of is just trying to apply tremolo to notes on a single string. Could you advise me on what kind of licks I should be practicing and steer me in the right direction.

Also when I play 8th note triplets I am right on the money with the metronome. If I go for sextuplets, sometimes I am on time and other time/patterns Im off…been at this for a while now…frustrating.

Thanks

#31

Hey man are you able to see what kind of motion I am doing? As far as I can tell, its mostly wrist. Also do you notice any string hopping taking place?

Thanks

#32

Although it’s not completely clear in your first video due to the camera angle, it looks like wrist dsx. In your other videos there is a variety of different things happening.
What’s often recommended as a starting point, is to see what your fastest/most comfortable tremolo is. Then start applying it to licks that suit whether it’s dsx or usx. So basically you are practicing the same fast motion that you are doing with your tremolo but now you are applying it to licks etc
The 3nps stuff is more difficult because it’s mixing escapes. When you have a fast single escape technique, it’s a little easier to figure what needs to happen to achieve that, but if it’s not clear what your fast primary is, then it’s near impossible to advise.
This is why it was/is important to see that fast tremolo clearly. What joints you are using and what escape path.

So from the first of your latest videos, it looks like mainly wrist dsx, but might want to someone with a better eye than me to be sure.

#33

Looks like a good amount of elbow motion in the most recent video. I still don’t notice much string hopping at all, but honestly that should not even be a concern for you at the moment (you’re not playing any high speed string changes that would make it noticeable).

1 Like
#34

I seemed to miss the elbow motion, and actually the last video completely! I was focused more on the first vid, but can see it now, in the first video too, since you mentioned it.

#35

In this video isn’t it mostly wrist?

#36

@Rdog2326 That one looks like mostly wrist, but I figured you wanted input on the most recent one, I should’ve clarified.

Are you aiming to develop one over the other?

#37

Ya I am trying to harness the wrist. When I use the elbow, it get fatigued easily and my entire arm is stiff. This wrist motion feels great and I can do it all day. However, I cant seem to apply it to licks or scales. The picking just doesn’t sync with my hands. I am trying just to play scale fragments on one string.

1 Like
#38

Gotcha, just keep the speed low enough that wrist-only feels natural and you don’t revert to elbow.

#39

Ya, thats the plan. I am just going to take that wrist tremolo and sync up the notes being careful to only use wrist motion.

Thanks man

1 Like
#41

Sorry, quick step back to this earlier post :slight_smile:

It’s not super easy to see in your tremolo video (the hand is almost out of frame), but I agree with you in “suspecting DSX” :slight_smile:

So what I would do is test this hypothesis with some licks that are optimised for DSX (only downstroke string changes). Here’s a couple examples I tabbed recently. They are not super musical but maybe they’ll inspire you to create cooler ones along the same lines.

You can play them at 6 notes per beat or even 4, try both. However, do not introduce the metronome until you have the patterns memorized enough that you cant truly focus on timing.

DSX 6s patterns.gp (9.8 KB)

Let me know how this goes!

1 Like
#42

In my experience, it’s easy for wrist picking to get out of sync, because the rhythm of the picking hand can fluctuate slightly, or maybe it’s the muscle motions fluctuating … the muscles are small, and I feel the brain can get lost. I’ve found it very helpful to strongly accent the beats with the picking hand, so you’re not just playing an endless stream of 16ths.

So, play ONE-e-&-a-TWO-e-&-a- , really hitting those first notes. It’s a really subtle adjustment to make a louder note, so keep trying it bit by bit, taking lots of small breaks, and staying focused. You can do this just on a single note.

Also be sure that your fretting hand is keeping good rhythm too! With finer picking motions, both hands have to be independent and fully developed, or the tiny misses start to accumulate and throw everything off. Each should be able to easily and fluidly handle their own parts — I think I linked a “hands separate” practice link above :slight_smile:

When they are both independently mastered, joining them up become easier.

Cheers! Z