What do you mean by diagonal movement? Do you mean escape motion? That’s how this whole picking thing works. The pick moves on a diagonal so that when you want to switch strings, you do so when the pick is in the air. I might be misunderstanding the question though!
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@Troy - thanks, just wanted to clarify about the diagonal movement. I was unsure if I should be aiming to keep my pick moving in a straighter line or not 
Well, I have been working on elbow movement and here are videos:
Funnily enough I struggle with picking on the low E string, I find it gets easier as I go up to the higher strings.
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I can’t comment on the diagonal portion of your question for Troy, but this is a drastic improvement compared to the first few clips.
Whatever sensation or tactile mental model you have for this style of picking, I’d keep exploring it. It seems to be working well and sounds like a solid base.
edit: I think know why you claim to be struggling with the low E, but it’s due to a very, very subtle fretting hand issue. What are the frets you are trying to play on the low E for the second video?
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You can’t! If by “aim” you mean change the path along which the joint is moving, there is no way to do that. The elbow only does downstroke escape. You could change the motion to some other kind of motion, and in some of your earlier clips up the thread it does look like you’re doing a mix of other joint motions. But in these faster clips it looks more elbow to me. We see the shallow downstroke escape path (diagonal motion) and we see the whole arm moving back and forth. For me, that’s enough for a clinical diagnosis of “successful elbow picking”!
Like @guitarenthusiast says these look and sound great. I would just work on trying to find ways to make this feel smooth. In general, once you have a core motion starting to happen, you enter that longer phase of just using it with as a wide a variety of phrases such that things gradually become more accurate over time, and also more relaxed.
One thing I’d point out is that downstroke escape means only downstroke string changes. So whenever you try to change strings via upstroke, you’ll hit the intervening string. The classic example of this is the “Gilbert” style patterns you’re playing here. Each time you come back from that one note on the higher string, you can hear the little blast of noise as the pick hits lower string. That’s what we call swiping. It’s common. You’ll hear this even on Intense Rock, but it went generally unnoticed for years (decades?) because Paul’s playing in general sounds great.
So don’t worry about this too much. If your playing is generally smooth, fluid, and synchronized, it’s going to sound good. I mention this only because it can help to understand how your technique works. For example, hitting an open string via swipe will likely make more noise than a string that is being fretted or partially muted as it often is in the GIlbert type examples. And also, second, if you play phrases that only have downstroke string changes, those are technically going to be your smoothest feeling and sounding lines, because you won’t be hitting other strings.
I wouldn’t shy away from doing stuff that includes of upstroke string changes if you get good sonic results. I’m just trying to give you clarity so you can more accurately predict / evaluate the results you’re getting.
Nice work here.
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Thanks everyone for the help.
Finally, after a long time, I have a positive goal to work towards now I know what is working for me.
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Well, I haven’t really been playing as much as I’d like, but here is where I’m at with my picking. Just posting to see if I’m on the right track, it certainly feels ok, although it feels like my hand is spasming before I start off picking. Like I have problems just hitting the speed all of a sudden!
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Dude, that is such a rad improvement. Like if you go back and look at that first series of videos you posted and compare to this, it’s night and day. So awesome!
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@aliendough I agree with @JB_Winnipeg, you made great progress!
Whenever you get time to play, a new objective could be to add variety,
As in: try as many different downstroke-escape licks as you can! This will probably help you to consolidate the motion (and make it more controllable), while avoiding excess boredom!
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Thank you!
@tommo Thanks mate! I have been working on different licks over the past week that I posted this. I found some Andy James licks to work on so I have plenty to keep me going.
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Ah cool, Andy James is a good one for DSX stuff (we probably discussed him in the past, good reminder!).
Another thing you can do is check whether some “difficult” licks you already know can become DSX by using some pulloffs and/or by starting on an upstroke. That Bark at the Moon thing for example, start it with U instead of D and BOOM
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It’s been months since I updated this, so here is where I’m currently at.
I find it very difficult to play on the lower strings and I think it’s due to my actual arm position. I’m not sure what is happening there.
I’m using a mixture of legato and alternate picking - I’m not thinking about this, this is something that has become automatic and if I was to pure alternate pick some lines I find myself having to really think hard about them.
I am out of practice a little, but I had a week off work and worked on my picking a bit.
I’ve also noticed the camera in the MacBook Pro is terrible!! I had a Microsoft Surfacebook and it was a much better camera. I will set up my Huawei mobile phone and get a better video.
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The core picking motion looks good especially from the D string onwards!
But I think you are still playing phrases that are not an ideal starting point for your elbow mechanics - because you had quite a few upstroke string changes in there.
I’d suggest trying to play a few riffs on the low strings that only change strings after downstrokes. I think you mentioned Andy James and indeed he may be an excellent source for that.
In other words, downstroke-only changes are the easiest licks to get started with fast & smooth elbow mechanics. When you got a few of those working I’d try again these more complicated licks with both types of string changes.
Let us know if that helps!
Totally agree on the MBP camera. Weird that such a high-end laptop has this blatant weak point.
Thanks, Tommo, I’ll keep this in mind and post another update in a few months.
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Here’s a little exercise I just came up with
A---------8-11-10-8----------------------6-10-8-6--------------
E-8-10-11-----------11-10-8-10-11-7-8-10----------10-8-7-8-10--- (loop)
I hope I tabbed it correctly. It should be 3 notes on the low E to begin with, then alternating between 4 notes on the A and 8 on the low E as you loop it
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What are you using as an anchor point for picking, if any?
my little finger.
That’s what I was guessing. Do you feel that most of your picking comes from your wrist?
It’s looking like your wrist is floating, with your forearm touching the body of the guitar and the pinky touching as you said. To me, it looks like this makes your wrist “oscillate” between the two anchor points, so not the most effective.
Have you tried anchoring with the wrist (and no pinky) to see what happens?
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Hi @Pepepicks66, sorry I’m only getting back to you now.
I have never tried anchoring my wrist, not knowingly anyway! This seems like a reasonable suggestion and I will try and let you know how I get on.
Many thanks!
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