It definitely got faster. My sprint speed picking used to be closer (if I remember correctly) to my jogging speed picking.
My thumb picking has gotten faster over the years as has my wrist picking. Strictly elbow picking kicks on when needed, but I still try and avoid it for most things for improved accuracy in the notes I play. But, all three picking elements seem to be at work at 170 BPM and upwards until about 220 BPM, then I think it’s all elbow after 220.
The intention is that the first video is 32nd notes at 130 and the second video is 32nd notes at 160. I’m not sure how accurate it is as I’ve never slowed it down or anything. They were just fun little exercises I recorded. I could comfortably tremolo pick at either of those speeds on one note, so not sure if the patterns through it off or I miss a few notes or whatever. But on one note I can hit pretty good speeds now.
As for how much faster than before, I’m not sure because I never really measured it.
I’m very very far from mr.Taylor’s speed but I can approve that for me some tension really needed when playing fast. For me this moment is about 200bpm (sixteens). However, I have to catch some kind of balance: if I tense too much hand becames stiff, if I tense not enough I can’t do fast tremolo.
I have an elbow technique which I use occasionally, and I feel like it has pretty much always been in the 220 ballpark, and never really gotten faster. If I’m really warmed up I like to tell myself I can do 240 sixteenths with it for a short bit. But in truth the metronome is probably outrunning me a little bit at that point, at least if the phrase is more than a bar or two.
I definitely sense brachioradialis (BRD) / tricep (TRI) tension when I do this as both John and the Hyper-Picking video suggest. And I definitely break a sweat, and definitely feel “workout” type effort when I do it.
But if I’m honest, it doesn’t really feel like there’s another 60bpm - or even 20bpm - hiding out in there. I might be wrong, but I’m just saying that’s what it feels like. There’s already a fair amount of arm tension happening, and the movement size is already starting to get small.
So some questions suggest themselves:
Am I doing the same thing, or is there an elbow movement that’s very fast but still not a “hyper” movement?
If I’m doing it right, am I maxed out? Like, is there really that much variation in this movement from player to player?
How do we go about determining if we’re doing this correctly?
It can be surprisingly difficult to know what you’re actually playing and not playing, how much you’re really improving or staying the same, and so on. This is as much a challenge for me as anyone else. Next time you decide to work on something that develops over time, like picking speed, as long as you’re going to fire up the DAW anyway, try and record a few ‘before’ examples so you have an honest benchmark of where you’re at.
You may discover that you are indeed improving, and at least then you’ll know how much effort over how much time it took to get that result. Or you may find you’re not, or not to the extent that you thought you were. A big part of this journey is learning to hear what you’re actually doing, so that your time is well spent. You’d be surprised (or not surprised) by how many experienced and knowledgeable players routinely fool themselves about what they’re really playing.
Of course we have a copy of this, but if it’s not a thing he wants out there, we will respectfully not put it up there. You can still find copies of this on eBay if you really want.
This is an interesting case and I’ve written about it on the blog before. The playing on that tape, and on the first album, is not “real”, in the sense that there is no apparent synchronization between the hands. It’s just two things moving really fast in no relation to each other with no accuracy. Notes not being hit, strings being hit during string changes, and so on. If this were all he ever released, I would have chalked it up to just another person not playing what they thought they were playing. Which was very common in the '80s.
But… whenever the next album came out, all of a sudden, accurate. It’s rare that someone suddenly becomes the clean player they were attempting to be earlier, and rarer still that it happens after a person has already achieved a degree of notoriety for being an accurate player, even though they were not. It’s crazy actually.
I can see why he doesn’t like that tape, I wouldn’t either. But he’s a good player so it really doesn’t matter too much. It’s more of an interesting question to ask him what exactly changed in the interim. I reached out to him years ago for an interview and he wrote back I think briefly but not again.
Thanks Hank! Glad you enjoyed.
The Chris video is interesting. I haven’t listened to a lot of his stuff so wasn’t aware of this video. I’d have to see some of it to find out why he doesn’t like it. Even more interesting to know his first album wasn’t synchronised. I’ll have to listen to some more of his stuff to hear the difference. I agree, probably best not to put it on ‘out of print’ as curious as I am!
Elbow movement helps drive some wrist movement. At least, that happens for me. That “hyper” picking term, as far as I have gathered, simply means all elbow picking which will produce different speeds for different people. Somebody may be doing “hyper” picking at 200 BPM, and someone else may be doing at 250 BPM.
I do not believe for one second that you are maxed out. You told me you never did metronome training, and yet you’re incredibly fast and a damn good player - easily one of the best out there or ever will be. If you actually worked at getting faster, yes, you could. No doubt!
I believe one has to develop some sort of self awareness to know what part of their body is producing the movement. We can do what others on this forum have done and ask others to look at what we’re doing to get some feedback. Or, we can always set up a meeting at the NC University and get lab tested 
On half speed it sounds like one of those St Sanders “Shreds” videos 
Those are really the best. The best. When Yngwie plays Indiana Jones with the orchestra I die.
I have a suspicion that the person who does those “shreds” videos could smoke us all out of the water, were he/she to play something that wasn’t a joke
You are far too kind. I’m playing vintage Fenders, so I’m already halfway to “slow and tasteful low gain old person”. Just give me another five years.
In the mean maybe I’ll try to incorporate some kind of occasional experimenting with the hyper stuff. From @thecount’s description, it doesn’t sound like it’s something he worked up to over a long period of time, so much as something he figured out how to unlock. If I’m reading him correctly.
Only one way to find out…
Has there been no activity from this Anthony Martello guy since 1992? I tried googling his name a few months back after seeing a clip of this on Youtube but couldn’t find anything. It’d be interesting to see where his playing went from here…
Er…am I the only one who thinks that his left hand doesn’t really go ‘hyper’ when his right does?
The credits at the end of the video Troy posted in “Out of print” say it was produced in 1992 by a company in Scottsdale, Arizona. There’s an Anthony Martello with a public Linkedin profile who works in the tech industry in Tempe, Arizona, and graduated from Arizona State in 1992. There’s a headshot as well, which looks to me like it could be the same guy, but it’s hard to be sure. Timeline and location seems to fit, though. ASU campus, Scottsdale and Tempe are all in the Phoenix metro area.
Oh totally, this is of interest as a picking movement / athletic thing. I always assume everyone can hear that when we discuss these types of topics, but I sometimes assume wrongly. The next step for these movements is applying the control aspects: hand synchronization, string switching, etc.
You’re right about that. I kind of just stumbled across it one day. I saw a Rusty Cooley video where he was doing the clenched fist thing and thought ‘oh that’s weird!’ and tried it and came across the weird twitch movement. I can’t find the video again or any videos of him doing that so maybe i just mis-remembered it, but it seemed to work.
I think it could be refined though. So I think some work on it is also required.
I’m in Colorado. Here are extra characters in order to make a proper post.