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?
4 Likes
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.
4 Likes
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.
2 Likes
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.
1 Like
I’m in Colorado. Here are extra characters in order to make a proper post.
2 Likes
If we’re taking sartorial advice from guitar instructional videos, then sign me up for a pair of Steve Morse’s trousers from Power Lines.
The guy behind the shreds videos is a finnish guy named Santeri Ojala and yes he actually can play quite well on a number of instruments but he’s basically a guitarist. He’s not a household name but he’s done some other funny videos such as “Coming to Alderaan” (using James Earl Jones dialog from Eddie Murphy’s “Coming to America” film against Star Wars (A New Hope) footage. I’ve been trying to find some of his “normal” guitar stuff for some time but he sort of hid alot of it.
I also ponder if Chris Impelliteri actually had some lessons with an actual teacher of technique between that first video and later on. I have seen very motivated students completely alter their technique over a summer but usually they’re younger with no distractions when that happens.
Dana Carvey’s Brother?? LOL FAST picking no doubt! Dayum! Looks like his picking is ( was?) much faster than his left hand though. How about that killer guitar tone? LMAO
I’ve spent a little time trying hyper-picking since @Troy posted this video.
I’ve been able to get the “jiggle” started, but I haven’t really been successful translating the vibration into an alternate picking movement.
Most of the time, the pick bounces off the string, resulting in about 10-12 notes per second, rather than pushing through the string for alternating down strokes and upstrokes. Intermittently, I’m able to get the “jiggle” to produce the alternate picking movement, and the rate doubles briefly.
After a few seconds of this movement, my picking arm feels exhausted. A few minutes of attempting this and I begin to feel a persisting discomfort in my elbow, though I wouldn’t call it a “pain.”
The tension also results in a very tight pick grip. If I don’t “reinforce” the index finger with the other three fingers of my picking hand, the pressure from the thumb results in a torque on the joints of the index finger, which is painful. A fist grip would seem to solve this completely.
I am not able to slow the movement down or to synchronize the movement to a metronome. I’d be very interested if @TheCount or @milehighshred could comment on how they’ve managed to do this. Is it just a question of developing more familiarity with the movement?
If I try to slow down the movement, the “jiggle” shuts off and the movement becomes a “conventional” elbow mechanic. I have no issues with control or synchronization with this mechanic, but as soon as the jiggle kicks in, the bouncing starts again.
2 Likes
Personally I pick pretty lightly.
If you look at this clip here, I don’t use much of the pick either, just a small amount of the top. That stops it bouncing away like you described. I think there’s an element that developing a familiarity with it is needed. There was a bit of lightbulb moment where I found out I could do it, but I refined the movement a bit. It can feel a bit uncomfortable if you do it for long periods of time. I think it’s a movement that’s mean to be used in short bursts. If you’ve got the ‘jiggle’ started you’re on the right track, that’s the hard part. Experiment with small amounts of pick like I do and see if you get any results with that.
5 Likes
Hi @TheCount.
Thanks, for the reply. I typically have a light touch and a shallow pick depth also, but I don’t yet have control over those things when the jiggle is engaged.
I’ll keep trying, maybe it will click for me like it did for you. I wouldn’t have much use for the technique beyond a short burst as a special effect, so I’m not to worried if it takes some time to develop.
1 Like
It sounds like you’re on the right track. Feel free to post a video and maybe me or John could see if we have any pointers on it!
1 Like
Metronome. Build up to the super fast speeds and allow your hand/arm/guitar-face to adjust to the ever more demanding speeds.
Knowing how to activate the jiggle is only part of it. Yeah, it will wear you out in the beginning. Happens to a lot of people.
One approach I recommend taking is some endurance training. You can have a timer set for 10 seconds, hit start, then pick as fast as you can for the last 5 seconds. Increase 5 seconds until you hit 30 seconds total. This helped one student of mine pick pretty damn fast.
Only problem was his left hand was still slow, and he had a tough time syncing things up. I believe he wasn’t 100% truthful with how much he said he practiced. What a shocker!!!
1 Like
People not being honest about how much they practice? Madness! Not me, I practice 28 hours a day I’ll have you know!
The left hand is my weakness right now. I need to get on top of that. May have to contact you about some Skype lessons in the New Year!
3 Likes
Thanks John.
I haven’t spent much time using a metronome for speed building since I was a teenager. These days, if I’m using a metronome, it’s usually to work on rhythm or syncopation.
I’ll give the metronome approach a try.
1 Like
For me those shaking motion are totally out of control by nature, and there is no way to do it right. And the results I’ve seen are just dirty patterns. When you hear slowly you realice that one of the strokes (down or up) is always much stronger, and that’s why they can use it to accentuate an odd number of notes. It’ like the E.Van Halen tremolo, you cannot do much with him.
Sorry I mean they can’t use it to accentuate an odd number of notes