Anti-Gravity Chapter 24 - aka What is two-way pickslanting, and how do the movements work?

[Mango]

I’m not sure I understood the two-way pick slanting going on here. In particular, the riffs where you switch to a string to play one note, then back to the initial string (Double Outside Gilberts, Inside Gilberts, Gilbert - 2WPS + swipe) are unclear. If you stick to exclusively one way pick slanting, you’ll have difficulty avoiding swiping. If you switch your pick slanting you can avoid swiping, I believe.

If you want to do this with 2WPS and swiping free, the pick slanting changes are a little confusing.

If you play the ‘Double Outside Gilberts’ with UWPS, after you play the single note on the higher string, you need to change your pick slant before moving back to the lower string. This results in the pick doing a rocking motion across the high-E string (if your pick slants are large). More specifically, you upstroke (with UWPS) the E-string (this carries your pick tip below the plane of the strings) and immediately change your pick slant (to DWPS) so that as you follow through, your pick tip clears the B-string. This then allows you to downward stroke the B-string with DWPS, no problem. As you play the 5 notes on the B-string, you switch back to UWPS to facilitate the next string change back to the E-string. Then, repeat the rocking pick slant motion on the E-string. Am I getting this right?

It seems the picking motion used for this single note is quite unique (sans swiping). It’s almost akin to string hopping and/or cross picking (haven’t watched all the videos but it seems like that’s what it would be if you did it on every note).

[Troy]

It seems the picking motion used for this single note is quite unique (sans swiping). It’s almost akin to string hopping and/or cross picking (haven’t watched all the videos but it seems like that’s what it would be if you did it on every note).

This is a complicated topic, and the chapter you’re commenting on was recorded several years back before we knew more about the motions, like we do now. So I apologize!

Basically, when we first “discovered” two-way pickslanting, we noticed it because there as a sudden arm motion at the moment of the switch. So we thought, ok, that arm motion is what two-way pickslanting is. I started practicing this, got good at it, and so we thought, ok, this works. That’s why we started teaching it that way, and that’s why Chapter 8 is called “down, up, rotate”:

https://troygrady.com/seminars/antigravity/chapter-8-down-up-rotate/

So yes, in that particular way of doing things, the “rotate” movement is accomplished by a combination of wrist and arm adjustment. The Pickslanting Primer goes into a little more detail on the arm and hand changes necessary to do this. You can check out this page. The Chapters are pretty short. I’d just watch them in order:

https://troygrady.com/primer/two-way-pickslanting/michael-angelo-batio/

Now here comes the “gotcha”. After a few more years of doing interviews, we discovered there are players who can do these same types of lines with no (or very little) arm movement at all. Here’s Andy Wood playing the ascending sixes pattern. When he speeds up, the arm movement is almost non-existent:

https://troygrady.com/interviews/andy-wood-workshop/electric-clips/ascending-sixes-positions/

So we then realized that there is a more general meaning of “two-way” pickslanting. It means when you have two different picking motions, and you use one of those motions for the downstrokes and the other one for the upstrokes. And it doesn’t matter what type of arm or hand motion you use for that, and that you can do it with only pure wrist motion and still get a similar result. The pick doesn’t “rotate” any more in the pure wrist version of the movement. But it definitely does trace a curve, same as the arrows we draw on the screen in the Pickslanting Primer.

The final piece of this was realizing, hilariously, that not only are there players out there that do this, but I myself am one of those players! If you compare the descending sixes example from years ago in Antigravity, with the same example more recently in the Pickslanting Primer, you will see the difference:

https://troygrady.com/seminars/antigravity/clips/first-sixes/
https://troygrady.com/primer/two-way-pickslanting/michael-angelo-batio/clips/descending-6-the-scale-chunk/

The Antigravity example uses a more vertical pick path, so there needs to be more arm turning when you do the string changes. The Pickslanting Primer example uses a flatter picking path to begin with, so less arm turning is necessary. It’s almost completely gone, but not quite. Same principle in both cases. What was clearly happening over the several year gap in between, is that I was learning how different wrist movements work. I didn’t get all the way to “Andy Wood” land of mostly wrist and no arm until recently.

So where does this leave you? What this means is that there are different ways to achieve the same or similar result. The Antigravity method of two-way pickslanting uses a supinated arm, a more vertical picking motion with the wrist, and some arm turning at the point of the string change. The Pickslanting Primer is similar, just flatter. And the Andy Wood version of things uses the flattest picking motion, and very little to no arm turning most of the time. All these methods work, and you can practice any of them.

If you want to try the Antigravity style, you can watch Antigravity, and also the Pickslanting Primer which goes into a little more detail on how to do the wrist and arm adjustments when you make the string change.

If you want to try the Andy Wood style, I recommend the recent “Crosspicking With The Wrist” broadcast, which explains how he is able to switch between two different wrist movements:

https://troygrady.com/channels/talking-the-code/crosspicking-with-the-wrist/

So yes, the movements can be the same between “crosspicking” and “two-way pickslanting”. These are more descriptions of alternate picking styles rather than movements. And again, I apologize for that confusion. Try not to worry about the terms right now. Just worry about the hand movements and you’ll be good.

Let me know if that helps clarify.

[Mango]

Yes, Chapter 5 Down Up Rotate on MAB’s 2WPS primer discusses the curved picking motion exactly. I should go back through the 2WPS primer again.

Try not to worry about the terms right now. Just worry about the hand movements and you’ll be good.

I think of pick slanting less as a function of the arm/hand/wrist mechanics and more as function of the pick trajectory. If the pick is below the plane of the strings after a downward stroke and above the plane after an upward stroke = DWPS. The opposite would define UWPS. 2WPS occurs when the trajectory of your pick tip changes (curved trajectory described in Chapter 5). The hand/wrist/arm motion should be irrelevant in defining your slant. It’s the pick motion.

I think focusing on the hand/wrist/arm motion complicates the issue for me. I worry that each time I tinker with my mechanics, I’m setting myself back months/years. For now, I’m just focusing on the trajectory of the tip and adjust my hand/wrist/arm mechanics to get the pick to move as I want (UWPS or DWPS) while maintaining as much comfort as possible. My mechanics had to change to incorporate DWPS but I did so by only focusing on the easiest most comfortable process that achieves the new pick trajectory. As a result, I change pick slants by bending/relaxing my thumb. There’s minimal wrist rotation. I’m sure I set myself back a bit, as I have to learn to pick with my thumb straight. Presumably, the ability to DWPS will pay dividends in the long run.

Is there a preferred or optimal hand/wrist/arm motion for picking and pick slanting? From all the variations we’ve seen and the success of all the guitarist displaying such disparate technique (and Troy, yourself, who seem equally effective at every picking style/variation), it would suggests that there isn’t one style to rule them all. As long as the motion (be it picking or pick slanting) is effective, doesn’t limit your playing or lead to injury, you’re good.

[Troy]

I think of pick slanting less as a function of the arm/hand/wrist mechanics and more as function of the pick trajectory.

That’s how we used to teach it, but it ended up being super confusing for a lot of people. We’re telling them just use any motion you want to generate these trajectories, but generating the motion is the entire problem for a lot of people. It’s not always easy to know what picking motion you’re making even if you study this stuff all day.

So in other words I would even put myself in that category. I never really knew I was using wrist motions for some/all of this process, and I definitely didn’t understand the difference between different kinds of wrist motion. So I didn’t know why the same lick looked and felt a little different on different days. And this made it essentially impossible to learn how do any single movement particularly well.

It also lead to misconceptions about the relationship between the slant of the pick and the slant of the motion path. They are actually somewhat (entirely?) independent. You do not need to change the slant of the pick itself at all in certain scenarios. And in others you do. And it was not at all obvious to me that this was the case, and why/how, until rather recently.

Is there a preferred or optimal hand/wrist/arm motion for picking and pick slanting?

So, no, there is not. However there are requirements. If you want to do wrist-only then you must use a flat path - 902, 801, etc. If you choose a more vertical path, that’s fine, but you’re going to need forearm involvement and you’re going to need to involve grip slant changes. For me, simply saying “do what feels comfortable” led to a certain amount of success, and a lot of confusion. And it took two decades!

Knowing how all these parts fit together vastly clarifies and speeds up this process.

[JudasPriester]

and you’re going to need to involve grip slant changes

Does that mean that the whole appartus will change (visible PICKslant position inclusive) by turning the forearm to clear the string while executing an upstroke?
Because after failing at DWPS and staying with a 02-movement and a supinated setup (which is so comfortable!) I want to include escaping upstrokes and I want to use forearm rotation like in the antigravity seminar.

[Troy]

Because after failing at DWPS and staying with a 02-movement and a supinated setup (which is so comfortable!)

You don’t need to change anything, you just need to make sure you’re using the flattest movement you can make for your arm position. Remember, 2:00 just tells you what the wrist is doing. You can do a 2:00 movement with a pronated arm, a lightly supinated arm, a very supinated arm, or anywhere in between. But if you want to not have to change anything about your grip or your arm position, and you want to have escaped upstrokes, then the arm position that matches a 2:00 wrist movement is the lightly supinated one from the broadcast.

You can also go the other way. You can say, hey, I like my arm position, it’s comfortable. In that case, you just need to choose your two picking motions that are the flattest for that arm position. You choose the flattest downstroke that escapes, and you choose the flattest upstroke that escapes. There will always be a choice for both.

If you choose a movement which is more vertical, then you’re going to need a pickslant that matches that, and you’re going to also need to use forearm rotation to get the other escape. Nothing wrong with this, we know it works. But if you don’t want to deal with that, then your arm position has to match the two escape motions you’re using, i.e. the escapes have to be flat.

Let me know if I’m explaining this clearly!