I think that he talks about his hand position and movements in the first section of this video. If anyone either speaks Russian or is just interested in seeing if they can get the gist of what he is saying -like me- it is a cool video.
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I can translate any of that if there is a need for that. In the first part he’s indeed talking about the hand position.
Generally he says that u need a anchoring point that allows you to play muted and unmuted without changing the hand position. Also he’s against the finger movement(not the angle changing one) when playing and thinks that wrist based motion is the best.
So if there is an interest in getting the translation of this interview just tell me.
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If you ask me, all this stuff is worth translating!
I caught Troy and Anton discussing in Troy’s channel and Anton mentioned a video with English subtitles on his channel but the video is too short and doesn’t have actual guitar playing. It’s more a promotion of his lessons:
Anton mentioned is his answer to Troy that he’d love to meet him. which is really cool!
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@Troy this guy knows his shit man. Would definitely be a priceless interview. Need a good translator. Find a smoking hot Russian model to translate.
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@kounistou, could you please teanslate it for me?What excately does he say about the movements, how far the pick should stick out, grip strength, what pick he uses (thickness) etc…
He is just incredible!
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There’s not a lot of information in there actually. From a ctc-guy perspective it’s not that interesting. Basically he’s talking about the same old “Make small movements” stuff and gives information on his hand positioning, nothing special in here.
What I found interesting in interview was the way he gets the palm muting effect. In his words he keeps the hand positioning the same but moves his pinky-side of the wrist down a bit which is enough to get the sound. Here is a link to the moment in which he shows it.
His pick grip is shown in this moment, he changes the edgepicking by the bend of a thumb. Also he mentioned that he always keeps the middle finger touching the index finger to make it more stable.
Also there’s a good advice he gives that I took for myself. When you are trying to develop your technique you should completely avoid playing guitar without your attention on the technique. Having fun on the instrument is cool but repeating the mistakes alongside with trying to fix them is not the way to go. So you should only play your guitar when you are 100% in the technique so you can break your bad habits.
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@IamTheNobody, thnx man! That’s important info, middle finger against the index. Something John mc Laughlin also does in a more obvious way.
It seems that he says that he movement he makes is only down up with a straight wrist and no movement for escaping the strings, is that correct? I wish i could understand Russian…
It seems he uses the white Ibanez Paul Gilbert 1mm pick.
Hopefuly Troy can get to Anton one day.
Could you please translate from about 9:20 till 11:00 minutes what he tells about the pick placement and grip?
Yeah, he says that his pick moves only side to side and says nothing about the way he crosses the strings. It would be interesting to get him to know some of the ctc stuff.
P.S. I translated it but I understood that text version would be hard to to apply to the video because I would need to put a timecode on every pharese to make it understandable. I will make a video where I will translate it but I have troubles with my microphone at the moment, so wait for a day or 2.
P.P.S. In the video he says “Here I have a Paul Gilbert pick but usually I use Dunlop Tortex”
Thnx a lot!
Can’t wait till the translation vid is ready!
Hey man, I don’t speak Russian (I wish I did). But I think @IamTheNobody answered to your request.
Definitely looking forward to see the magnet on Anton’s guitar!
I have one of Paul Gilbert’s actual picks from '92… It’s got the same graphic as the ones in your picture, but I think it’s a little sharper. I think Paul is using bigger and thinner picks now.
No, from what I can tell, Anton uses “902”-style wrist movements for escaping the strings, like Andy Wood and (probably) Petrucci as well. In other words, two different wrist movements, one for the downstroke and a different one for the upstroke, when you need to escape.
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Like you’ve said before most players aren’t aware of the mechanics they use and it all just “feels like wrist”. That’s probably what Anton thinks- however, I do agree that he uses 902 Wrist Movement- but he probably doesn’t think In terms of deviation vs extension.
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@Troy,
But Anton responded to your YT vid
" Practicing Andy Wood, Anton Oparin and John Petrucci “902” that he uses totaly different technique then these guys.
That’s fine! Anton is one of the most prodigious players we’ve seen in the internet era, and we’re lucky to have him out there showing us how it’s done. If it weren’t for people like him and the other great players we have interviewed, we wouldn’t really know what was possible.
For our part, Anton’s wrist movement looks like the 902 movements we’ve studied. His supinated arm position is clear. The dual picking paths are clear in the few examples I’ve watched. And we have some very good, closeup footage of this with some very good players. On top of this, I can now actually make these movements to some extent myself, and it has allowed me to do some things I couldn’t touch even a few years ago. So I’m pretty sure they work the way we think they do.
I’m sure there’s still more to learn, and I’m sure we’ll discover we were wrong about a few things too. That’s been our story so far!
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It would be so great when you one day sit down with him to analyse his movements.
Maybe he still isn’t completely aware of what he is doing, although it seems like he knows exactely what he is doing.
To me his picking technique is an exact copy of Paul Gilberts technique.
Anton is great and it would be awesome meet with him if he ever comes to NYC. I already told him that on YouTube and he seems interested so hopefully we can make that happen one day.
Yes, I’m pretty sure Gilbert is another 902 type player, perhaps with some other ingredients, but for most part a supinated wrist player. It took us years to understand this stuff, but in the end, wrist movements really aren’t that complicated and I think we’re most likely right about what players like this are doing. If you’re looking for a “magic bullet” explanation, I think you can stop looking because we already have it.
Doesn’t make it any less exciting to meet with great players. Maybe even more exciting. Even when you know what DNA looks like it’s still a transformative experience every time you turn on the microscope.
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I know, this wrist movement is something i already use myself.
Still it is always very interesting to explore further, and to hear from such highly skilled players how they experience it and to actualy see it being performed in slowmotion with the CTC cam.
I have never seen another player who has the abilitiy to make those big intervalic jumps at that speed with strickt alternate picking!
How he plays that whole Caprice no16 is so unbeleivable. I have never seen anybody play it at that speed and that accurate without any hybrid picking.
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