Are we over-focussing on moving the pick fast?

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#1

Very true. There are many links in the chain of playing fast.

I think that’s a little unfair. Almost like criticizing a dairy farmer for being too focused on milk products and not selling enough chicken eggs. The site and forum capitalize on Troy’s niche. Most other aspects of playing fast have been fairly well documented elsewhere. Troy’s research is the only that I know of that addressed what many have as the weakest link in their chain, which is understanding how to get the pick moving fast without getting tripped up by string changes. If someone can’t do that, all the hand sync and fretboard knowledge and musicality in the world won’t matter much - IF that player’s goals include fast, clean picking.

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New to forum - feedback and a couple questions
#2

Is it really? I seem to recall quite a few recent posts even that seem to follow this format: I took the tapping test, my fastest tremolo is x using y motion and joint, followed by still can’t play fast, or now what? That’s when you have to break the news.

ONLY IF

And only for that. It will matter in every other single way as it pertains to the instrument.

#3

And in every case, plenty of forum members, Tommo or even Troy himself jumped in to add some guidance. I don’t believe a fast tremolo === immediately fast coordinated playing and I don’t think the site claims that. It’s just trying to help people get over that hump and off alternative advice of “just play really slow and gradually speed up”. That works well if you’re intuitive enough to be using correct motions, but not everyone is that intuitive and that’s probably why many are here. The fact that Troy’s gone over the top to research all the possibilities in options of motions and coach people through what’s involved in each is amazing.

Even most elite players offer advice like “Just use small movements” or “make sure you don’t involve your elbow” etc.

I apologize if I appear defensive. Again, context in forums/emails gets lost. I’m not at all upset, I just really like the platform. I respect your opinion that it focuses on too little of the whole thing. I just think it does as good a job possible in advancing the standardization of picking technique.

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#4

I don’t think we ever said on our Forum that picking fast on a single string is the end of the story. It’s simply that the most common problem people have (when they come here) is that they can’t figure out how to pick fast.

We also have technique critique threads (and are doing research on) hand synchronization and a range of other issues. We are happy to discuss any aspect of technique and musicality as they arise :slight_smile:

PS: the questions was specifically about speed, hence my reply that speed should be available on day 1. The rest is an accuracy problem.

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New to forum - feedback and a couple questions
#5

I guess this is a new thread discussion just for us now! :smiley:

Well yes and no. The question also revolved around potential age related aspects of this, which go far and beyond just the physical aspect of moving your pick fast.

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#6

Haha yes :slight_smile:

I thought we could move this away from the “welcome @mps504” post.

And we can take the opportunity to highlight things that we could do better around here!

#7

So which do you want first, picking hand motions, or the whole package?

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#8

That’s true.

I guess it’s also a matter of semantics. My understanding is this:

  1. one (even a non-guitarist) is normally able to do picking-like motions fast from the get go
  2. similarly, fast fretting-like motions (e.g. tapping fingers 1-2-3-4 on a table)

So, in a sense all the “raw speed” most players need (random figure: 160-180bpm 16th notes) tends to be available from day 1.

Of course, combining (1) and (2) into good-sounding fast playing is a lot of work! But in some sense this work does not involve increasing the speed, it’s more about channelling the already available speed into controlled and synchronised motions.

If we are instead looking at ways to increase one’s “top speed potential”, it’s a difficult question and I am not sure how to go about it!

EDIT:

ha! I don’t know!

What often happens here is that people come in with most ingredient in place - except they have some specific picking problems. So for these cases it’s obvious what to do.

For a total beginner I guess you’d want to pay attention to all aspects in approximately equal measure.

Opinion part: if I had to teach a total beginner (or go back in time and teach myself), I would probably just try to do everything by teaching songs. Then within each song I’d find “excuses” for teaching the relevant theory, fretting, picking, phrasing etc. :slight_smile:

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#9

Back when I was a guitar teacher, that was my total curriculum! I found out what everyone wanted to play and started with that. Once you identify potential, you can sprinkle in more “healthy stuff” like theory and proper technique. Though at least for picking, I didn’t quite know what that was lol

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#10

Again, this an area where I think we kind of run into a little bit of a divergence as to the what the expectation is. The pure physical potential of movements involved, versus how someone’s nervous system reacts symbiotically, and various forms of memory involved. To me it’s kind of a complex issue.

The physicality of picking and fretting fast is really not the issue in a lot of this. Because like you said it’s either there or it’s not, the tests will reveal what that is theoretically, although they may not be the last word in how to actually apply and execute it on the instrument - just that these tests have the potential to theoretically translate. This site is focused on bringing attention to those aspects, and it does a great job of that, but sometimes it seems that the message is lost a little, or that the expectation maybe is a little misunderstood or too high by some of the members.

Of course in increasing ones top speed potential beyond, there’s no easy answer. Some of it may be genetic, some possibly can be gained through training perhaps, but I would be inclined to think there would be a physical limitation cap somewhere. I guess that boils down to expectations again. When is good, good enough?

#11

If I had to guess I would say perhaps we’re seeing quite a few more people on the beginning spectrum, or those who haven’t been playing for a while, or put down the guitar completely for many years.

I think there was perhaps once an unspoken understanding that most of the people who were attempting to take their playing to this level, had already reached a certain level of development needed to bridge the gap, and certain elements were already there, like basic synchronization.

#12

Total agreement there. I think there’s always a potential to realistically set expectations. I think overall, from what I read, mission accomplished. There’s always going to be someone who struggles with the Freebird solo sees one of Troy’s videos and goes “Well Shazam!!! I never knew I just needed to change this one little thing and in a few weeks I’ll play like Yngwie”

Not sure what to do with those folks. I always understood the platform to be tailored to someone with my situation. And I think that’s why I fell in love with the whole thing. I really felt like the whole site and its mission were made just for me. I felt so special lol!!! I feel like the strongest group of people the site can help is people who don’t suck, but can’t quite hang with the speed demons because they just had a fundamental thing wrong with their motion. People who had a decent nervous system and coordination enough to sync hands at any reasonable speed, but had some weak link in the chain, which was understanding why you need a certain motion/escape for certain phrases.

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#13

Learning how to move my picking hand moderately fast was the biggest thing happened to me on my guitar journey and I’m grateful for all the folks here guiding me through my barrier. I’m not sure if I’ll ever get out the rut of the 200 mark, but that’s an other story.

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#14

I only scanned this, so I may be missing some of the subtlety — always a risk with me! My main question is have you watched our instructional material where we explain why we do things like table tapping tests up front in the sequence, and not later on?

In the Primer we’ve taken great pains to make it clear that fast motion is not the end goal per se, but one of the most important diagnostic tests we have on the road to developing smooth, efficient motion. If you counted the number of times I say “smoothness” or “efficiency” in the Primer, it’s gotta be dozens or maybe hundreds of times. The hope is that it is clear where we are coming from, what we are trying to teach you, and why we’re taking the steps we’re taking.

Another thing we’ve taken great pains to do in the Primer is show a wide variety of musical styles and instruments. We specifically show acoustic guitar and mandolin examples in some of the very early Primer videos to make this point as clearly as we can. In those examples, I and our interviewees are playing things that are “hard” for styles like bluegrass, but obviously 130bpm sixteenth notes is nobody’s idea of death metal tremolo. So if we’re concerned that we focus too much on “speed”, then we are concerned with basically all musical tempos in the hundreds and above.

I’ve seen recent forum posts on sites like TDPRI from users who were initially apprehensive about signing up, but pleasantly surprised when they loaded up some of those initial chapters and saw the diversity of musical examples. Some of these posters were primarily acoustic players and not sure if our stuff would be for them. Obviously, personally I’m pleased that the message is getting out. Making the the Primer more style-diverse has been an important goal of the past couple years because it reflects our view that these issues in technique development really are universal.

That being said, if someone can watch the first few sections of the Primer and come away thinking that our focus is misplaced, then I’ll take that feedback for sure. If we’re wrong today, we’ll be right tomorrow.

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#15

Yeah good luck with that “rut” lol! That’s like finding your car full of money and being upset that you’ll need to have it washed haha!

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#16

Going through the primer from start to finish, about three times because I’m not the brightest, changed how I play and how I practice. Most importantly, I’m finally seeing results after being very much stuck at low speeds for longer than I care to mention.
If you go through the primer in order, even the stuff you think you may not apply, you can see it’s laid out in a practical way and it doesn’t say you must practice fast all the time.

This isn’t directed at anyone. Just my take having gone through the whole thing multiple times

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#17

Oh, and the reason I went through it multiple times is because I skipped sections initially and missed out on some critical info

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#18

Well I have some good news for you! There’s probably seldom going to be a time where you will need to break that barrier.

Also back on point. This is exactly what we are talking about. I have a suspicion both you and @joebegly already had been far enough along in your development and coordination that you were exactly the types of players that would benefit the most from the curriculum.

#19

This is totally dependent on someone’s end goal. I know @gabrielthorn is trying to do some Petrucci stuff at like 230ish that’s sustained, and if that’s the brunt of what he wants to do, then he’s gotta push the speed.

Personally, I keep pushing because there’s a ton of Shawn Lane stuff that’s just mega fast and sounds awesome to me.

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#20

No disagreement from me :slight_smile: I came to the platform being able to play 16ths @ ~175bpm on my best days. It always felt difficult though and I couldn’t sustain it.

When I watched all of Troy’s YT series (the "Pop Culture Documentary stuff) the whole time I was like “Whoa! Me TOO!!! That’s exactly what I got stuck on”.

Now, totally on topic, I was confused when I bought the membership (though I didn’t realize it at first). I did not just watch the Primer in sequence either. I cherry picked stuff I thought looked the coolest and I missed some very important concepts. After all, I went to music school and for periods of my life I practiced 4+ hours per day and I had over 20 years of experience when I bought the membership. Why should I need to watch a video titled “Choosing a Pick”? Pride comes before a fall though, and I spent some wasted time trying to make my elbow motion play USX phrases. I think that’s on me, not the presentation or organization of the material.