Broken Roll - is it String Hopping, Crosspicking, or double escape?

Technique Critique
#1

So the good news is that “wrist” is starting to get baked in… in other good news, I can go back and forth between that and elbow, so that’s pretty cool; definitely opening some different doors. Anyways, as I was watching the Crosspicking wrist video, I messed around with a bunch of the examples (Emphasis on mess) and it didn’t seem too bad, so I started practicing a bunch of the rolls. Of course, now I have questions… and yes it’s a trainwreck, meh all good lol Plus I just learned how to make my phone capture much higher quality video (duuuuhr, man, I can be dense…) Anyways…

  1. What exactly is the difference between “crosspicking” and “Double Escape”? Is crosspicking only for rolls?

  2. What the hell am I doing here? Is it right in respect to picking? I practiced a bit after I made the video and got it up to about 132bpm -sloppy- but it felt like I might be able to clean it up in time, it’s just that clockface motion is kind of a weird feeling for me…

  3. What is the maximum tempos people are doing with crosspicking/DBX/Whatever…? And at what tempo is it impossible to be stringhopping at for crosspicking? (I know that in regular alt picking on a single string it’s like 130-140bpm @ 16ths where stringhopping goes to die…)

Anyways, thanks in advance for any feedback/guidance guys.

1 Like
#2
  1. I think crosspicking refers to playing 1 note per string arpeggiated lines alternate picked, which would require double escape. The ones that come to mind are Tumeni Notes by Steve Morse and the intro arpeggios in The Glass Prison by Dream Theater.
  2. This looks like crosspicking with a noticeable amount of string hopping. It’s correct, just not as efficient as it could be. I wouldn’t be concerned though, as you’ll likely clean up with time.
  3. The songs I mentioned tend to be some of the popular “benchmarks” of crosspicking speed. Tumeni Notes I recall being 210ish BPM triplets I believe? DBX is different, as you can do much faster lines in my experience when you can stay on a string for more than just one note (you spend less time jumping to different strings). I never subscribed to the “specific tempo that string hopping dies” mantra, I would just recommend you continue refining your motion to be more efficient and see how far you can push.
#3

Hey, thanks for the feedback, I thought I was stringhopping, but it seems to be getting faster and cleaner as I go so I am not sure if i just abandon it, and try to re-re-relearn how to not stringhop, or just keep going and see where it ends up. I am going to keep on going. I am trying like the devil to get that pendulum/V type motion going, but I must be missing something to get it to kick in at a faster tempo…

I learned Tumeni Notes this morning (the main section) and find myself kind of petering out at 168bpm. That’s treating them as 8th notes, of course. So then I did “Demon Driver” arpeggio section, and that was about the same…

Any ideas…? Anyone? lol

1 Like
#4

Yeah I think it’s just a matter of getting used to the movement and finding more efficiencies. Never heard “Demon River”, but as far as Tumeni Notes, why don’t you just play triplets at a lower speed?

#5

Yes, 8th note triplets at 168, I think that to match Steve’s tempo, I’d need to be at around 210BPM, or 16th note triplets at 105. I’ll be digging in tonight a bit to see what happens… lol

1 Like
#6

Nice! Last I tried I got to 180ish then it was way less clean.

#7

I made it to around 180 also, but… it’s pretty messy. I am kind of not sure if I am doing this right, but at the same time it’s kind of working so I am just running with it to see where it ends up. The lower tempos are cleaning up quite a bit, so that’s nice. Maybe I’ll post a video this weekend of the progress…

1 Like