Building up pick speed

Playing Technique
#1

I’m working on incorporating DWPS into my playing. I noticed (and Troy Commented on my video) that my picking isn’t quite as strong and clear as it should be. So I decided to back up and work on getting a nice picking tone with a DWPS (I’m primarily an UWPS). When I approach my speed limit, I notice that my forearm begins to tense. It’s mostly near my elbow and I’m a wrist picker. The tension feels like my forearm is getting a good work out. It’s the same tension I feel after rock climbing - your forearm muscles help your hands hold onto the rocks. My hand isn’t tense from the picking though, just the forearm.

Is this an endurance issue that I should just plow through? Keep doing it and as the endurance builds the tension will go away. My picking hand definitely feels fatigued after going full out for a few minutes.

Or, should I slow my speed down and ramp it up slowly playing tension free only? I’ve seen ‘teachers’ advocate for both sides.

Thanks

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#2

I’m unaware of the correct term, but sounds to me you’re getting nervous system overflow.
Your nervous system contracts other muscles in that local group of muscles in order to send a stronger signal to the one requiring added contraction.
This would imply you’ve got to much force going into the pick, making you push through the strings harder.

This contraction of relatively unrelated muscle will always happen, you can’t reasonably stop it.
I’d look into your pick grip, getting more agility with the pick, letting it be loose without losing grip, and try other picks

And just now looking at the video, your pick is almost flat against the strings, you need to angle it more

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#3

Since I’m a wrist picker, the forearm muscles are used in my picking motion. So it’s not an issue of unrelated muscle movement. It’s seems to be more of an issue of muscle fatigue. After a long practice session at very low speeds, I’ll eventually feel the fatigue/tension in my forearm. When I push myself and play fast, I get the fatigue/tension sooner. It all depends on how fast I’m going or for how long.

As my forearm gets tired, my picking gets clunkier and I have trouble pushing the pick through the string. I tried changing my pick angle but it doesn’t seem to help much. When the picking gets clunkier, my wrist/forearm work harder and the fatigue ramps up like a feedback loop. More fatigue gets more clunkier, more clunkier makes it more fatigued…until I have to stop and shake it off. Then I can resume playing again until my arm gets tired again. I tried loosening my grip on my pick to the point where it gets pushed back and forth by the strings to no avail. The fatigue still kicks in.

Is this just a muscle endurance thing that I should push like a long distance runner? I pick at my speed limit as long as I can (until it gets clunky), relax a bit, then repeat. The goal here would be to extend how long it takes for my arm to get fatigued by building endurance in the forearm muscle. Once my endurance has increased, I increase my speed to the point where fatigue sets in (and clunkiness) and push through it again until the fatigue goes down, then increase speed again. This way I build up speed and endurance.

Or, should I back off on my speed by say 30% until I can play tension/fatigue free as long as I want and slowly ramp up my speed? All the while, I keep my speed low enough so I avoid tension/fatigue in my arm and any potential damage it can cause.

I was wondering if anyone here had to deal with similar fatigue/tension issues and how they dealt with it. So far, there doesn’t seem to be any pain in my arm, just fatigue and soreness like after a day of rock climbing.

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#4

Make another video, do some sweep picking, and then alternate picking if you could.
Correct picking technique means the pick can glide over the strings, almost no force necessary.

Looking at your original video I can guarantee it’s due to you not angling the pick.
There is downward pickslanting, and pick angling, you’re doing no pickslanting, and some alternating angling, never change the pick angle like that. Only pick slants change position from up to down, down to up.

#5

Not sure what you’re saying. First ‘It’s due to you not angling the pick.’ then ‘There is…pick angling’. "There is downward pickslanting…you’re doing no pickslanting.’

My pick angling does change a bit when I switch from DWPS to UWPS. I’m working on getting that under control, trying to limit the changes. I got it to be all trailing edge but the degree still changes modestly.

For my current problem of building up pick speed and getting fatigue in my arm, I’m doing open string sixteenth notes with no change in pick slanting or pick angle. I wanted to eliminate these as issues. I actually tried playing with the pick angle to minimize the force needed to get the pick across the strings. Perhaps I’m holding the pick too low/close to the strings and that is requiring a greater amount of force leading to fatigue. Though the force definitely feels negligible, at least initially. I am sure I would feel the same tension/fatigue if I was to move my wrist back and forth with no pick and no strings involved.

As one approaches 180 bpm and up, do you have to train your arm muscles to obtain the greater endurance? I feel that’s the case with me but no one ever talks about it. I guess the endurance naturally builds up for most players. I can play fast in spurts with no fatigue/tension. But if I do 5 mins of constant practice/exercise near my max speed, fatigue/clunkiness will set in.

#6

This is normal. You can increase endurance and @milehighshred talks about how you can do that in several places. You can google him, he’s a terrific teacher. Basically, it’s like training any other muscle for endurance.

Personally I wouldn’t spend time on endurance training because when playing music you’re (most likely) going to have some slower passages here and there. The wrist muscles recover very quickly and have a terrific capacity for work.

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#7

…unless you have to play the highway star solo :wink: I’m at exactly that point. I would recommend to not only pick the open strings, as the strings feel a lot stiffer when fretting >=15th fret. I ascend chromatically, playing each note 4 16ths (1 beat). I do this fingers 1 2 3 4, then shift one position up. This helps synchronization and helps staying in time. Accentuate each note on the beat a bit.

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#8

Thank you for the kind words!

I agree with you - playing for 5 minutes straight near max speed will fatigue ANYONE.

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#9

This is normal. You can check out the first Andy Wood interview, where Andy talks about this specifically. He’s a wrist player, and a little elbow movement, and associated forearm tension, kicks in when he gets near his top speed. Perhaps this is the overflow concept @WhammyStarScream is talking about. It certainly feels that way to me, and I do the same thing.

Andy says he likes it because he feels like the arm tension helps him brace against the guitar body. That may or may not be true. Every player has a different way of describing the feel of certain things, and even if Andy is doing this for some entirely different mechanical reason, this is how he perceives it and that’s fine. And he has always been great about giving us a window into his mental processes and what things feel like when it comes to technique practice.

In general, you probably want to shoot for relaxation when playing quickly, but if there is a little arm tension I really wouldn’t worry about it. And I wouldn’t try blasting your arm for minutes at a time trying to play at top speed - that’s probably a recipe for strain.

I think the more operative question here is, what makes you think you need more speed? How fast can you tap on a table top, faster than half your alternate picking speed? If so, then you may not need more picking “speed”, per se.

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#10

Thanks. I never considered the need to condition my picking arm. Since coming here, I started to focus on playing fast with pick slanting. So the lack of conditioning in my arm has become noticeable and limiting my playing. I’ll try to take it easy and slowly ramp up my speed and duration.

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