Capped for years at 100 bpm 16th notes

Technique Critique
#17

Did you try all the table tap tests, or only the one closest to your current motion?

If what you’ve been doing for years hasn’t got you where you want to go, it’s probably wise to start entertaining some different possibilities. Try the full gamut of table top tests to see if any of them show promise.

And if, as you suggest, there may be some kind of “mental block” going on, testing motions away from the guitar will likely be less inhibited that testing on the guitar.

To me, mentally, one of the keys to discovering a fast motion is not worrying about keeping track of how many notes there are (at least in the early stages of experimentation). When you try to run fast, you probably don’t try to count your steps, and the same is true for getting a feel for fast picking. Once you’ve discovered a fast motion and recognize what it feels like, then you can worry about trying to synchronize it to a pulse.

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#18

Whatever motion seems to work the easiest, go with that.

Maybe try going with that? You can figure other motions out later when you know what ‘fast and easy’ should feel like.

Good stuff! I agree with @jzohrab that it’s all part of the discovery. Getting rid of excess tension can uncover problems in one’s playing tendencies that would otherwise stay hidden - that’s what happened to me, anyway.

I think the general consensus on the forum is that tension is the result of inefficient technique, but I still hold that habitual tension can twist a picking motion that’s basically efficient, into something else that’s inefficient and that you didn’t even mean to do, or notice.

This is just an example that I found in myself after starting to realize how tense I tend to be at my upper arms, both hands’ fingers, backs of my hands etc. May or may not apply to you or others:

I wouldn’t worry about musical correctness at first. At least I can say from experience that if you try too hard to play a song or passage and make the notes come out right, you may start micromanaging the song. It becomes an effort of just avoiding mistakes instead of learning to develop technique.

Let it be fast and sloppy at first. See what problems you run into, what type of a motion and arm position your hand wants to use, when you let your picking motion be relaxed, easy and quite fast. Then adjust accordingly, try again and stay relaxed.

+1!

In any case, I think it’s worth it to check the angles of attack on your pick. You mentioned your upstrokes and downstrokes don’t feel equal. They should feel smooth and relatively similar. The sensation of the pickstroke feeling un-smooth on either stroke can have an impact on how you perceive your motion (again, at least for me it does). The motion itself might already be what you need, but if there’s a “garage spikes problem” with the pick’s smoothness, then you may overcompensate for that, and so on.

Do post some more videos!

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#19

I recorded this two videos

In this one I’m starting at around 100 BPM and bumping the metronome until about 180 BPM. I end up using my elbow to reach the highest speeds, but it feels very tense. It doesn’t really feel right to me. I notice my pick gets stuck on the strings a lot at those speeds.

On this one I’m just trying to do exactly the opposite: trying to relax as much as possible instead of tensing up to force myself to go fast. When I’m starting to discover that relaxed feeling it’s like my arm and hand suddenly want to go much faster. But what happens next is that I tense up. I feel an urge to tense up, and then it’s like system breakdown. I could actually reach pretty high speeds with my elbow, but again, it feels really tense.

I suspect that my problem has to do with a mental model of what playing is about, indeed, as @jzohrab suggested. Having tried his exercises, I could actually feel more relaxed and that I could play in a very different manner than what I’m used to, but I’ve been playing this way for so long that it’s very hard to do things differently.

I know that my elbow could reach higher speeds than any other movement, but I am not convinced that going with an elbow motion is the way to go for me. I really don’t like it, and I feel like that might just be a way to compensate for faulty muscle coordenation combined with a faulty picking technique (this might still be a factor and I don’t want to rule it out just yet, but I feel like I might already have things down to a degree). I know that I can reach higher speeds when I relax, because I can feel what my body wants to do when that happens and I know I’ve done it before even if for only a fraction of a second, but right now I’m still having trouble understanding what correct muscle activation feels like, and how to achieve that coupled with effective relaxation of the opposite muscles. To reply to @Shredd:

I suspect that this is indeed what’s happening to me. I can see how innefficient technique can cause tension, and I can see how tension can lead to inneffecient technique, but I can also see that tension can be just that sometimes, tension, resulting from a failure to successfully coordinate muscle activation and relaxation.

I feel like I would benefit from more exercises like the ones @jzohrab mentioned, so if anyone knows any more of those, I would be very thankful. Or any other suggestions from fellow tension-strugglers :slight_smile:

Yes, and it helps making my right arm feels more relaxed, but not to the extent that I can suddenly reach significantly higher speeds because of it.

I ended up trying the other table tap tests, I ended up being able to reach about 190BPM on each one of them, and 220BPM on forearm rotation. But it’s all quite tense and I can’t hold it for long.

Oh yes, this makes a lot of sense to me too. I think this is also a contributing factor to my tension. I think that I’ve always wanted to do things that I couldn’t yet do, and I guess that trying to force myself to do them was how I approached it for a long time. Needlessly to say, it didn’t work. I’m trying to focus more on finding that physical sensation of correct activation of muscles, rather than trying to not make mistakes at this point. Fast and sloppy sounds like a good strategy.

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#20

Yes that happens to me as well. I find that it’s a razor’s edge that I’m on when I’m playing fast, and the moment that something tenses up everything locks. I wonder what other super players on here experience with that (pinging those I know of!) – @Philausopher, @Twangsta, @tommo, do you have any thoughts with that? When you’re going fast, or when you first started to get fast, did you feel that things were a house of cards? :slight_smile:

Below is a variation on an exercise/drill/experiment I’m doing lately which I’ve found super effective. I’m assuming you’ve been working on the relaxation drills from the vid I mentioned earlier, because it’s important for you to start to experience what close-to-zero tension feels like.

In summary, the experiment consists of playing something very slowly to observe what no tension feels like, and then playing medium tempo, and then fast, up and down in tempo as I see fit and as I get a sense of what zero tension feels like. Note that the “slow practice” does not mean “slow motion” – the movements are still fast, but the tempo is slow, if that makes sense (more notes here).

Take this 6-note-per-string fragment:

image

First, I play it mid tempo a few times, just to understand what the motions should be, more or less. I’m trying to stay totally loose during that. Then I might give it a few tries up to the speed I want. I almost immediately notice some weird tension, because I’m still working on my picking and string changes!

Then I play it quite slow, with roughly the same kinds of motions I use at speed. It’s kind of hard to use the identical technique, b/c speed brings its own technique, but try to keep the same hand alignment, motion sizes, etc. The point when playing this is to really pay attention to any tension anywhere (shoulders, arms, elbow, back, hands, whatever) and get rid of it – which should be easier at this slow tempo – and to pay attention to how everything feels (aka proprioception, which is your body’s “sixth sense” for tracking its own motion and location). I find that playing this softly helps minimize effort, so I can pay more attention to what’s going on internally.

image

When you feel you’ve got a good sense for how this works, speed it up, and see if you can carry that same sense of balanced ease and awareness you got at the slow speed into your faster playing:

image

Then crank it up again – and again, carry your relaxation and awareness into this, as much as you can. At higher speeds, I think that the “relaxation” changes in quality somewhat, due to the differences in playing speed, but I also think that we can still apply what we learned at the slower tempo to it. I have started to think “less effort, less effort” while playing fast:

image

I believe that Chopin used to tell his piano students, “simpler, simpler!” when they were playing tough material :slight_smile:

When playing at speed, use chunking etc to help group the notes, which simplifies your mental load (more on chunking here, and it’s in the CtC videos as well).

Note I usually set the metronome at some steady beat and then just play at quarter speed, half speed, and full speed, going back and forth with the speeds as I’m working it out, spending as much time as I need.

I’ve only recently started this exploration with picking and crosspicking – for crosspicking in particular it’s been very good, because holy smokes that is a delicate and demanding movement! But it feels good, for me. It’s not slow practice, it’s not fast practice, it’s a combination, and the slow practice lets you get into the feel of it.

Hope it helps! Give it a shot and see how/if it works for you. Cheers, jz

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#21

I haven’t read all the comments but here’s my two cents:

From what i can teel watching the vids it seems you get stuck with the pick because you don’ t let the motion end it’s natural path. Bit hard to explain, but your movement does not allow the pick to flow through; it seems you are interrupting the natural movement. I would suggest to start with a much bigger motion ( like strumming a chord) and then slowly make the motion smaller to the point it is small enough to get the accuracy and speed you want on one string but it still feels you let it flow through and not interrupting it.
And maybe a bit more firmer grip on the pick.

Hope this helps……

#22

Tensing up, I really can’t remember tensing up; maybe I did, I went through a lot of pain in my picking arm initially but it wasn’t due to tensing up, I guess I pushed the muscle refinement phase a bit harder than I should have. My left hand tends to mash a on stuff I’m working on sometimes though. I’ve been playing a long time so maybe that helped with the right hand a bit.

What @Mr_Samsa is going through here is def a rite of passage on this phase. In the last video posted I see a few issues, haven’t read the full thread so these points may have already be covered.

Three things:

  1. Anchor your palm lightly on the bridge. Use wrist motion at this stage.
  2. You seem to have a death grip, think with your index finger, use it to mentally guide all motions, it’s your leading edge, it’ll help loosen your grip too. Its OK if you think you’re pick is going to fly out of your hands. Let the pick rebound between your fingers like a spring loaded rocker. This is your main issue atm from what I can see.
  3. Please try to play with a less pointy pick as well. Mix it up, personally I have a history with the jazz 3 and eventually after shifting to dunlop 1.5 purples I would never use the jazz ones ever again, the tone and feel is just not right to me.

Keep going bro, nice big frets on that guitar; what model is it?

edit: could you try the same thing with your palm anchored, and use non pointy edge of your pick to play the same thing, relax you hand and let the pick roll but not shift between your fingers, also uncurl your index, move the pick further down to the tip of your thumb, ie: away from your wrist. Try to line up the end of your thumb and pick’s edge. Also your picking trajectory is to close to the plane of the strings, increase the angle. Pick more lightly, also try it slower and feel the pick’s edge glide over the string from when it touches the string to the bump of the tip reaching the crest and back down again, think of it as a rubbing motion, the pick travels against the string not just at a point but a short arch along it’s edge, try to push and not slam the speed breaker. Feel the string pass under the pick, that tactile feedback is important, your missing out on this bit with the pointy pick.

Edit2:

IMG20210603193740
IMG202106031937403000×3000 1.61 MB

The larger diagram is the string plane as seen from the nut to the bridge. The purple line is the pick’s trajectory, the orange arch is the angle. Increase that angle to the sufficient amount.

Bottom right is a top down view of the top three strings, nut to the left, bridge to the right, the black line is the pick, orange arch the angle of the twist the pick is locked into. Notice the black line is not parallel to the string.

#23

Hey again, thank you all for your suggestions.

I will definitely try out those exercises @jzohrab :slight_smile: Yeah, I’ve been working on those relaxation drills too. I’ve actually found that it helped me stay more relaxed during other activities besides guitar playing, too. I’ve been singing and also skateboarding, and I’m also usually very tense during those. The last time I did them I tried to do the same things I usually do, but with much less tension, and I get the feeling that something clicked for me. Like I was tensing up so much because I was just trying too hard not to make any mistakes and do everything perfectly. But I guess I was just being too analytical all the time instead of allowing myself to take a more intuitive approach. I think that’s pretty much what my mental block is all about.

I can understand that. I’ve been suspecting that something like that might be happening, though I also couldn’t know exactly how to explain it. It makes perfect sense to me.

I think I usually anchor it lightly on the bridge when I’m trying to do an USX motion, and I’m more like muting the strings with my thumb when I do a DSX motion. I don’t know exactly what happened in that video, but I think I could have been trying to lift my hand and experiment if it went faster. But sure, I can do that.

This is interesting, some people in this thread are saying I seem to have a grip that is too loose, other people are saying I seem to have a death grip. I actually would think I tend to have a grip that might be too lose and that the pick ends up escaping from my intended location. I guess when that happens I might take a firmer grip on the pick, however. I can see how having too tight a grip would make the pick harder to go across the strings, and I can feel that happen at times, so I think I understand what you’re saying.

I also found it interesting that you told me to think with my index finger, as I usually think with my thumb. I will have to try that out.

I’ve been thinking about using another pick because I tend to do a lot of strumming too and I like to mix that up with lead guitar. But the shape is actually what keeps me using the jazz 3. However, I don’t know if that’s more because of habit or due to a legitimate preference for that shape. Sometimes I also question if I should switch to a thinner pick. Thing is, I wouldn’t like to feel like I’m doing that just because I couldn’t figure out a way to make what I’m doing at the moment work. But I can experiment with that and see if I’m not holding on to something just out of habit or stubbornness.

It’s an Epiphone Les Paul Standard, it’s a very nice guitar indeed :slight_smile: only heavy as a whale, eheh

That’s a nice description, I guess I am quite unsure of how actually picking a string is supposed to feel like. I will try out your suggestions, thanks, and thanks for the diagrams :slight_smile:

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#24

Just to add to the “tension” discussion:

I think that feeling some degree of tension when playing near your limit is normal. It seems like some people treat tension as a binary “yes” / “no” situation, with anything that remotely feels like tension as indicative of bad technique, which IME is not the case.

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#25

Definitely in agreement with @jzohrab, @Twangsta, and @Pepepicks66 here and all the ideas and practice recommendations outlined in your responses. Especially with @Pepepicks66 on the notion that some tension is normal - while guitar playing certainly doesn’t require all that much muscular or athletic facility, you’re still repeatedly contracting a relatively small set of muscles for potentially hours on end. When you really start to get after it (for Gilbert or Vinnie Moore sounding 3NPS very fast stuff I use a lot of elbow and pick attack is pretty aggressive) it’s fine to feel the muscles contracting. That said obvious excess tension can interfere with your playing and you want to find a technique that feels as close to effortless as possible!

The key to starting with speed to my mind is not only to start fast, but to assess the quality of the movements and how it feels from a tactile perspective - this is where we don’t want the excess tension as a technique that fatigues you quickly is not one that’s repeatable. Find the fastest tempo you can play at where things feel mechanically smooth and then refine that motion and clean things up.

I’m not against traditional “slow” practice with the metronome either - as I’ve argued for in previous threads I think it helps consolidate the fretting hand dexterity and picking/fretting hand coordination.

Also @Twangsta glad to see another member of the 1.5mm purp gang :sunglasses: I’ve tried probably every pick out there and I always fall back to them

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#26

Maybe I’m wrong about the tension or I haven’t pushed my self lately or I have just gotten so used to it that I don’t feel it anymore!

I agree with @Andjoy, I do remember clearly exaggerating the motions initially sitting with a metronome and discovering 18 mins sessions of focused practice was better than 8 hours of not so focused practice, but I also think the long sessions in my first few months helped build a lot of strength, as things began to click I’d feel tendons twitch ( a very specific tendon every time, things I never felt before, subtle but synchronised with what my pick was doing over the string ) in my arm and shoulder! I think slow is necessary when your starting out, as you get better the fast approach starts to pay dividends, but to me it 's a mixed bag always. I know I’m going to cringe when I start the two note pentatonic cascades stuff, been putting it off for too long, I guess I’ll be reminded all about tension soon :slight_smile:

I noticed that, I think maybe I was alluding to a balance, the pick is like a over head cam shaft rocker in your fingers, firm on the fulcrum but springy enough for tactile contact with the string, this is why I prefer a stiff pick with a rounded edge.

I totally understand this sentiment, there’s a lot to this blind spot. The pick’s contact with the string is a complex interaction. The pointy edge vs a rounded edge issue is real for me. I think of it like a race car going around the apex of a curve on the track, going in your on the throttle, but a rookie mistake is getting off the gas past or near the apex will make a sudden and unfavourable weight transfer, there’s a snap where your rear end loses grip if you get off the throttle too soon and too fast, weight transfers instantly to the front suspension causing over steer. The premature throttle release is what I think the pointy pick feels like vs a gradual synchronised throttle release like with a rounded edge. Also this tactile feel of the pick is where a lot of tone differences occurs between players. This and the two angles in my diagrams determine your tone. So as you go into and through the string, you have the attack and decay that happens instantly, also this is very amp or sim dependant. It’s hard to setup the right compression in your sim if your not used to playing a real tube amp, I didn’t have a proper amp for a very long time and I would constantly second guess my settings. Ne ways maybe I’ve gone a bit off the ranch here :grin:

Group hug! I won’t argue with the maestro :laughing: Though I have to admit when I play my acoustic ( firewood compared to what you’re playing ) I tend to use the Kozik 1.0 Tortex picks, if you haven’t tried them you should, great blues & country tone on there. That’s what I used for years before the purps. I think the super light gauge I’m into now 8-46, the purps are best.

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#27

Agreed, some tension is normal. I don’t believe it’s a yes/no situation either. I don’t think you’re supposed to be able to play without any tension at all. But I do believe that it can be an important learning step to realize what that “good amount” of tension feels like, and what happens if you try playing that way instead of forcing technique the way you’ve always done it. Like @Philausopher said:

Exactly this.

I try to give tension and relaxation its fair share of focus in discussion, because I believe it’s easy for some players (ahem, myself) to get used to a lot of excess tension and not be aware of it. Relaxation should be just another tool in the toolbox to check out every now and then.

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#28

So I guess I’m no longer stuck at 100 BPM 16th notes…I’m now stuck at 120 BPM 16th notes, which seems like a nicer place to be stuck at :smile:

It starts to break down when I push it to 130, I start to feel tense and lose control, but I seem to be able to manage it to 120 BPM with a certain degree of comfort. I’ve been focusing on developing a sensation of control and relaxed playing, instead of trying to force myself to play faster, and it seems to be working. I am convinced that a big part of what was causing me trouble was indeed some sort of mental block and correct muscle coordination.

Still, I do feel like some of my difficulties might be more of a technical nature, and that I’m still having trouble figuring out an efficient picking motion, how to grip the pick so that it doesn’t move around constantly between my fingers and wants to point itself towards the headstock (though I’m not certain if it’s the pick that actually moves between the fingers or just my index finger that slips and moves around), a more adequate pick angle that doesn’t cause it to be stuck on the string sometimes, and whatnot.

#29

I would not even try experimenting with tremolo below 150-160 bpm. I think you could easily do those speeds by using your elbow a bit more, it already looks like it’s part of your motion.

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#30

That 120 bpm motion look good, how does it feel? Looks very natural.

My preference would be to stay away from elbow picking at the moment, and keep with a good loose wrist motion, but that could just be me. I used to elbow pick sort of, but not well, and it caused loads of tension. But others may suggest it as a good way forward … whichever you do, I feel that for mid range tempos like 150 should be achievable with little effort, it’s all about coordination, as I believe @Philausopher mentioned earlier.

A fun thing to try to test out higher speeds might be dotted rhythms, see some notes here: Rhythmic Variations — Practicing Guitar documentation

Then you could also try slow-fast-slow-fast practice, which I think I mentioned in the Hybrid picking Cliffs of Dover thread. I’ve found that really useful.

Re pick grip — honestly that might just work itself out. Give yourself some more time to play around and keep experimenting.

Cheers! Jz

ps - I forgot to say – what a massive achievement this is. Capped for years at 100, and now you’re playing what looks like really good 16ths at 120? That’s a very big difference.

Some more thoughts, of course :stuck_out_tongue: :slight_smile:

  • You might find it useful to play shorter bursts, e.g. just a few measure’s worth (8-12 beats) and longer sections for quarters. Playing for a long time can cause fatigue and confusion.
  • Another thing to add to your 16th note practice is accents on each beat – this will organize the notes for your mind, and actually in some ways simplify your playing. When you play a pile of notes with the same feel for several measures, the mind can start to wander. Accenting the first note in every group gives you something to “aim at”, and the extra clarity really, really enhances your playing.
  • Along with accenting, you can try picking 16ths starting with an upstroke, so that the accents fall on an upstroke. Hitting accents with an upstroke is a different set of muscles, and so is useful.

Cheers and great stuff again! z

#31

@gabrielthorn Well, if for years I couldn’t even go beyond 100 bpm 16th notes, it doesn’t make sense to me to just jump to 150-160 bpm. That’s a pretty wide gap. If I could do 150, I wouldn’t be struggling with 100. Now that I’ve gone beyond 100, I feel like it wasn’t just a matter of doing a wrong motion. I think the motions I tried to use were ok, but I wasn’t successfully coordinating the relaxation and activation response between opposite muscles, which caused a build up of tension and hindered my speed. I don’t know if I will have to use another motion for speeds above 150, it’s possible, but right now I think I prefer to refine my current technique at lower speeds, and keep speeding up until a point where that technique no longer works.

@jzohrab It does feel quite smooth. I still feel some tension, but I think I’ve reached a point where I am a lot more aware of that and don’t try to force myself to go faster than I can manage, which I believe was one of the main bad habits that hindered my progress. As I said, some things don’t work out so well yet, but I think those have more to do with the picking technique itself than poor muscle coordination, and that is very satisfying. In fact, this is a type of progress that I’ve been noticing not only on guitar, but on other activities as well. I feel more relaxed in general and with a better mental attitude.

The best way to explain it is that before I used to experience some sort of “fragmentation”. For example, I could be singing a song and instead of singing a natural, smooth line, I. Could. Experience. Singing. Like. This. Where. Each. Bit. Of. Musical. Information. Didn’t. Really. Flow. Into. Each. Other. And I think that had to do with anxiety. I feel different now, and I hope it’s a feeling that sticks around.

Thank you. I don’t know if it’s a case of overnight success, I think it’s more like, all the little pieces that I’ve been collecting the last couple of years, suddenly something clicked and I could find a way to fit them together neatly :slight_smile: I really hope to find smoother seas to sail from now on, eheh

Those are some nice ideas there, I’ll try them out, thanks.

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#32

I was in the same shoes. @Pepepicks66 pushed me to 190-200 overnight.

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#33

@gabrielthorn I’m starting to sound like a late-night infomercial product lol.

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#34

It happened and it was not an one night wonder.

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#35

GThorn’s idea is actually quite good, you know! A jump of 30 bpm is not huge :slight_smile: – though it may seem like it – and may present you with some new stuff to try out, and maybe even a breakthrough of some sort.

“when I push it to 130, I start to feel tense and lose control” - I get it. So, one thing that’s interesting about speed when you’re first experiencing it, is that you kind of need to lose control, at least at first. Honestly, when picking fast, you are not consciously in control. All of your tests with releasing tension etc are good, and when you go for that kind of speed, you simply cannot push, you actually have to let go more, to allow for fast and easy muscle firing and releasing. In other words, you don’t force, make a consistent gentle demand and see what happens.

Again looking at your video, I see you’re holding that 16th note picking for several beats (starting at 0:11 and going to … well, I stopped watching at 0:34). Thats a very very long time to do that, especially during technique development, in my opinion. Sure, you need to be able to hold it for a while, but when you’re still searching for the right motions and feel, something much shorter should suffice.

Picking for long stretches has a few challenges: obvious fatigue issues, but also mental fatigue. As you pick forever, your brain gets confused, especially if you’re not really accenting beats, and that can cause sync issues.

Based on what I see, you might want to reconsider @gabrielthorn’s suggestion :slight_smile: – you went from 100 to 120, I don’t see why you can’t go further. That’s what testing the waters is all about. I’d say go for it!

Cheers! z

ps - That page I linked to in my initial post way back when has a link to a video (Relaxing your picking hand and arm) which helped me tremolo pick 200+ bpm, and gave some graduated exercises to hit that speed. It’s a different kind of control than you have at 120 bpm. Cheers! z

pps - all the above is, of course, my opinion only :stuck_out_tongue:

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#36

I understand it may seem like a big jump, but until you get into the ~160bpm territory, you are NOT using your fast picking motion. And we are only talking about tremolo picking here, nothing complicated for the fretting hand should distract you. I can see you are already using your elbow at this speed and despite I’ve been told I should never ever ever use my elbow in the past, thank you I’m happy for my caveman technique, so is Rusty Cooley, Jason Richardson (don’t ever tell him he’s using his elbow :sweat_smile:), etc. You need to find what works for you naturally and fast NOW, unless you are happy to spend months/years learning an other motion.

Anyways, push yourself more, do not get discouraged if 130, 140, 150 will feel very difficult and hard/impossible to control at first. It will just click once you are using your default fast motion.

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