Change pick slant for only one note?

[RG1077XL]

So after some months I picked up my guitar again last night and picked my pickslanting primer up where I left it.

I tried TWPS and it all makes sense, for example changing the slant for the last note before the string change. But: many licks consist of a sequence of notes on one string with only a string change for one single note here and there.
Needless to say that changing the direction of the pick slant, being executed as economic as possible, seems to be very challenging in these cases because it would have to happen so rapidly back and forth.
How would you do it?

And as a second question: in the wilderness, would you really change the direction of the slant with plucking the very last note before the string change? Or do you gradually change the slant while playing on one string?

My english got a bit rusty, I hope you guys understand what I mean. Any helping thoughts are much apprecciated.

[hamsterman]

To answer your question about when to make the change of slant… if you look carefully at people doing the motion (including P. GIlbert)… they usually get ready for the transition on the note before the movement. (it’s not just ‘all of a sudden’ movement.

I would describe the motion as sorta a ‘flick’ type movement one which uses multiple mechanics (usually involves a bit of finger) to create half of a ‘figure eight’ loop. (sorry for the cryptic description). But this type of flick is tough to continually do (ie. going back and forth between two strings) because you don’t have enough time to ‘prepare’ for it.

Also, as a side note, i’ve noticed that most pick-slanters can only do this if the transfer is done using either outside picking, or inside picking, but they can’t do both. So Gilbert can do this amazingly well using outside picking, but can’t do it at all using inside picking. I’m sure there are exceptions, but that’s what I’ve noticed.

[JonJon]

as far as I understand, for the one note example you are picking the last note before the string change AND changing pickslant in one motion…its not 2 separate things. And for your first example you can look at the famous “Paul Gilbert lick” because it only has that one note on the other string

In my mind there are 2 different motions. maybe i am mistaken but I dont think so. if you are going to change to a string and only do one note and then change right back…its one type of motion. Its one unit. If you are going to change strings and STAY on that new string then its a little bit different motion

for the second question. i think it depends on what u get used to. if you are doing one of your pet licks and you know you will do 3 or 5 notes and then go to a different string with a different slant, you probably wont wait until the last note, you probably start gradually changing along the way. But like i said that may be different for different licks

[RG1077XL]

Thanks for the answers so far!

To answer your question about when to make the change of slant… if you look carefully at people doing the motion (including P. GIlbert)… they usually get ready for the transition on the note before the movement. (it’s not just ‘all of a sudden’ movement.

I would describe the motion as sorta a ‘flick’ type movement one which uses multiple mechanics (usually involves a bit of finger) to create half of a ‘figure eight’ loop. (sorry for the cryptic description). But this type of flick is tough to continually do (ie. going back and forth between two strings) because you don’t have enough time to ‘prepare’ for it.

Yes, that’s exactly what I thought and you put it well saying that there’s not enough time to “prepare” the motion. I wonder if it may be best to just use your default slanting style and view the spots where you have to change as a short “deviation”. The mental process would be more like “I’ll flip my hand on that and that occasion” opposed to “Now I’ll change to dwps, then back to uwps” etc.

as far as I understand, for the one note example you are picking the last note before the string change AND changing pickslant in one motion…its not 2 separate things. And for your first example you can look at the famous “Paul Gilbert lick” because it only has that one note on the other string

The lick seems more doable to me (not being PG) with the mindset I outlined above. In my case: I use uwps and for the one note on the second string, I just flick my hand for the very short moment. But when the lick goes on like in Intense Rock, it gets harder, because the distances between these “breakout”-notes on the second string get very short, so the hand would be constantly flicking around. That’s precisely my problem.

In my mind there are 2 different motions. maybe i am mistaken but I dont think so. if you are going to change to a string and only do one note and then change right back…its one type of motion. Its one unit. If you are going to change strings and STAY on that new string then its a little bit different motion

I actually imagine this to be true. Troy’s twps-recipe in the primer would be more for the second case as he demonstrates scale runs, right?

for the second question. i think it depends on what u get used to. if you are doing one of your pet licks and you know you will do 3 or 5 notes and then go to a different string with a different slant, you probably wont wait until the last note, you probably start gradually changing along the way. But like i said that may be different for different licks

That’s probably true, I still wonder how to practise new stuff though. Sadly, most of the time we don’t know how our best played licks got to that level.

[hamsterman]

Yes, that’s exactly what I thought and you put it well saying that there’s not enough time to “prepare” the motion. I wonder if it may be best to just use your default slanting style and view the spots where you have to change as a short “deviation”. The mental process would be more like “I’ll flip my hand on that and that occasion” opposed to “Now I’ll change to dwps, then back to uwps” etc.

Yep, that’s the best way to think of it. The movement is sorta it’s own mechanic, something you pull out at just the right time for a specific scenario. It’s definitely related to two-way pick-slanting, but thinking of it that way may complicate things.

[kgk]

And as a second question: in the wilderness, would you really change the direction of the slant with plucking the very last note before the string change? Or do you gradually change the slant while playing on one string?

I’m not sure that I understand this correctly, but if one plays with either UWPS or DWPS the strokes are “trap, free, trap, free, trap, free, …” When there is a DWPS transition, I think it has to be “trap, free, trap, trap, free, trap, free, …”

So, I think that the transition has to be characterized by one stroke that goes from trapped to trapped. I suspect the particular stroke doesn’t much matter, for some reason I like to do them very early, I’m not sure why, and I have no idea what typical practice is (although Troy will know). I think that I change the angle for the two “traps” in a row by forearm rotation, but I’m not sure, I wish that I had a Magnet.