Choking up on the pick - USX vs DSX (impact of supination)

Playing Technique
#1

Had an observation last night - I’ve never been a great alternate picker (though this place has helped me significantly), but the way I hold the pick and position my arm has me in a modest DSX orientation. I’ve begun to play picked runs a lot more now that I’m getting somewhat more proficient at it, but for most of the time I’be been playing (an embarrassingly long time!) I’ve leaned on legato technique whenever I have wanted to play anything fast.

Meanwhile, USX orientation has finally clicked for me thanks to that “test drive various motions” video, and going back and forth between the two has made me do some thinking.

One thing I noticed; probably because - as a legato guy for no joke two decades, where I don’t necessarily want pick strokes to really jump out compared to hammer-ons/pull-offs - I’ve always favored smaller Jazz-style picks, I have a tendency to kind of choke up on the pick a little and let just the tip stick out from my picking hand. Going back and forth between USX and DSX, the former seems to sound “clearer” to me, so spending a little bit of time trying to see if I could visually hit upon a reason why that might be, this jumped out at me.

For me, at least, the difference in USX and DSX is mostly the amount of wrist pronation/supination. Escaped downstrokes, my default, has me with my wrist fairly flat against the face of the guitar, whereas moving to an escaped upstroke position involves rotating my forearm a bit to a sharper angle with the face of the guitar, bottom of my wrist facing out towards the headstock, in a somewhat more supinated position.

And, looking at what my hand is doing when I shift postions, I noticed that in a more pronated escaped downstroke position, when I’m choked up on the pick, the side of my thumb/palm seems to be brushing/rubbing against the bass strings while I pick, whereas when I move to a more supinated/escaped upstroke posture, my thumb and palm are entirely clear of the strings. If, however, I choke up on the pick a little less while in an escaped downstroke orientation, then my hand is able to stay clear of the strings, and either because of that or for unrelated reasons, I seem to get a better pick attack, too.

Anyone else spent some time thinking about this? Similar experiences, or am I just crazy? Wouldn’t be the first time. :slight_smile:

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#2

I’ve spent a good amount of time thinking about it and more or less agree with you. My biggest consideration has been if I’m choking up with a neutral thumb or angling the thumb joint towards / away from my index finger (changes where on the pick the pressure is).

#3

I guess, as I’m now writing with a guitar in hand, it’s less the side of the thumb rubbing on the string so much as it is it rubbing on the note I just picked, especially on ascending runs after string changes. Has a slight muting effect. :lol:

This has never really been a concern for most of the time I’ve been playing, since I almost never did fast, ascending picking runs, so I’ve never really thought much about how where I hold a pick impacts picking… tone, I guess?

#4

When I first started, I was sabotaged by evil people telling me lies, in particular, “small movements are fast,” “alternate picking is critical,” and “9s have bad tone.”

Now, I have totally turned around: I switch between USX and DSX for convenience, but nearly everything coming towards the body is a rest stroke, and the only “precision” that I attempt is to try to “skim” the string as not to get hung up on it.

My setup is extremely forgiving, because my strings are wimpy (8’s), and my pick has very broad shoulders (Dunlop Flow) and is heavily rotated (to the edge), so it can climb over nearly anything, no matter how poor my aim is.

I used to choke up a lot of the pick, but now I view that as bad because it is not forgiving (the note might not ring out under certain scenarios where I make a mistake like touching the string because I came too close).

Finally, rest strokes work very well with efficiency picking, and I will not hesitate to take any shortcut (HO/PO, even swiping) to simplify the movements. I really like efficiency picking because it is more forgiving, and basically idiot-proof, particularly when combined with rest strokes.

I am the opposite of what I was, and I realize that I have a bug in my thinking, where sometimes I will accept a ridiculous premise and not question it again… I try to be on guard for that, but it’s not easy, I often tend to believe “experts.”

I also have convinced myself of one rule: “I must pick exactly the same way at any speed.” By this, I mean that if I intend to swipe something, I will swipe it even if the metronome is set to 80 b/m and there is infinite time to do something else.

CtC is really unbelievable, none of my evolution would have been possible without it.

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#5

At the risk of being pedantic (and probably I misunderstood what you are saying):

USX and DSX are just motions, and they are independent from the concept of forearm pronation / supination.

In practice, we noticed that supinated players (Andy Wood, Paul Gilbert, Mike Stern etc.) can in principle do USX, DSX and DBX without changing their arm position.

Pronated players (Molly Tuttle, David Grier, 80s Vinnie Moore etc.) can certainly do DSX and DBX. USX may be in principle also possible from the pronated setup, but I don’t know any examples at the moment.

Long story short, pronation/supination and picking motion are two different concepts.

#6

No, by all means, be as pedantic as you need to if it helps us all further our understanding! I kind of thought that might be a bit confusing, so I guess let me try clarifying:

For me, part of moving from an escped downstroke motion to an escaped upstroke motion is rotating my arm and increasing supination. There’s a little more to it than that, I suspect (being able to do this comfortably at all is a new development for me), but it’s certainly part of what’s happening.

So, when I’m playing with escaped downstrokes, I have my hand and. my palm relatively flat against the face of the guitar, and my picking trajectory is starting low and moving upwards and away. What clicked for me the other night is if I do this while choking up on the pick a fair amount (something I’ve always just done, and is very unconsciopus for me) an unintended consequence of that is my palm and thumb rub against/slightly mute the strings. This doesn’t happen on escaped upstrokes, for me, because with the added supination, the trailing edge of my palm isn’t really contacting the strings. Fixing this for me was a matter of just exposing a bit more of the pick.

Not great quality video, but here’s a full speed/slow speed comparison of me trying to use my normal and a more exposed pick tip for trem picking, followed by a random escaped downstroke/double-escaped run (with a Fender Medium in place of the Dunlop Flow in the first clip, to make it easier to not choke up), hopefully at regular and slow speed:

Regular:

Slow:

Hardly my best playing, but while you can see what’s going on in the “choked up” position at my picking hand, I think it’s easiest to just watch the D string, which is visibly deflecting with my normal choked up grip, and isn’t when I expose more of the tip.

For me though, while I don’t think it was ever a conscious decision on my part, what drew me to heaviuer, smaller picks (and over time made me choke up more on bigger ones) wasn’t some consideration on playing fast or not burying the tip or anything, but it was a pure tonal consideration. A heavy, inflexible pick that was not able to really dig in “under” the string much, would have a less audible and less pronounced pick attack than a, say, Fender medium. When you’re looking to hide the occasional picked note in with a predominately legato run, those picked notes become less prominent and jump out less, and the overall sound is smoother. I remember very clearly the first time I ever tried a Jazz Stubby 3.0 and absolutely loving it because it did seem to make picked notes meld better with legato ones whereas a big flexible Fender had a lot more “bite” to the note.

EDIT - also I edited the thread title to, I hope, be a little more descriptive.

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#7

Juist wanted to bump this one last time, to see if anyone else here has had some experience with this problem, a fairly choked-up grip, an escaped upstroke mechanic, and a fairly flat wrist position, causing your thumb to rub against the strings.

I’m trying to get used to Fender Mediums again, and it seems to help a little.