Close to an "Aha" Moment with Crosspicking... Maybe

Scottulus · June 27, 2021, 2:46am

Okay, I think I evolved a bit this week - I have watched the Crosspicking with the wrist and the Molly Tuttle videos a few times and I think that what I was doing previously when alternate picking arpeggios was definitely string-hopping. Main clues? 16ths could not move past 120. Triplet 8ths (Tumeni notes) mess out at about 176 bpm.

So this week’s takeaways from the videos is the big wrist deviation pick movement, I implemented that and immediately jumped up a few metronome notches. It is going to take a lot of getting used to, but I did notice that it’s a lot more relaxed and somehow, even though it feels like I am swooping over the strings it’s like you can cherry pick any string. A very different sensation… So I present my fastest (yet still horribly messy) version of a 3 string triad roll kind of thing and I have to ask;

1) Does this look right to those of you who know what to look for? It feels different and I made some gains, but maybe I am deluding myself and perhaps maybe kazoo is where it’s at for me… lol

2) In the video, Troy mentions going left to right, side to side of the “laser pointer” arm, and things will fall into place. On 3 strings, or even two this (I think) seems to be the case, but how do I practice a single string with this motion? Does it make sense to have the picking motion still deviate very widely and kind of cover the distance of all 3 strings?

3) When I THINK I am Pronated, I catch myself kind of supinated… and the reverse… is this kind of inconsistency bad or can I muddle through with this as an adequate start?

4) lol Am I deluded and still stringhopping?

Thanks so much to anyone who has some input, I will take all the help I can get. On the bright side this is really helping my wrist mechanic hahaha

Scottulus · June 27, 2021, 3:30pm

Getting ready to dig into practice today. Let’s see if the “Aha moment” feeling is still there or if it’s another false start…

tommo · July 16, 2021, 2:30pm

Hey @Scottulus! The principle seems good here (just going for it, not worrying about being super precise). That’s what we always recommend for learning a new motion.

However, I would ditch the metronome and push the speed a little further — see what happens then!

Also - am I hearing some harmonies from Radiohead’s “paranoid android”?

Scottulus · July 17, 2021, 4:26am

lol I have been known to steal from “real music” and try to use it to my own ends.

Thanks for the feedback, tonight I thought I’d try a piece I am pretty familiar with, but this time with alternate picking. I tried to keep it short, hopefully it’s watchable and not too painful.

I am not sure what I am seeing here technique-wise. I want to believe that I am on the right track but it really, really feels like I have hit a “wall” as far as tempos go, Sure i can do it sloppy and super fast and honestly I have been kind of working my way down from a very fast tempo to an “edge of ability” tempo…

But I am very, very concerned that I am just barking up the wrong tree technique-wise, I mean I have read here time and time again how if you can’t break 16ths at 130bpm or so, then it’s stringhopping, and inefficient etc and here I am at maybe 100bpm struggling with life. Literally every note I play makes me wonder if I am doing this wrong or what… lol I am starting to feel like just pounding out reps is not as conducive to the results as one might think, maybe it’s occasionally stumbling across a pretty close facsimile of the technique, and then from there just trying to remember what a “successful one” felt like?

Kind of funny actually… Anyways, here’s Bach Orchestral Suite in D with all alternate picking, attempted crosspicking I guess… I’ll save the Tumeni Notes massacre for a bit later… hahahaha

Orchestral Suite in D Major.gp (10.4 KB)

Scottulus · July 17, 2021, 5:53pm

Hmmn, I noticed in the previous clip as well as this one I kind of had my pinky down - that’s a thing I seem to do with my elbow motion stuff. I’m not sure if it helps or hinders with crosspicking.

Honestly, I was more interested in just developing a wrist mechanic and then I got interested in Troy’s Crosspicking w/ Wrist videos, and of course Martin Miller and Molly Tuttle. Awesome. I watched them quite a bit and am now trying to make some sense of the information, you know? To “see” if I can actually do it or if I am doomed to just keep doing things the way I do them lol

Anyways, there’s a section where Troy is talking about “oh it’s just as easy as this” and does a downstroke towards his volume knob I don’t know what it is he’s saying to do other than it’s “just as easy as that” - I am Dense AF with this stuff, but I really want to learn it so any help would be appreciated lol I included a drawing, and it’s almost for me, feeling like a sort of triangle, or maybe an “X”… is that in the realm of possibility? Or completely out to lunch…? I mean there is a very wide spectrum of interpretation where something that’s clear as day to the person doing it is absolutely baffling to the person learning it. Don’t get me wrong, I love your stuff and how you present it guys - really awesome and thanks for doing what you do. I appreciate it and I have learned tons about my own playing from haunting this site. Great stuff.

So my diagram is basically this - starts with a downstroke going (I guess) diagonally towards the volume knobs - and then it straightens out (I think) to miss the string I just picked and ergo be able to pick the string below or above it. Very rough diagram, lol it’s close -ish to what I am doing (I think)

I was previously only using a deviation that went side to side, and my wrist started to hurt quite a bit because I was doing it a lot. like, 3-4 hours a day kind of thing… Changing the downstroke to go in that angle seemed to remove any pain whatsoever, but I am curious if maybe THAT is what Troy is talking about when he says “Oh it’s just this” and does the mystery downstroke…

Thanks in advance, guys. And yeah, Tumeni needs some love I know.

Scottulus · July 17, 2021, 5:56pm

Oh and here’s the diagram, whups…

tommo · July 30, 2021, 2:05pm

Hey @Scottulus! Among the 2 attempts, I like the motions in the Bach piece more. I think you are doing the correct thing by trying to get the “contours” of the movements down first, without worrying too much if you occasionally hit extra strings. The speed is however still on the moderate side, where you could possibly get away with inefficient motions. I’d try to push the speed on this one and see how far you can take it, even if you have to sacrifice accuracy at first. Just to check that you are making motions that can actually go fast in the longer term.

The tumeni notes one looks less smooth, I’d try it again at a higher tempo where hopping your way thorugh it would be impossible. Let us know

Scottulus · July 31, 2021, 10:21pm

Thanks Tommo for checking this out and posting a comment.

Okay, lol here we go - 16th note triplets at 100 bpm played at “faceplant speed”. Doing this, and sounding like complete utter crap is no problem, I think I have that mastered actually hahaha But I just don’t really know what I am looking for as far as “what’s right” what’s wrong". Really, it’s a matter of what the heck can I do, tangibly to get this cleaned up and sped up - clearly I am missing something, because it just doesn’t seem clear really what to do to “clean it” up after it’s been sped up.

Typically I practice the mechanical stuff in two ways, 1) with Speed trainer move via Guitar Pro software. Start at 50% tempo repeat 1x and then move up in increments of 1%. I will pay attention to that special tempo just before the whole thing becomes a mess, and sometimes spend a lot more time at that tempo in the hopes that exposure will equate to me getting acclimated to it. lol I am not so sure… 2) I start at a very, very fast tempo and work my way down to a tempo where i can actually play it pretty clean. I pay attention to THAT tempo, and when ever I do this it’s my hope that it slowly (lol or preferably quickly) gets faster.

Let me know if these are close to the right motions, if I am on the right track/should burn my guitar etc lol Because I feel like I have been at this point with this for a couple of weeks now, and with no glimmer of hope of achieving something resembling advancement/improvement it’s tough to keep motivated to keep at it. I get that I should just try new and different moves in the hope of stumbling across something, but it’s tough when everything sounds ineffective and downright terrible. Maybe that’s the attitude that has to go? Too focused on “musically correct” vs being “mechanically correct”. I don’t know.

So it makes me wonder, should I start trying to implement using a forearm rotation instead of just wrist? Is there a way I could use Elbow? lol Lemme know…

Any feedback is welcome!

tommo · August 5, 2021, 9:54am

That’s the spirit

This is a good starting point, because it gives you the idea of what it feels like to play these complicated lines at speed. Now we have to figure out if this is a motion that can be cleaned up for 1nps playing. So one thing you can do is slow down the “fast sloppy” motion just a little, and see what it looks like / if it gets cleaner. It would help if you could film at a higher framerate (60 or 120fps) and with more light so that there is less motion blur / more visibility of pick + strings in the slomo version.

Another thing you can try to do is to speed up the motion of the previous video a litlle (the slower tumeni notes example), and to try and make the curves flatter. In fact Troy suggests not to think about curved motions at all, just try to think of the hand moving back and forth as you play the notes, and maybe you’ll end up doing the correct flat curve without knowing!

Good work so far!