Close up picking hand discovery that’s shocking to me

Playing Technique
#1

I’ve been practicing one string licks like the one in the video, and as far as right now I’m good at around 120 “clean” syncing up my fretting hand while doing 3 to 6 notes like Yngwie has been a challenge coming from the 2 note pentatonic world. One thing that shocks me is it looks like I’m upward pickslanting when all along I’ve wanted and thought I was doing DWPS. :flushed: it especially looks like it at the 25 second mark, If you slow it down to half speed on you tube. If that’s the case that would certainly make sense why things like EJ pentatonic runs have been so challenging. :confused: Also is it ok to have my hand curled up like that? For what ever reason that’s “natural” to me but I don’t see other people doing it. :thinking: What are your thoughts? Thanks

#2

That looks like upward escape to me.

Which one requires you to adjust your mechanic: upward rest strokes or downward rest strokes?

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#3

So it looks like I’m a Downward pick slanter? That’s what I’m going for.

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#4

That’s how it looks to me, but I could be wrong. I suggested the rest strokes test for more certainty. Maybe others will weigh in as well to confirm or refute my diagnosis.

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#5

little word of advice i wish i picked up years ago … this was for me anyways hopfully it will help you some too… i have been playing close to 18 years now i have fought anything fast anything considered athletic when it came to picking but i got by over the years… the last 2 months i really had a break thru with the dps and have so much joy but it took being able to relax and that was very hard for me too do … i used to hold the guitar with both arms as if it was going to fall off any time i took my hands off of it my fret hand wrapped around the neck as if holding it up and the arm used to rest on the body i would kinda pull my arm on top of the guitar into my body and squeeze it since then i have i got used to what i would say wearing the guitar standing and sitting throw in a few months of chunking and i began to feel the freedom i been searching for the day i picked up the dang thing !!! lol looks like you got the form down for dwp (id go with what is natural for you unless its really hindering progress for you like i said i was desperate for a change after no progress for about 15 years and i practiced 5 to 8 hours a day for a couple years… very desperate for a change thanks to cracking the code my playing has improved so much so has my quality of life ) keep at it … learn dwp inside and out relax… and chunking it out … take the 6 note pattern and only focus the first down stroke of each cycle and let your subconscious take over … i feel like im giving advice without being asked sorry but i felt lead to mention all that cheers !

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#6

That is extremely good advice Shawn and it all relates to me way more than I’d like to admit! I have the worse habit of tensing up also and like most other bad habits I’ve developed thru the years (30 plus years) I for the life of me can’t stop doing it. I even tense up when I’m strumming campfire chords on my acoustic guitar. I think we do it because we want to be able to play fast so bad that we start over thinking it, and shooting ourselves in the foot in the process. How do you stop doing it though without having to take horse tranquilizer to chill out??? Haha :joy:

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#7

If you want a quick way to know if you are biased to up or down slanting, try playing a pentatonic scale across all six strings with a tremolo of four notes for each fret, so in A minor four notes on the fifth fret sixth string, four notes on the eighth fret sixth string, four notes on the fifth fret fifth string, four notes on the seventh fret fifth string and so on with as quick a tremolo as feels smooth.

If you are biased to down slanting you’ll find that starting all the scale on down strokes is manageable, both going up and coming back on the scale, but if you’re an up slanter you’ll find it easy to start all the four notes on an up stroke.

#8

This is definitely an upstroke escape motion. Those upstrokes are going way up in the air and I don’t need to slow down the video to see it. But if you’d like to slow it down, just hit Shift + comma (the “less than” symbol) in the YouTube player three times to get to 25% speed. Shift + “greater than” three times will speed it back up to normal again.

This looks good and sounds smooth. Nice work. The only critique I have is that because of the grip you are using, your arm position will only work for upstroke escape / “dwps”. This will make it harder to switch from this style to the downstroke escape motion when you get to those. And I do recommend trying that too because I think this will help clarify in your mind what it feels like to do one versus the other. Those chapters are not up yet but they will be by the end of the week.

For now, if you check out the second video in the lesson, “Using More Supination”, that’s the one where we run through the different grips and arm positions:

The grip and arm position combo you’re using here is more similar to the one I use for the middle finger grip. That’s the trick. If you pair this arm position with a middle finger grip, it becomes centralized, and works for dwps, uwps, and double escape styles. If you pair this arm position with the index finger grip you are using here, it only works for dwps.

So long story short, if you want to, you can check out that chapter and experiment with a less supinated arm position, where you will roll over a little more onto the thumb heel, and the arm will not be as turned. This will make your motion look more like side-to-side wrist motion, aka “deviation”.

Again, as a purely dwps style for those types of phrases, this setup looks good and sounds good. You’ve taken a nice first step here.

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#9

before i pick up the guitar i run over a few things in my head now a days … dont over think it… relax… and forget everything you have learned and let it come out haha … the relax part tho thats important for me big time cause once i learned how to do it a lot of my restrictions vanished and of course dont forget to take your horse tranquilizer cause that always helps !!!

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