After watching various interviews with Crosspicking experts on here- Steve Morse, Carl Miner, Andy Wood, Albert Lee, and Martin Miller- I decided that I would start to seriously work on this picking technique.
Before I mainly used 2WPS using the Andy Wood approach for a Primary Up (Forearm Flat, rest with Palm on bridge, use Extension/deviation for motion mechanic), Along with the “rotational blips” to clear the strings after Upstrokes on Ascending inside string changes (outside string changes I was practicing swiping).
After watching the Carl Miner idea I got the idea to try crosspicking with a Rotational Movement for the Upstroke (combined with Deviation and Flexion). I’ve started to learn tunes that require crosspicking to be played. I am currently working on the Inside Picking Etude, and also plan to learn Beaumont Rag, Along with various other Morse-ism.
Hi! Thanks for posting and sorry for the delay in catching these. First off, everything you’ve written about what you’ve been working on is spot-on technically, including some fairly “inside baseball” observations about things like Andy Wood’s picking motions. So kudos for getting your head around the concepts so thoroughly.
In general, these clips looks fine. There’s technically nothing “wrong” with the movement, e.g. it’s not stringhopping, and you’re doing what you set out to do. In actual practice the litmus test for these kinds of things is clinical. Meaning, the true test of whether you’re doing it correctly is whether or not you can actually do it quickly and have it feel smooth. So don’t be afraid to ‘floor it’ as Andy Wood says, and see what it looks like. That may clue you in to a more streamlined version of the movement that you can work on cleaning up.
Another thing you will notice when it comes to these “rotational” types of crosspicking, is that there isn’t really a single movement for this so much as a whole spectrum of movements. This is mostly determined by the picking path you attempt to create. So for example, if you try to have the pick follow a path that’s parallel with the pickups, you’ll see more arm and flexion/extension, because those are the movements that, when combined, can create this path. By contrast if you try and move the pick more in line with the “windsheild wiper”-style path that deviation traces, you’ll see more wrist and less turning of the arm. And so on. Simply knowing that these different blends exist, and why they are happening, can make the trial and error process a lot less confusing, especially if your movement changes for whatever reason without you initially being aware of it.
So one thing you might do is try some of those changes deliberately. In other words, experiment with these different paths to see if any of these movements feels smoother or more natural to you. They all work, and they can all be learned. However if one of them works better right out of the gate, why not pursue that one first. In this case you could try a little more side-to-side wrist in addition to the arm. This will create more of the windshield wiper path. No need to try and shut off the arm movement, just let it do what it wants. For any picking path that is not pure windshield wiper, you’ll still have some arm movement going on - just perhaps less of it.
Again good work here on learning the concepts - you have a good foundation for understanding these more complicated blended movements that you’re now experimenting with.
