commence “how to practice” Wars in 3…2…1…
oh no, I didn’t mean to start a war. But if I did, I promise to fight with honor.
no, its not you at all lol. But that line right there, you might as well have said “whats better, Ford or Chevy?” or maybe “Patriots, Cowboys, or Redskins?”
We all seem to have our solidly entrenched positions on how to best approach practicing lol. Its probably to the point where we could actually switch sides in the discussion and argue from the other guys viewpoints hehe
I think i’ll just sit this round out rather than post my whole personal philosophy yet again this week
But i’ll leave you with this nice link. A book I ran across lately which is really influencing my practice ideas. This particular chapter might have some good ideas as far as being on a limited time schedule
its a piano book so ‘HT’ = hands together, ‘HS’ = hands separate.
https://fundamentals-of-piano-practice.readthedocs.io/en/latest/chapter1/ch1_procedures/II.15.html
peace, JJ
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Thanks Jon, will check it out! Always interested in philosophies on practice in general.
Maybe I should have been more specific in that I meant more so specific mechanical considerations of cross picking. I feel pretty rounded as a player and comfortable with how to make improvements in other areas, and a big part of my living is coaching other guitar players on how to find solutions as well. But the crosspicking thing is a physical ‘stumped’ though I feel like it’s gotten further.
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i’ll throw out 2 ideas. use or discard as u see fit. Again, I already know the first idea will get shouted down but ill give it anyway lol.
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if you are struggling, simplify the challenge a bit. Do 3 strings instead of 4. once 3 strings is popping nicely, how much easier will it be to then add the 4th?
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I havent micro studied the Martin Miller or other folks crosspicking but perhaps some of your issues could be related to string tracking. I see you ARE tracking with the arm to a degree, but it seems you are mixing ‘some’ tracking with ‘some’ changing of the wrist angle. It looks somewhat like that last note is a little bit of a reach and therefore the form on that note is slightly different. Could be something to throw the whole rhythm off a tad. So maybe try to string track a little more to keep the wrist angle more consistent.
free advice to consider. could be pertinent, could be useless
Peace, JJ
edit. I’ll steal an idea out of the piano book. Maybe get the rt hand pattern down cold first without the left hand complicated things
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Play faster. At 120 bpm+ you’re forcing your body to make the correct movement and/or learn a new movement. Test yourself by speeding up to 150+ every now and again. You should be able to reach those speeds. It shouldn’t feel any different from your practice pace at ~120 bpm or whatever, it should just get sloppy. Don’t use a metronome, though, it’s not helpful during the mechanical exploration phase.
Play louder. You should be able to dig into the strings, even at high speeds, to make a lot of noise even on an unplugged guitar. Troy has repeated this a lot, with regard to crosspicking: fast and loud!
I’ll link to my own crosspicking thread because Troy wrote a ton of great posts there:
Good luck!
Edit:
One more tip: With stuff like this I have a tendency to try to find the ‘most efficient exercise’, and grind on that. Because you’re a busy man, with shit to do, I figured you might fall into that trap too. Don’t! Variation is super important in this type of learning. Try to find stuff to practice with different combination of strings and with different tracking challenges.
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Awesome thanks Lars, I will check out the thread!
I’ll second this - I think accuracy, particularly fretting hand accuracy, needs to be built slowly, but as far as physically getting the pickstroke mechanics right, you’re either doing it right or you’re not, and the best way to test this is to really push the tempo. Accuracy be damned, don’t worry if your fretting hand can keep up, just blast through some sort of 1-note-per-string pattern and see if you can physically get your pick to do it.
I can’t do single-string arpeggios with any sort of accuracy at ALL at 150-160bpm… But, I can pick one note per string at these tempos, which makes me believe that the crosspicking part of the pattern isn’t the issue, it’s the fretting hand pattern, and that my crosspicking is working. That makes me feel comfortable that practice spent below these speeds with the same mechanics is beneficial, and not burning in motions that aren’t going to work at speed.
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Your mechanic looks good. I have a very similar mechanic at slow speeds. lots of finger/thumb motion.
For going faster, I find myself mixing in mechanics that are more ‘built for speed’.
So I mix in a lot more rotation and elbow at about the 140 bps mark, and I use less finger, and less wrist deviation. The cons of this are it requires more precision, because it flattens out the ‘U’. but the pros are you can speed it up very fast.
I agree with others here, that doing it in small bursting chunks is very important. Sometimes, that can mean just playing 4 notes at a time and resting.
And I also agree with the others that X-picking needs to be done using every possible variation/permutation, so that you have absolutely no bias towards outside or inside picking at any point.
This is not what I meant, when I said:
What I meant was that he should change gears to make sure he’s really found a double-escaped picking mechanic capable of high speeds.
I would occasionally turn on the metronome to get a reality check. I’d do that because when I can’t do something it feels to me like I’m playing faster than I really am. I’m at the edge of my abilities so it must be fast, right? Well, sometimes that’s not true, and I want to avoid practicing at a tempo where stringhopping is even possible (120+ bpm probably?)
FWIW, my first attempt at learning crosspicking was with bursting. When I did that, I ended up spending a lot of time trying to force more speed out of a mechanic that was incapable of higher speeds.
I’m not saying “don’t do bursting”, I’m just saying that I couldn’t put it to good use.
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I’ve made most of my speed gains with bursting. It’s been a really valuable tool, but like any teaching tool, if it’s not used properly, it could cause more harm than good.
One thing i’ve noticed that leads to problems/limitations for 1nps alt-picking is trying to brute-force it from the get-go. For me, I didn’t even attempt to seriously learn 1NPS alt-picking until about 8 months into learning my double-escaped form. I really spent those early months just doing tremolo picking and 3nps picking, experimenting with different mechanics, and finding something smooth, comfortable, and efficient that double-escaped. From there, I started moving the mechanic around more… and once I finally had it to where I could get to around 1nps 125 bpm and it felt smooth… that’s when I started using bursting.
I still spend 95% of the time playing in my comfort zone, but I’ve found that spending just a few minutes a day, doing very simple 4-5 note bursts leads to the greatest gains. It kinda subconsciously teaches me to utilize certain mechanics more, and other mechanics less. It almost feels like a cheat.
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Yes this is a good way to articulate what I want to do and what I want to avoid. Like, I can play complex string changing sequences/melodies/riffs/licks etc all day very comfortably with alternate picking - but I’m pretty confident I am string hopping and the tempo ceiling is quite low relative to other types of picking that I’m more comfortable with.
So it’s sort of like, NOT “how do I increase tempo at this thing that I can already do?” but rather “how can I make my hand do the crosspicking thingy?” cuz it ain’t happening, I don’t think.
But anyway I appreciate the comments and links already included! I will check them all out.
Your crosspicking doesn’t look totally wrong to me.
Here’s a few thoughts :
1/ I think you dig kind of too much on every single string, like you articulate, or “zigzag” the strokes too much, instead of a more swing pick trajectory. Try to achieve a broader swing, with the pick traveling farer on both sides of the stroke. Also the more neutral your pickslant is to start with and the best it is I think. What you do NOT want to do is to alternate (in a sense of rotating) pickslant at each string change. This is no 2WPS stuff.
2/ your motion itself I don’t know… It looks to me a bit busy, like a bit of wrist, a bit of arm etc… But I can’t say for sure.
No coming to my own experience with crosspicking…
Crosspicking is more intuitive (and to me kind of easier) on acoustic guitar for a couple reasons. First is muting, which I tend to do a lot on electric, at least a little. Muting doesn’t go that well with crosspicking 1 nps stuffs. It can be done, but it makes things trickier so it’s better to avoid that until you’re comfortable with the motion. Start with a more open, unmuted sound and acoustic guitar naturally fits more to that.
Also broader, stronger strokes are good on acoustic. I tend to pick way lighter on the electric and this might be counterproductive for working out crosspicking patterns. You need to look for more volume. There’s also the string resistance thing.
The motion itself is more of a swing as I said. For me it’s a bit like using a eraser, with the wrist as pivot. When you push that motion across multiple strings it feels almost like strumming (but note that I tend to strum with the wrist, so that comparison may be irrelevant depending on your strumming motion)
The fwd/bwd roll on 3 strings probably is the best drill for crosspicking. BTW the Bluegrass idea of ‘crosspicking’ comes from that very pattern. It forces you to all string change permutations in a very simple way - as opposed to the back and forth pattern on 3 or 4 strings. If you do the latter alternate the first stroke up vs down.
Also avoid micromanaging single pickstrokes. I really had a hard time with skipping inside change on the roll, and the more I would focus on it, the more it made me crazy 
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Is anyone finding that they are swiping with crosspicking (either scales or 1nps), or mildly “concerned” that they are? I can’t tell whether I am or poor left hand muting/movement is causing skipped strings to vibrate…
Acoustic Guitar has this article Crosspicking 101: A Private Bluegrass Lesson with Molly Tuttle [VIDEO] FEBRUARY 16, 2017 in which ten exercises are given on all open strings, so it’s all about the picking hand.
This is what I first used and refer back to when I need to refresh.
I think it’s almost a given that we swipe when we are learning X-picking. When we get slightly out of our comfort zone, the swiping starts to pile up, bitg-time. I know that swiping is a legitimate tool, used by many guitarist including Steve Morse, but for others, it’s an annoyance.
I think the best example of 1NPS alt-picking is Martin Miller, because he doesn’t swipe, and he picks the notes consistently, and with a nice attack. That’s why so many of us here are trying to duplicate his style.
Amen to that, he is a beast! But I can’t fathom how to do the MP joint thing, so I’m sticking with what I think is more like the Andy Wood mechanic.
Cool, thoughts so. I was hoping that it is more of a developmental obstacle rather than I’m doing plain wrong. I’m also happy for it to happen at full tilt-fact of life, but I would really get annoyed if it was the default approach for me!
I think they have different sounds.
To me the Martin finger thing is very clean because of the symmetric pendulum style motion; the lift you get from the finger joint ensures there is very little swiping which creates a very clean sound.
However, the wrist based approach for Crosspicking and 2WPS has a more aggressive tone for me. It’s also easier for me to palm mute in this form (although I can do it in both) to get the Paul Gilbert style attack.
Both work great so I’m just letting my body figure out which one it wants to use naturally. For scalar playing I already use a wrist only approach but my Crosspicking form is flip flopping between these two rn.
Same here. If I’m doing a variant of the 902 picking motion and say the “2” is the most often swiping, I wonder how easy it would be to change it. Even the smallest amount of change often feels like a mountain to move.
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I’m not an expert on this, but I’ve never seen anyone double-escape at above 150ish BPM 16th who doesnt swipe a lot. They may have certain ‘comfort zone’ patterns where they can avoid it, but true ‘pick-anything’ non-swiping at high speeds still seems illusive.
From what I can gather, M. Miller, Molly Tuttle, Andy Wood are at the upper-edge of this limit. Maybe I’m wrong, but I have’t seen them go beyond 150ish with their pristine forms.
For me, my non-swiping zone is around 140 bpm. I can occasionally get up to 160 without swiping, but only if its a ‘comfort zone’ pattern.
But a little swiping is ok. And I continue to practice in these higher speeds as part of my practice routine.
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