Cross Picking Revisited, and time management/maximizing efforts

Playing Technique
#21

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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#22

Are you referring to 1nps or scaler playing? I have got double escaped at 180bpm (16ths) for some small scaler repeating licks, but I do wonder whether I am swiping some of it. I’m due to put a critique vid up soon for it to work out what I’m doing, but having to be a bit careful as I’m nursing some hand/arm/back issues

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#23

Yes, I meant 1NPS playing. I am pretty fast & clean with double-escaping 3nps runs, but 1nps stuff is still very swipey at high speeds. Yes, definitely put up a video.

#24

Hi,
I finally got round to doing a video, it would be great if any of you could give some feedback! :laughing:

#25

Thanks everybody! Sorry I’m just getting back to this now…hence time management issues, hah. Some good food for thought here. I’ll try out the suggestions and also reread my old thread and the linked threads.

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#26

I recommend just doing different banjo rolls with various chord 3 note chords (Triads, Quartal Harmony & Sus Triads, and Shell voices) and try to get the motion fast and fluid. You can also work on alternate picking arpeggios and triads within scale patterns.

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#27

I appreciate the advice. In my case I’m extremely comfortable with alternate picking all sorts of whacky stuff - it just has a low tempo ceiling. I actually used to practice everything alt picking for a really long time, many years, with a lot of intensity, but I learned later that I was always doing a hopping movement and I think that’s why my tempo ceiling was very low.

So then I started relying more on 1NPS, sweeping, and hybrid as those came more natural to me.

It’s really the motion or movement that is still a puzzle to me. I’m including this comment just because I think it’s important for other people to see too that you can spend a very long time practicing 1NPS arpeggios and related material but if it’s a hopping movement I think it’s probably just always going to feel tense? That was my experience for sure.

#28

That’s when I recommend watching videos of people like Andy wood and John Petrucci to see how they are making their wrist movements in an efficient way. Copy their arm position, pick grip, and where they anchor everything on the bridge and then try to copy the movement.

Then during practice have times where you floor the tempo and push the boundaries. 16ths at 120 seems to be the boundary for stringhopping so that should be your minimum goal.

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