Crucial technique aspect I've never seen being discussed? (Wrist usx)

Playing Technique
#1

Hello!

I have not read every thread, comment and I might have missed out on some things since i currently don’t have a ctc subscription. But I’ve never seen this being discussed before. Maybe it’s too obvious to some or maybe overlooked, I’m not sure. And if it have been discussed, maybe it will help someone else that has missed it as i did. :slight_smile: I figured this could be the reason why some of the dsx players we see struggle with wrist usx, as I did.

In the past I’ve struggled with wrist usx. I did dsx with some RDT motion with my pinky heel anchored at the bridge or strings depending on where i was playing. I had no problems doing dsx lines, but as soon as i had to escape on an upstroke the whole thing fell apart. USX lines were a slow, tension filled nightmare. I was practicing these USX lines day and night, both slow and fast, but with no improvements at all. So i figured i was doing something wrong but i couldn’t figure out what it was.

So to cut to the chase: The problem was that I were ‘‘anchoring’’ or planting my pinky heel as a reference point. This caused the 9-3 motion i was trying to do being super awkward and IF done correctly it would cause my whole arm to move.

Try for example to put your pinky heel on your knee-cap, tilt the arm to 45 degrees to mimic a supinated form, make sure that your wrist is straight and try to do a 9-3 motion with the pinky heel planted. The whole arm moves back and forth, right? RDT works fine to do though which explains the dsx.

Solution for me was to not plant any part of the hand on the body or strings, I still touch the strings and body with parts of my hand to mute unwanted string noise, but without planting. This allowed me to move my wrist 9-3 with ease and usx lines AND mixed escape weren’t a problem anymore after practicing this for a while.

I can’t imagine I’m the only one who did this '‘mistake’'by planting some part of their hand when trying to learn this motion?

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#2

I’ve also wound up doing this, although I’m getting my USX motion via a forearm/wrist blend that turns into Zakk Wylde elbow at my top speeds. I noticed on Yngwie’s truefire lessons that he also doesn’t seem to keep a “firm” anchor on the bridge either (you can see his hand lift up slightly off the bridge sometimes), and we know that Marty Friedman specifically avoids muted notes anyway. I get the feeling that a “firm” anchor with USX isn’t possible or ideal and that a “light” anchor is better, but maybe I’m wrong and I just don’t know how to do the motion with one.

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#3

I thought I was doing forearm wrist blend usx, but as it turned out, there was very little if any forearm. So most likely rdt wrist.

I don’t know what it is on a clock face, but my pinky heel is resting on the bridge, fingers grazing the body, and it is very supinated with a clear downward pick slant.

This type of motion has come up in a few of the interviews.

I also feel I get my fastest speeds when I only rest very lightly, or not at all, on the bridge. The grazing fingers then become the anchor. It’s possible that the slightly more flexed wrist is faster, for me at least.

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