Hi!
I’m new to this forum and are simply wondering if there is or will be a tutorial of the DBX motion?
Is the code cracked on this one? This seems to me to be the ultimate picking motion for all my needs anyway.
/Jonas, Sweden
What is your picking motion currently? If you are a wrist player, we have a lesson on how to do bluegrass-style roll patterns using wrist technique:
If you are a forearm player — which is most commonly wrist-forearm, like Gypsy or Doug Aldrich style — we have a similar lesson showing a variation of that technique which can work for playing odd numbers of notes per string:
The key here is that “double escape” isn’t really one thing. Players who can play both even and odd numbered groupings usually do so by mixing and matching different motions at a subconscious level. Albert Lee is a great example of this. He is a wrist player, and he has a USX technique and also a double escape technique. You cannot see the difference between these while watching him play. It just looks like his hand is moving back and forth. It’s only under the magnet that you can see him switching back and forth between the different motions. But they’re all wrist motions, so they all look nearly identical to the audience, and probably feel almost identical to Albert when he does this.
So try not to get too hung up on doing double escape. Getting really good at any motion is the best foundation. What is your ability level with your current motion? Is it clean and fast, and can you play synchronized phrases on one string and across multiple strings? That’s really the place to start.
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Hi Troy!
And many thanks for your answer. I have been playing guitar for a long time (about 26 years), started when I was 14 back in 1995. First I was a DWPS player, trying to emulate my heroes back then Yngwie etc… Then after playing for about 10 years I started to evaluete my technique and did some research online. This was about the same time I studied at a music academy. I then decided to try out the so called Benson technique. I did that for about 6 years and it has been working very well for me. But just recently I felt bored again and decided to check out your stuff again and decided to try out the Al Di Meola diaganol stroke. It felt really comfortable right away but the thing is that what I’m really is looking for is a way to alternate pick without worring about even or odd number groupings to much. I like to improvise and play scales and arpeggio lines mixich and matching all sorts of things. Is there some sort of holy grail picking motion that once and for all solves this problem of changing strings at any tempo without the feeling of beeing stuck? I checked out the class about cross picking and it was excellent bytw…
/Jonas
No there is not really a “holy grail” motion, for two reasons.
First, when great players do things like play scales at high speed, there is a mixing and matching of different motions that happens. You may not be able to see this from the audience, but from the Magnet perspective that is what is happening. Here’s a quick overview of how that works. You may have watched this in the Primer already:
And two, even if you use some type of double escape motion, where you might think, ok, that’s the same motion all the time, there is a catch. It’s not really the “same motion”. All these picking patterns are slightly different. Just like the single-escape players, you’ll only be good at the ones you actually work on. This leaves lots of blind spots. For example, it is rare to see pure alternate players do patterns like Eric Johnson’s “fives” sequence. At the level of the technique, their playing is still at some level “worked out”, and still fenced in by the limitations of what they have and have not memorized. They don’t percieve it that way of course. As I’m sure George Benson doesn’t either.
This is all somewhat academic. The real question here is, what should you do. And I’ve learned to be skeptical of people who say they want to plan out or choose their technique, because most of us don’t have that luxury. We have to go with what is working. The first step is, the motion should be fast and smooth on a single string. The next step is, I want to see that motion with strong hand synchronization on single-string phrases. Then strong hand synchronization on multi-string phrases. Have you gotten that far with any picking motion and which one is it?
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