Ascending problems with 210+ Trem picking

Technique Critique
#1

Hey everyone. So I’m clearly an upward pickslanter which is probably what’s giving me some trouble here. I for some reason have trouble at time going from the E to the A string smoothly and/or A to D. I will get stuck in one of these two transitions and I’m think it has something to do with my wrist placement and lack of moving my forearm down, making me totally reliant on my wrist.

Sorry for not having a better vid, I made it quick but will post another if needed once I’m back home. Thanks everyone !

Difference between 3NPS ascending and descending runs
#2

@Thrav I agree with this, from the looks of it you have much more wrist deviation on the lower strings, which you’re probably not used to. Some options would be to reposition your wrist by moving your forearm, or perhaps keep your wrist where it is and just develop comfort / strength in a more deviated position.

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#3

Oh shoot forgot about this vid as well. It’s part of the first solo in curse of the castle dragon by Paul Gilbert. The descending part where he follows the octaves down.

As you can see this part is giving me such a hard time ugh.

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#4

@Pepepicks66 Yeah I’ve always felt really uncomfortable and unsure of where to place my wrist when I play. Especially when I’m picking at the top. Any suggestions on how to practice/what to keep in mind moving my forearm while playing?

#5

@Thrav how much pressure do you place on the guitar face under the forearm vs under the wrist? I try to aim for just enough pressure on the wrist to “feel anchored”, and rest my forearm comfortably on the guitar (but don’t exert “mindful pressure”, if that makes sense). I know some people that anchor on the forearm too much, making it hard to move.

To practice, I would maybe come up with a 2+ nps sequence that jumps from say low E - D - B, or A - G - high E, being mindful to keep your wrist deviation “constant” (if you feel like you’re using your wrist to make string changes, slow it down until you feel it’s your forearm pushing / pulling your wrist).

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#6

@Pepepicks66 i def feel like I anchor my wrist, and don’t even think about my forearm most of the time”, I def just let it sit there . I think it also has something to do with the economy of the guitar. I’m not saying it’s the guitar itself that’s giving me problems but I noticed that when I’m picking on the low string my wrists sites on the side of the bridge. So I don’t have the natural tendency of moving my arm down because it’s feels sort of stuck, which I then feel like I have to lift my whole hand and wrist up (to get it over the bridge and on the face of it ) to move it down.

Idk if that makes any sense. But I’ll def give that recommendation a try, with what I identified as being part of the issue as well.

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#7

@Pepepicks66 Woahhh okay so I took your advice on changing where my forearm is, much better. It def has something to do with that.

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#8

Not sure if it is intentional since you call your playing “trem picking”, but are you aware that your hands don’t sync up? Not trying to be offensive about it just trying to make sure you don’t miss this small but significant detail. Maybe this is what trips you up.

Since you already found a fast picking motion, I would suggest take he speed back a few notches and work on getting the hands synced up… if that is what you want of course. Otherwise, never mind this post.

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#9

@qwertygitarr Nah it’s just my picking getting stuck which is throwing my fret handoff which is probably what you’re seeing.

Don’t get me wrong, my fret hand control is atrocious as you can see my middle finger trying to fly away when I do high-speed runs.

#10

The new positioning of my wrist being slightly lower, angled and bringing up my forearm fixed the picking problem for sure. Took 3-4 days to figure it out instead of who knows how long haha. Thanks for the suggestions @Pepepicks66 !

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#11

@Thrav glad to hear it man!

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#12

@Pepepicks66 well I got that run down for the cover ! Haha

https://youtu.be/8vOgZ-LovEs

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#13

Hey @Thrav! Great tremolo and that’s a pretty good Castle Dragon take already!

But I agree with @qwertygitarr that in some passages you may be picking more notes than you are fretting. This may be because your picking hand “prefers” one type of string change versus the other. If you are indeed a primary “downstroke escape” (DSX) player, then you might find that your hand tries to always a downstroke.

As an experiment, could you try something like this simple DSX pattern (starting with down):

--------------------5-6-7-5-6-7-etc.-----------------------------------------------------------------
--------5-6-7-5-6-7------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-5-6-7----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And then also something USX like this (starting with down):

-------------------------5-6-7-5-6-7-etc.-----------------------------------------------------------------
-------------5-6-7-5-6-7------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-5-6-7-5-6-7-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

and see which one is easiest / sounds more synchronised?

Also:

Don’t worry too much about “controlling” the left hand fingers. The idea that fretting fingers have to move as little as possible is largely a myth. The only things that count are the sonic result and your physical comfort.

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#14

@tommo Thank you for that information, the reason I don’t think it’s my fret hand is that, for warm up exercises I have a specific run that utilizes the D G B E strings. This doesn’t give me any problems or the feeling my pick is getting stuck. When I do runs from E to E though, or E to D this is where I end up getting stuck, between the A and D string mostly and I seemed to so far have resolved this by positioning my wrist a little lower, angled and having my pick in a more neutral position rather than a upper pick slanting position (which eventually goes back into when I go down the strings). I’m curious though on what are your line of thoughts when looking at my video that gives you the impression my fret hand is having synchronized issues rather than what I’m perceiving to be the issue? I’ll for sure give those licks a try though.

#15

Hey Thrav, it was just an impression I got by listening to your takes, that sometimes the number of pickstrokes and fretted notes did not seem to match. However the speed and high gain sound makes it difficult to tell for sure, as when I slow things down the audio gets a little choppy. This is particularly true in the Castle Dragon cover, where the backing track makes it a bit difficult to separate the various sounds when I use the youtube slow motion feature.

But this also means that the take is good enough when listened at full speed :slight_smile:

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#16

@tommo The more I watch that vid the more I feel like I find errors (that long drawn out note bend is the correct note but wrong octave ugh) but I want to keep it up so I can come back to it for references of how far my skill has come in the future. thank you for the advice and I hope I wasn’t coming off passive aggressive or anything, I was legitimately curious on seeing to comments mentioning synchronized issues which really confused me as I perceptually felt differently and we all know we can’t always trust our own perception so I was just trying to see how to identify it for future corrections.

Anyhow, hopefully once more of the magnets get produced I can snag one so I can really figure out what’s going on more haha.

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#17

No worries it’s all good :slight_smile:

Looking forward to the new clips!

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#18

Hi again! I really don’t mean to be a jerk about the sync but I think this truly might be what’s holding you back.

Since you ask for specifics, in the video “descending probs pt 2” your first complete ascending lick (0:05-0:07), you are picking four notes per string but is fingering three (with the last note held out a little longer). Look at 0:25 speed to see this. Same thing with the descending scale (0:09-0:11) but not as clearly. You start each string with a downstroke it seems which would indicate USX.

From my own experience, the best thing is sometimes to try to find the most difficult and unforgiving sound to practice with since this enhances all errors. Lowering the gain of the amp and raising the treble will probably let you hear what’s going on a little bit better. It’s of course important to practice with full distortion as well.

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#19

@qwertygitarr ahh I see, thank you for that clarification