That would be very nice!
If you can put it on YT, so can slow it down, that would be great!
An interesting answer from zakk wylde on that topic. Interesting because it goes out of the Ā« common boxes Ā» and joins Troyās thought on managing patterns at our actual speed.
Zakk said that when he does not succeed to play a solo that he is thinking of, he trains with the metronome till he gets it to the beat. For him, it is a question of repetition (muscle memory).
Note that he was talking about playing at speed and that he already knows how to play. So it is a method if you have already practiced slow and know how to play clean.
1 Like
ok, here goes. Here is my attempt to make some awful videos of my form. The camera-phone is just sorta resting on my couch. My amp is broken, but you can hear things. (Sorry the fishtank is a bit loud).
This is me tremoloing and 1NPS picking at a slow tempo. My finger movements are REALLY small, so itās tough to see what Iām talking about, but you can see the thumb doing the pushing. My index finger is very slightly moving towards the middle finger. Itās just a few millimeters, but itās become kinda crucial to my form.
Thereās forearm rotation, wrist movement, elbow movement. But again, the escape is so small, that its super tough to see the curved path. Everything just looks side-to-side.
Also, someone was asking about using a double-escaped form with 3NPS, so here is an example of that:
Also, someone was asking about 1NPS picking at high speeds. Anything above 170 bpm 16ths is out of my comfort zone, but here is my āattempt at itā
Iām hoping to clean this up over the next year. Again, Iām nowhere near M. Miller level.
2 Likes
Thnx for the vids!
We have to find the way Martin makes those small thumb/index finger movements working together with the stringtracking from the shoulder.
You have, like me, still to much movement from the forearm, which i think is fine fore lots of stuff but not for that one note per string arpeggios Martin can play so fast and clean.
Also the way he holds the pick is very difficult for me, but it plays a part in it to i believe.
Like you, I also have my thumb more over the indexfinger. Martin holds it very loose, his thumb is not over the indexfinger and the pick is on the tip of his indexfinger, which is more straight then curled. I think this plays a part because of the ultra fine control you have this way. But the pick still slips out of my fingers when i try this.
We still have a long way to goā¦
1 Like
Troy also does the thumb over the index. Iām not sure why I liked it, but when I tried it, it just felt better.
There is no question that I still need to loosen up more. Thatās been sorta gradual for me.
Yeah, I will try revisiting the shoulder movement. I am always trying new things, and tweaking things.
I just started 1NPS about 18 months ago, and started double-escaping about 6 months before that. So I am certain Iāll gain more accuracy as time goes by. My goal is to sound like M. Miller for 1NPS, and like @tommo for 3NPS. 
A year ago, I couldnāt even break 100 bpm 16ths on 2NPS outside switchesā¦ but now Iām playing it effortlessly at much higher speeds. Everything is gradual. An hour or so a day is what I am shooting for.
4 Likes
I think a clue is right here. An hourā¦but spit up how?
I been trying to work this into my routine lately. for instance say you do a lick at 8pm then u go to bed and get up and go to work and the next night you train that lick again. Well thats 24 hrs between. You are going to lose a lot of the memory and groove of that lick.
One little trick then: When u wake up, do that lick a few times before u get ready for work. That splits that 24 hrs in half so you will get way more retention
Wanna get crazy with it? Do the lick upon waking. Takes you an hour to get ready for work? Do the lick right before u walk out the door. Do the lick when u walk back in the door from work. relax a bit, whatever, then do your 8pm actual practice time. Now you have like 4 different āmemory eventsā or recharges.
Nvmnd of course visualizing the lick and/or tapping it out with your fingers at work
Lots of possibilities there. Good way to learn a new lick quickly
1 Like
The thumb over the index will give you more grip, but since our goal is to play those arpeggioās as clean and fast as Martin i want (for now) to be every aspect the same.
Maybe it turns out later (when i ever even master itā¦) that it was not that essential at all, but for now i believe that it gives you more control to do, and feel those ultra fine movements. The stringtracking from the shoulder has the advantage that you can keep the angle between the pick and string string exactely the same on every string. I am getting much better at this alread and realy can feel the bennefit of it. Now i need to master this damn fine thumb index motion which i have a looong way to go with.
Martin is our golden standard and thnx to Troy we now can see a great part of the movements he makes, how his arm and hand are placed and how he holds the pick. So for know i want to try and copy it exactely.
If you Would play golf and want to have that great Tiger Woods thing going on you also would study exactly how he does it. What is his grip on the club, how is he positioning his body, what are the exact movements he makes.
In my opinion thatās what is missing in the whole guitarplaying with plectrum thing; to much variables going on because there is no real standard yet to teach.
If you would study for instance classical violin things are much more worked out over the years and teached the same way. How you hold and move the bow is standard.
Martin amazed us all and shows how itās done to play very fast and ultra clean one note per string arpeggioās, so for now thatās my standard.
Maybe it turns out that i am all wrong about this thoughā¦
An hour practice a day is not enough to get to Martinās level iām afraid. You will have to find a way to at least double that.
Just out of curiosity, do you know how to sweep pick arpeggios? I canāt tell by the above post if you want to copy MMās technique because you donāt know how to sweep pick arpeggios, or if you do, but for some reason prefer the Steve Morse style of alternate picking arpeggios instead of sweeping them. Until this Martin Miller guy came along, Steve Morse was widely considered to be the one exception to how he approached playing fast arpeggios. Everyone but Morse swept them and when someone would say āSteve Morse can alternate pick arpeggiosā people wold invariably reply words to the effect of āWell thatās Morseās thing; he does that but nobody else does,ā
I suppose what makes this intriguing is judging by your above posts you expect it to be very difficult and time consuming to learn the More/Miller method of picking arpeggios. If you believe it truly will be extremely time consuming and difficult to learn to do, what is it about the way those two guys play arpeggios that makes it worth it to you to try to learn to do it their way instead of the way everyone else who plays fast arpeggios does it - by sweeping?
Sweeping is a whole different thing and for certain type of arpeggio playing a great and more easy to master technique.
But you can not sweep that arpeggio part in the Steve Morse song, or for instance sweep a pattern like this: D string G string D string and then back to the D string in triplets.
Also will sweeping give you a whole different rhythmn feel and sound.
OK, I see why all that time and energy is worthwhile to you - it enables you to play different patterns such as the one you described. I suppose the reason that never occurred to me until right now is that those patterns never come up in the music I write but if they do come up in the music you write, then yeah, I can see why itās worth it to you to learn that technique.
The one thing I disagree with though is āAlso will sweeping give you a whole different rhythmn feel and sound.ā It may give a different sound but any rhythm that can be played with alternate picking (8th notes, triplets, 16th, sextuplets, etc) can also be played with sweep picking. It takes more practice to get the rhythm of sweep picking precise than that of alternate picking, but it can be done.
What i mean is, you canāt sweep and have that real stacatto accented sound. You always can tell if someone is sweeping or alternate picking, itās a different sound. Of course you can play all the the rhytmns but it sounds very different.
And indeed, in the music i like to play thise kind of patterns occour more often.
But besides that, mastering the Martin Miller technique will also help a lot with playing all kinds of stuff much more precise; it is just very great alternate picking technique!
And struggling with something which is very time consuming is a good thing, thatās where you learn and find ways of doing things.
It took me years to improvise over difficult Jazz songs with lots of chord changes; realy struggled with that. But now i can do it!
1 Like
Thank you that is very flattering 
. But I canāt really play faster than 190-200 bpm, so Iād recommend to aim for Batio or @troy levels, in order to stay on topic in this thread 
BTW I shared this already in other threads, but I found the mixed legato+picking approach to be very useful for experiencing speeds beyond oneās comfort zone. The short picking bursts in between the legato bits can be much faster than your ānonstopā picking speed. This video by John Petrucci explains it better than I could:
1 Like
Thatās still quite fast, Tommo! How many years have you been playing?
Yngwie is another guy who combines picked notes with hammer ons and pull-offs. I think itās cool how he seems to have such a light touch even when heās picking fast. He never looks tense and he never looks like heās straining to play fast. This song shows both his speed and incredible sense of melody. The fast runs here are equivalent to 16th notes at around 225bpm I think.
That video for some reason wasnāt the best quality recording. This one is a better quality recording but is only audio Hiroshima Mon Amour - YouTube
1 Like
Yeah, thatās a nice technique, i also use that sometimes.
I cantāt say it is any faster then picking all the notes. It sounds to me John does both equaly fast. Itās is a different sound though. Picking all the notes sounds a bit more agressive and stacatto.
Of course you canāt use this combo-technique with one note per string aperggioās.
no worries, this is a thread about technique
200 bpm is plenty for me. I spend a tiny bit of time above that speed, but it is only for āworking outā things, so that I can feel more āin controlā at lower speeds.
And yes, for the rare instances that I want to play faster than that, I usually just go to legato.
I do still sweep some arpeggios. At the moment, not too often, linear 1nps stuff above 175 bpm 16th. But again, Iām still not at an elite level yet.
To me, sweeping is a bit like āEVH tappingā I initially loved doing it, because it gave me instant access to something totally new, and it sounded awesome. But it is also limiting, and trying to get away from itās limitations by adding legato, etc, never really worked for me.
But alt-picking totally opens thing up, quite a bit. Yes, it has a large learning curve, but you can basically do anything with it. And it makes playing new and awkward stuff so much easier, and it sounds so much more consistent, especially the 7th stuff.
For example, the diminished sandwich, ie this:
E|--------------10ā13ā10----------------------10ā13ā10--------------
B|----------12--------------12---------------12--------------12----------
G|ā10ā13----------------------13ā10ā13----------------------13ā10ā
I used to do this using sweeping and legato. It took a while to learn, and it never sounded that good. Now I alt-pick it, and it sounds so much better, and I can easy change it around.
And check out all the threads here that start with āhow do you pick XYZ?ā The answers usually involve swiping, hybrid, swybrid, economy, mixing legato etc. I donāt even bother contributing to those threads anymore, because now my answer will now always be, I just alt-pick it.
What are some of the best clips in the interviews to start to sample his crosspicking chops?
This is what i am working on now. It is an Ab triad over all six strings starting with the Db on the low E string. it is so clean and fast, without hitting any surrounding strings.
Look how he traks with his shoulder.
And this one. Look again at the shoulder tracking.