Does this feel/movement have a term?

Playing Technique
#1

I’ve been working on the various material here on and off for years and Have never really been able to fully grasp it. No matter how much I practiced I just felt I couldn’t build any true speed. I think my max cleanly right now is 16th notes at 125 bpm, which isn’t fast at all.

Anyways I was playing around with picking hand placement and feel today, specifically with the Yngwie single string 6 note pattern. As I was messing with it, I slightly altered my pick grip and sort of had an “aha” moment when my accuracy and speed shot up slightly. I can only describe the feeling as firmly holding a pencil/pen (pick being pencil) and focusing on coloring in a small area on a piece of paper.

Whereas before I was doing the "side of the index, flat area of thumb. Pick grip that is common, but it was never a firm grip. If I were to apply the same grip to a pencil/pen, handwriting would be sloppy.

with my normal grip, there is a lot of wrist movement up and down. With the firmer focused grip, it’s almost like the hand locked in more and the wrist movement was very minimal. There is wrist movement, it’s not the “just move thumb and index” that you sometimes see. The wrist movement is very minimal though.

Is this even a thing? or is it bad?

1 Like
#2

I do this. It was the last breakthrough I had, and it increased my speed and (especially) my accuracy tremendously. The extra little bit of fine motor control makes me feel more like the guitar is an extension of my hands rather than something I’m trying to manipulate from a distance.

The motion feels to me like pure finger motion, but visually I can see that most of the motion is actually wrist/forearm and the fingers are adding just a little extra bit. When I isolate the fingers part, I can see that the effect of the motion (for me) is to rotate the pick between leading edge when approaching the string on a downstroke to trailing edge after passing through the string. On upstrokes, it’s reversed. Basically: more thumb bump at the top of the swing, and straighter thumb at the bottom. (Edit: Another way to think of it is pad-side pincer at the top of the swing, and pad-pad pincer at the bottom.)

It is surprisingly easy get the timing so that my edge picking is at whatever angle I choose when it strikes the string (I like it fairly neutral for more snap, but I can dial in strong leading angles at will. I hate the sound of trailing edge picking so I can’t report on that.)

I don’t know if it has a name, but I sometimes wonder if it’s the same as the MCP motion discussed elsewhere in Troy’s videos and here on the forum. It doesn’t feel like I’m lifting my index at the MCP joint, but my kinesthetic sense is a big fat liar, so…

I don’t think it’s bad. I think it’s awesome. I can turn it on and off at will, but I rarely want to turn it off. Even on simple rhythm parts or acoustic strumming it has a positive effect for me. (I actually discovered it when I was playing Jelly Roll by Blue Murder. I wanted a less muffled, less edge-picked acoustic tone, so I adjusted on the fly and Holy Shit!) It gives me far more control, which means better timing and less space between what I hear in my head and what comes out of the guitar.

Beyond the ease of playing, I love the increased clarity I get. Without this motion, I have a hard time with smooth, fast, neutral-edge (aka ‘clear’) picking. To get smoothness I used to need a significant leading edge, even though I don’t like that tone as much because the notes sound scratchy and blur together. I like to hear every note.

#3

I think there are many ways to hold the pick and many different feelings one may feel. Some top players dont move the fingers much at all whereas some have notable finger movements

one thing about playing fast is a feeling of “letting go”. What I mean by that is, if you try to think about each individual note, your brain can only go so fast on that. So at some point youll have to start (to use Troys term) “chunking”

In other words take the Yngwie 6 note pattern. After a certain speed you wont be able to think about or feel each individual note. At that point its best to just think about it being a “chunk” of 6 notes and just make sure you hit a downstroke (or upstroke if thats your thing) on the beginning note each time

Claus Levin focuses quite a bit on accenting…which is just a different way of getting to the same idea. Accent that first note of the Yngwie 6 note pattern and then let the programming (that you establish thru practice) take over.

Perhaps if you work on chunking/accenting more you may find it better, or at least as important, as this or that particular way to hold the pick etc

of course that being said, obviously as you become faster the picking motions will change and become more precise. You will get more out of what seems like less effort