Downward pickslanter has 2WPS breakthrough :)

[Tom_h]

Just thought id share this in case it helps somebody else?

Im a primary downward pickslanter. I’ve been working really hard on the antigravity licks for about 2 weeks. I have also spent a chunk of time on the ‘Teemu Mäntysaari Clip - Gilberts Stacked Demonstration’.

I could get the ascending stuff really quick (using swiping and dwps) but i just could get the descending stuff clean every time. Very hit and miss. Sometimes it would be smooth as hell and i would be like ‘I’ve cracked it’ then the next rep would be horrible again? The worst on the top e and b strings

So just now i thought to myself what is making one way so easy and one way so difficult? Has the be the pick slant right?

Ascending can be played with swiping and an almost exclusively downward pick slant so i must have to flip this thinking it make the descending part smooth? Obviously it worked.

What i was doing was starting the descending part of the run with a downward slanted downstroke and not flipping to uwps till the 4th note (the string change).
What I’ve just done was to actually start the descending part of the run with a more neutral pick slant (still downward tho). This to me felt really weird and because I’m such a heavy downward slanter. Even starting with a pick angle just under neutral to me felt like i was doing severe upwards slanting and felt even more strange to do this on a downstroke! In my mind it felt like my pick was going to go under the string??? Funny how your mind creates mental blocks eh!
I know troy must have explained this in the seminar but my little pea brain has finally just twigged!

Anyway i have seen the light and things seem to be moving nicely now in the descending stack gilberts department

hopefully this helps someone out?

[Troy]

Glad to hear you’re making progress! I just want to clarify, which you probably already know, but just in case, that these are even-numbered-note patterns, so there is really no need to use two-way pickslanting for them at all. Teemu explains this in the interview, i.e. that these are not really two-way pickslanting licks, he’s just adding in redundant movements because he thinks it’s easier for him.

The simplest way to play all these patterns, and the way I did it for ten years when I didn’t even know there was such a thing as upward pickslanting, is downward pickslanting, just starting on an upstroke:

https://troygrady.com/seminars/antigravity/clips/gilbert-sixes-dwps/

If you really want to start things on a downstroke for whatever reason, I also played these types of lines just by repeating each three note grouping per string:

https://troygrady.com/seminars/antigravity/clips/threes-dwps-desc/

It’s almost entirely the same lick - only the intitial string is different. If you want to practice these patterns as two-way pickslanting you are of course welcome to do that. But it’s not going to sound any different to the listener. Instead, why not spend the time doing more musical practice, writing cool dwps phrases, and so on.

If you want to practice two-way type mechanics, there are tons of other phrases where those movements are necessary to play the phrase, and make a (to me) more meaningful addition to your musical vocabulary.

[Tom_h]

Hi @Troy thanks for taking the time to write that. 100% appreciate what you’re saying.
Quick question
Ok I’m getting my self confused here now. If I’m a downward pick slanter and i want to play the stacked gilberts starting on a downstroke then wouldn’t i have to switch to upwards pick slanting on the 4th note? wouldn’t that make it a 2wps lick?

the descending portion

down up down (rotate) e string , up on the b string, down up on the e string, then a round of descending 6’s down up down (rotate) e string, up down up b string

thanks

[Troy]

Correct! But only if you insist on starting on a downstroke. Which, as I’m saying, there’s really no reason to force yourself to do that when it makes everything more complicated for your picking hand. Just start on an upstroke and the line works out fine with only downward pickslanting.

Again, if for whatever reason you really want to start the phrase on a downstroke, then just make believe the lick begins on the fourth note. Start the lick on the fourth note, with a downstroke, and again everything works out fine.

How about another option: start on a downstroke and use a pulloff for the third note. Then start on a downstroke on the next string, with pure alternate picking, and only downward pickslanting. Now you can have your three notes on the first string, and your downstroke to start the phrase.

Part of the joy / journey of being a one-way pickslanter is figuring out how to fit things into your vocabulary of easy movements. Whenever you have an even number of notes per string, you’re good, there is no need to try and change up your hand position. This is the way Django’s entire vocabulary works. It’s the way Marty Friedman’s entire vocabulary works, for the most part.

If you’re already comfortable with downward pickslanting, then you are already comfortable with one of the most capable picking systems around. If you’re willing to be a little creative, you can get a ton out of it before you need to look for alternatives.

[Tom_h]

Hi @Troy thanks again for all the helpful info.

I have got the ej system down really well and I use the ‘legato escape hatch’ method from ej and yngwie seminars a lot in my playing. The main reason i was diving into 2wps was just because i never did it and i wanted something new to work on. I could sit happily in the dwps world for the rest of my time but i see you and the other players in the seminars using 2wps and i just want me a piece of that!!

I watch antigravity and started with the 6’s patterns. I figured it would be as good a place as any right?
I just liked the sound of the stacked gilberts passage in the Teemu seminar and so followed the tab.

The main reason i was keeping with the downstroke as the first pick stroke was so that i could line it up with the metronome easily and also begin the passage at the start of the bar.

Here is me playing using the dwps method mentioned above. Sadly i didn’t get my right hand in shot but dwps all the way

Tom Houghton D Blues Solo Guitar Teacher Ellesmere Port

just so you know I’m actually a musician and not just a fret wanker

[tommo]

@Tom_h

i see you and the other players in the seminars using 2wps and i just want me a piece of that!!

You are not the only one Both techniques are still under construction in my case.

By the way, in my playing I found that TWPS is much more athletically demanding than DWPS, are you finding the same?

[Tom_h]

hey @tommo
im not finding it makes my arm/hand anymore tired if that what you mean? It took me a while in my playing to learn to stop being so heavy handed. I come from the hendrix/srv school of learning and so i was literally smashing the strings so got the tone. When i got onto ej i noticed how lightly he played so i spend a lot of effort on relaxing. It was so hard to undo many years of playing heavily and i still catch myself every now and then tensing up.
So with the 2wps stuff I’m already hyper aware of not tensing up.

What licks/exercises are you working on for 2wps mate?

[tommo]

Yeah I do like to smash the strings as well \m/ … which indeed makes some of the EJ stuff harder to play (e.g. combining smoothly alternate picking and sweeping). This can be associated with tensing up as you say, but I found that rest strokes can help to pick hard without getting too tired (as the string stops the pick for you).

@Tom_h

What licks/exercises are you working on for 2wps mate?

The usual suspects, like the sixes you mention, the last lick in erotomania’s solo and variations thereof. One of my goals is to play (some of) Vinnie Moore’s stuff fluently, so these are some of the main building blocks. I posted some stuff in “technique critique” if you want to have a look, but it’s nothing to write home about

I am also attempting to write some small etudes to practice the various pickslanting techniques in a more musical way, and eventually I’d like to share them here on the forum (but it’ll probably take some time!).

[Tom_h]

@tommo i’ll take a look for sure

just got to the studio now and have 2.5 hours with no kids before lessons start so gonna blitz some exercises now I call it my happy time

[Troy]

No problem Tom whatever works for you. I think I just found it a little weird because I don’t think of that lick as a two way pickslanting lick. But if that’s how you want to work it more power to you.

[Tom_h]

Hey @Troy

Ive just had another one of those lightbulb moments after watching teemu again

I noticed that when he does his uwps upstroke he often seems to use the top side of the pick. So he’s edge picking on the up stroke.
For some reason I’ve been overlooking this aspect of my picking. I was using the lead edge of the pick on down strokes with dwps but for some reason i was using an almost flat picking angle with the pick on the uwps upstroke? After watching teemu again i noticed that on his uwps upstrokes he almost seems to draw the pick back across the string with the top edge of the pick going in the direction from the neck to the bridge.

It has made everything so much smoother! Im finally feeling like I’m nailing it

I think the down up rotate to me now seems more of a down up ‘change edge’ if you will?? or down up 'rotate the pick clockwise on a clock face (as in if we had a nail through the middle of the pick then rotate the pick on this axis)

Im not sure if this was covered in the antigravity seminar or not? Sometimes there is so much info flying at you in the seminars its easy to miss little elements. Anyway this little adjustment has changed it all again for me. More so than what i was saying in the original post i made.

[Troy]

Hi Tom. If you’re referring to bending the thumb, yes we do talk about this a little in the seminar. It is one way you can change the picking orientation between dwps and uwps.

However, plenty of players use flatter amounts of edge picking, and Andy Wood uses both depending on the tone he’s looking for. So technically these movements can be done with a lot or a little edge. There are a lot of moving parts here and it may simply be that you’re still learning to figure out by feel what they’re all doing at any moment. Ultimately you want to get a point where you’re turning these things on and off intentionally, instead of being somewhat at the mercy of randomness.

[Tom_h]

@troy

@Troy

Ultimately you want to get a point where you’re turning these things on and off intentionally, instead of being somewhat at the mercy of randomness.

Amen to that
Whatever is happening with my picking I’m enjoying the hell out of it

[Prlgmnr]

I think in the end if you concentrate on what sort of sound you want to hear/make, your body will cooperate and make micro adjustments to the angle of the pick, rather than you trying to think “I would now like X degrees of edge picking for a slightly softer attack”.