So I’ve watched Troy’s vid about pick slanting, and I noticed that he doesn’t mention clock face movements, which made me wonder - have I wrongly assumed that the movement is supposed to be 3 - 9 o’clock? This is pretty similar to my topic “utterly baffled by pick slanting” but this is a more specific question
Not Troy, but…
My understanding iis, the reason we walk about crosspicking as a 10 o’clock-2 o’clock motion, is that the pick stroke is rotating as it moves through the strings, from (if the string was at noon) a 10 o’clock position on the upstroke and a 2 oclock position on the downstroke, in doing so carving out an arc as it moves through the string like the hand of a clock, and allowing it to escape above the plane of the strings in both directions (as I write this it’s occuring to me it makes more sense to me as a 4 oclock to 8 o’clock swing, but that’s not really the important part, so much as understanding the pick is making a symmetrical curved motion and is at neutral right around the point the pick intersects the string).
Pickslanting, meanwhile, in its purest form at least, ISN’T a curved motion. Its a straight line, but one that occurs at an angle to the string (so, if this is straight up and down: | and a non-slanted parallel stroke looks like this: — …then a downward pickslant from the bass strings on the left to the treble strings on the right looks like this: \ …though probably at a less extreme angle than that, I’m just a little limited in what I can do on a keyboard). The idea is, in return for accepting that a downstroke will be well and truly buried in the strings and changing strings with a downstroke will be extremely hard at speed, you in return get an upstroke that breaks free from the plane of the strings and rises above them, making it extremely easy to change strings.
Does that make sense? Pickslanting has, as I understand it, nothing to do with the hands of the clock metaphor for crosspicking because there’s no curve needed for the pickstroke. Instead, it’s a linear, slashing motion, breaking in and out of the plane of the strings along a linear path, whereas crosspicking utilizes a curved pickstroke to lift the pick over the strings on the upstrokes AND downstrokes.
That said, I’m just some dude who likes to play guitar fast, so giant sized grains of salt abound… 
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The clock idea is just a way to describe wrist motion. So for sure, any time you are moving your wrist, you can use the clock analogy to help understand which way it is moving. Doesn’t matter if it’s a straight line across the clock face or a curved line. Does the movement go from 9 to 3? Or 8 to 2? Or 7 to 1? Those are straight diameters. Does it go from 9 to 0 to 2? Those are arcs. And so on.
This was super helpful because for a long time I think we just said “wrist” and left it at that, and didn’t really know what we were talking about.
Not sure which video you’re referencing but the clock face concept is new as of 2018 so you won’t see anything about it in older videos. As per the above, the clock face is just a way to understand how a wrist is moving, nothing more. It says nothing about elbow movement, forearm movement, finger motion, shoulder motion, or any other kind of picking motion other than wrist movement.
If you are looking for a way to understand what you wrist - and only your wrist - is doing, then thinking this way may help. If you are making a movement that uses wrist plus other joints, then the clock can help you understand what motion your wrist is making, but it will tell you nothing about what your other joints are doing.
I see! So do most players use a 9 to 3 movement when they’re DWPS? And how do you manage to bypass the body with wrist deviation DWPS? That’s the make-or-break question, for me, I think.
Not sure if it helps but my DWPS is closer to a 10-4 motion than 9-3
That would be interesting - I’m not entirely sure we’ve seen that yet. Put up a clip if you have a moment and let’s take a look!
Not all players use wrist movement, so there is no clock at all. @qwertygitarr’s recent post is potentially one example of that. And those that do use wrist motion don’t all do a 9-3. Albert Lee is a more supinated player and looks more like 8-2.
You don’t. That’s the point. The pick goes into the strings and stops. Then it comes back out again. I’ve posted this clip a lot, but you can watch this in slow motion and see what this looks like. The pick does not emerge out of the strings on the downstroke, so the hand does not need to “bypass the body”. It just goes until it can’t go any more:
I am using a combination of wrist and forearm here. Here’s some Albert Lee for comparison - the hand goes into the strings but that’s as far as it goes. Albert is more of a pure wrist player so again we’re seeing 8-2 (approximately) here:
And here’s some Mike Stern - he’s he’s using a side finger grip so he’s much closer to the strings than me or Albert. Like Albert his motion is almost purely wrist and because he is flatter this is more 9-3:
In all of these cases, whether it’s me or Mike or Albert, the hand moves sideways until it can’t move any more. It does not need to “bypass” the body. Slight differences in grip and arm position is why we have these different variations. Watch these in slow motion and it should be clear.
More generally, I think you’ve already had feedback from others here that your motion looks good, so I’m not exactly sure what you’re concerned about here. If your motion is working, then I wouldn’t stress out about it.
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My goal is to be able to consciously go between DWPS and UWPS at will, which I wasn’t able to do. Also, I’ve just figured out my problem - I was adding a subconscious wrist flex movement for some reason. Thanks for the replies everyone, you’ve really been a big help! This is what my playing looks like now -
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…and this was why I prefaced this by saying take everything I was saying with a giant grain of salt. Thanks Troy - for some reason I had always thoughht of the clockface metaphor as assuming the motion passed through 12 noon, so I was reading 9-to-3 as just an even more exaggerated crosspicking motion. What you’re saying makes sense though. 
Alright, nevermind, I’m still confused. I can’t recreate what I did in my latest video, and even then it was still quite sloppy. I think I was utilising some kind of wrist extention to avoid the hand slamming into the body of the guitar.
Mike Stern’s movement is what I what, as it pretty much the way I usually play, but with a slant. Is there anything else happening at all? Is it exatcly 9-3? Any wrist twist? And isn’t 9-3 considered the most desirable, since it eliminates wrist flexion/extension? I’m watching the vid, but I just can’t figure out what I’m doing so differently.
That’s what’s supposed to happen, but for me, turning my arm prevents my pick from hitting the strings at all with a 9-3 movement. I’m trying to hard to replicate Mike Stern’s movement, but I just can’t do it. If it’s 9-3 then I don’t understand how his hand isn’t just slamming into the body of his guitar before the pick can even reach it. Unless he’s downward pick slanting without rotating his forearm - is that possible?
I’m sure people may think that my current technique is working, but when I do occasionally do things correctly, I have no idea what’s causing me to do it, and what’s causing me to go wrong when I do go wrong. Also, it feels like there’s far too much room for error, which is why my playing always sounds horrible when I play at jams. I’m sorry if I’m coming across as needy, but I simply can’t figure this out myself. I think I’ve misunderstood the nature of the slant itself, or what the wrist is doing in relation to the arm. I think there’s something very, very basic I don’t understand because anytime I try to play the comfortable 9-3 way with a pickslant, the body/strings of the guitar obstruct my picking hand’s path. More to the point, I just don’t understand conceptually how it’s possible to move your hand in that path without that happening. The way that Mike Stern is managing to play with his pick escaping the strings but with a 9-3 movement with a hand that to me looks entirely straight feels like an optical illusion.
Haha, I had actually told myself to not answer your threads anymore but I just can’t stop myself. This is too interesting! And I love that your so open about this.
BUT I gotta tell you I will probably come off as a total douche now, but we talked a LOT in another thread about what you could do with your hand to not be in the way, but to me, I STILL see you stuck you pinky in under you hand making it an OBVIOUS obstacle for the hand. And also your palm sits cramped to the strings which of course makes it impossible for the hand to move at all.
I know it’s hard to make adjustments to something that feels natural and obvious to you, but this is just all to strange. There shouldn’t be a problem to reach the string. So, let’s just see if you just try to get the other fingers and palm totally out of the way. What does that look like? Make a video and try a few versions that seem strange to you at first. But do NOT lower your knuckles this time. I don’t think you should need it.
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Haha, you’re giving me free advice, not being douchey at all! the pinky adjustment was actually helpful, but for different reasons - just sort of gets the damned fender volume knob out the way as much as anything else! Palm isn’t that stuck to the strings/bridge, it’s pretty easy to move it, as the next vid shows. I discussed the situation with my dad (I had to give him a Troy Grady crash course in under an hour) and he thinks I pretty much am doing a 9-3 movement that you’ll see in the next vid. I disagree with him, so you can tell me what you think… upload in about twenty minutes.
Yeah, so I thought about this more. Well to be honest I just realised I actually can’t do the DWPS without my movement turning into a rotational motion. This actually isn’t a problem to me, but as you stated you want to maintain a 3 to 9 wrist movement. Well, apparently there are guys doing this. I think Troy often talks about DWPS players also being deviation players. If they are actually doing 3 to 9 or not, I have no idea but I would guess at least something very close to that. But as I’m not capable of doing it, maybe my advise isn’t worth that much.
Here’s the thing - learning movements is not obvious. We’re emerging from the dark ages right now, where people told us “play the way that works for you” and thought this was good teaching. So we have decades of experience as a guitar community and very little clear information on how to actually execute these different motions - where to place the contact points, where to move, what it should feel like, which phrases works with these motions, and so on. They’re not hard to do with specific instructions, but we lack those instructions. We’re working on being clearer about that here.
The “Intro to Picking Motion” talk has the most clear instructions for this on the site. Have you watched this yet? You may have mentioned this and apologies if so, we’ve got a couple threads going here. You can find the intro talk here:
There are some good closeups here so you can see exactly how the arm and hand are supposed to contact the guitar and exactly how it supposed to move. If you want to experiment with this, that’s fine, but you have to replicate every aspect of what I am doing, including the contact points and the grip - exactly - even if you don’t want to play that way in the long run. Reason being, if you can’t do it all, then learning to do it at least one way, even if it’s not your preferred way, puts you one step further along. As @qwertygitarr is pointing out, you may be doing things you’re not aware of with your form, so look at all the parts, and place them in all the same spots, and this will eliminate the number of variables that can go wrong.
You’ve asked this before and I’ve mentioned that this is normal. In fact, it’s not only normal, it’s an important part of the learning process. Everyone flip-flops. Even if you experiment with a new technique, like deviation dwps, getting to the flip-flop stage is actually a sign of progress. After all, if you can’t do the motion, then you can’t flip flop. So flip-flopping is one of the first signs that you are succeeding in making the motion correctly.
Similar to the experimentation we’re talking about above, at this stage your goal is to identify exactly what is working, and recreate it with increasing consistency over time. The way you do that is by noticing immediately when it works, and taking note of exactly which joints are moving, what the contact points are on the instrument, what the grip is, and creating as vividly as possible a mental image what it feels like to do this. Then you put the guitar down, and come back a minute later, and try to recreate all those variables until it “feels” the same. Feel is paramount, the notes on your position are just technical details to get to that feel.
If you can’t replicate, then start over with trial and error. When you feel the movement click again, repeat the replication attempt. Eventually you have to learn to feel when a motion is working the way you want, and to recreate the positions and motions that cause this exactly. Repetitions and exercises won’t help. Taking note of everything you’re doing, stopping for a break, and then attempting to replicate the feel is the way.
Again, since you already have a motion that works, that you like, and that others here have told you they like, I would place a priority on taking this past the flip-flop stage. It can take a while, that’s fine. Every time you can replicate it, you are one step closer to making it permanent. But if you play for hours and hours hammering exercises slowly with some different form other than trying to replicate the good one, then you are hurting this process and only prolonging the flip flopping.
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Hello Troy 
Thanks again for such a detailed response! Yes I’ve watched the vid - actually watched the rest too, and just finished the one about blending crosspicking with arm, and interestingly, I started to do something very similar when I started to play jazz. Probably the only movement which came to me at all naturally. But yes, I have to say I was still confused about the nature of my movement. I really like what Mike Stern does, and I don’t HAVE to be as straight as him, but either he’s just got the most slight downward slant that it’s very hard to perceive, or I’ve misunderstood something. It looks almost like his arm isn’t turned at all (hard to tell with the sleeve) but given what I just did in the video, I SORT of see what might be going on. I don’t think what I’m doing is 9 - 3, but I did stumble across a much more wrist-based downslant then ever when I was recording (What a bit of luck!). I’m thinking of my wrist movement as starting from a bit further down my arm (only a bit) and that seems to have helped things a lot. What I do have actually feels pretty good, but I’m VERY fussy.
This is a dramatic improvement over the last few days, but, is it similar to the Stern movement?
That’s it! At :20 seconds you’re doing Mike Stern’s motion. This is wrist motion. Now you have a good visual record of what it looks like and feels like. “Further down the arm” is a good way of verbalizing it. You might also think “hand only”. Whatever triggers it for you.
At :30 seconds you’re changing your your forearm to be more supinated and you are flexing your wrist more so it looks bent. The motion you are making in this form is still primarily a wrist movement. Mike uses this form also. This is an alternate version of dwps wrist motion.
Check out this clip and you’ll see Mike switch between both forms. He starts in the flexed form, then about 9 seconds in he switches to the flatter non-flexed form:
For your own learning, now that you have a video record of exactly what you’re doing, try to become more aware of these different forms to point where you can activate them deliberately. There’s no need to eliminate them all from your vocabulary - they’re all options. But if you sit down to play, choose one of these motions and see if you can do so by feel. Verify with video if you have to.
Nice work!
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Wait, is it? Certainly was 9-3, but that felt/looked like I wasn’t slanting the pick before! That’s what I perceive to be “normal” non-slanted, non-supinated playing, without the goal of escaped pickstrokes (can you escape without supinating/string hopping? I thought you couldn’t). So what did I change from the minutes prior? It’s cool that I can do it! But I’m so confused… are his pickstrokes not escaping the strings at that point? Is he, in fact, slicing them?
Your arm is supinated. Are the pickstrokes not escaping? It looks like they are.
There is really no such thing as “normal” picking. Your arm is always in some position or another. And from that position the wrist also can move in any one of 360 degrees. Even if your arm is perfectly parallel to the strings, which is highly unlikely considering there is only one exact spot where that can be true, there is still a wrist motion you can make that can cause upstrokes to escape, or downstrokes to escape.
So the movements from the 20 second mark to the 30 second mark are largely the same, just one is more extreme? That’s cool. It looks like the difficulty with the Stern technique is being careful not to slip into another position, as the pick is clearing the strings, but only just. I’ll have to give it some practice. It’s very possible that I’ve been doing the Stern technique a lot of the time without even realising. Thanks Troy!
I wouldn’t say “extreme” — I think that gives people the wrong impression. When you say that, someone will undoubtedly think there’s “too much” of something. And because guitar players have had “economy” pounded into their brain, they will misinterpret the second form as somehow worse. That is not true. These forms are equally efficient. I think you can feel that - it’s a smooth back and forth motion in each case.
Instead, what’s really going on here is that you’re just using two different motions. You have one form which is less supinated, close to the plane of the strings. And as you correctly point out, the degree of clearance is now lower, the pick barely escapes. But it does escape.
Then you have a second form, the one from 34 - 50 seconds or so, where you are using a more supinated arm. The degree of escape is more vertical there. And the wrist movement is probably slightly different as well. That difference is too small for us to really care what it is in terms of the clock face, for example, but the path of that movement may be slightly different than in the first case. There is probably also a small amount of forearm in this version of the motion. So you can consider this form a blend of wrist and forearm. But I wouldn’t call it “forearm” because the wrist is clearly moving.
Totally! Lots of options. Part of the challenge of learning motions is that there are so many of them, and you can easily flip-flop without knowing. You are in the same boat as lots of people who think they can’t do something. When in reality, they are actually doing too many of them, and it just feels weird and inconsistent to them.
The challenge is learning to determine by feel exactly when you are doing one or the other, and to control it deliberately. This is especially true when you speed up and go into “autopilot” mode. The way you address this is by repeatedly comparing fast to moderate and moderate to fast to see if you can identify the feel of the fast takes that produces the same motion as the moderate ones. This is not about repetitions and exercises, per se. It’s about little tests, with filming if necessary, to eventually learn what each form feels like without having to look.
Good work here - you’re starting to put it all together.
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