Elbow wagging with wrist motion

Playing Technique
#1

Has anybody else noticed this in their own playing and found a way to correct it?

I’m a DSX player. I can’t seem to limit the motion at the wrist. The upper forearm is always moving too. It ends up looking like my elbow is wagging like a tail when I move my wrist.

To be clear: this is not elbow joint motion! The whole elbow itself is wagging back and forth. I’m not talking about the common wrist-elbow combination motion.

And with my forearm resting on the guitar body of course the guitar is constantly shaking slightly because of this elbow wagging.

I know I’ll probably be asked for a TC video, but until I get my camera act together I thought I’d ask this quick question.

#2

Why would you want to restrain your motion to the wrist only? Is the extra motion negatively impacting your playing or you just don’t like how it looks?

#3

Thanks Steve. It feels inefficient and imbalanced. The shaking that it causes on the guitar body seems to create other accuracy problems. It feels like an unnecessary motion and I don’t see it in any of the advanced players here. So I just wonder if it’s a matter of refining the mechanics of my wrist movement so the elbow stops compensating as a sort of ballast??

#4

Addendum: To be clear: this is not elbow joint motion! The whole elbow itself is wagging back and forth. I’m not talking about the common wrist-elbow combination motion. The elbow joint is static but the elbow is wagging or winging up and down

#5

I think I’ve seen something along those lines before but doesn’t seem too bothersome, as far as i can tell. Care to share a video?

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#6

Right, so this is shoulder motion, and if it’s happening all the time, even on a single string, I can safely guess this is because your downstrokes are too “towards the floor”, upstrokes too “towards the ceiling”.

Andy Wood-style wrist motion is such that the path the pick traces is really a semi-circle: downstrokes go down, yes, but also a little in the direction of the bridge. Upstrokes go up, but also a little towards the headstock. Force yourself to move only the hand, but follow this path - it will change the feel of the pick attack against the string a little, but will reduce/eliminate the shoulder motion.

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#7

I have the exact same issue, and on a prior TC Troy had pointed out there is excessive shoulder movement. I can’t really tell why it’s happening though.