Element0s UWPS Progress/Feedback

Technique Critique
#1

Hey all, figured it was about time to throw my hat into the ring. I’m a dyed in the wool UWPS guy so I’ve been digging into patterns found in the Pickslant Primer and trying to tighten my chops. Still a long way to go with hand synch among other things. If anyone has any insight or advice on what I might spend more time on I’d appreciate it.

My biggest struggle right now is probably hand synch, however I do find the occasional snag in the picking (false starts, missed strings, general control issues) and my fretting hand sometimes feels like it “locks up” when I’m trying to switch between patterns, like in the 6s pattern moving up the scale positions in the first example.

Edit: footage got kind of mangled when I uploaded it to YouTube from my phone. Any tips on how to best upload video from a mobile device such as an iPhone?

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#2

The right hand looks good to me, just a matter of refining honing in on accuracy of string switches with practice.

Good self-awareness on the hand synch thing. There are definitely parts where you can hear notes choking out a bit because the fretting and picking aren’t quite matched up. I think the standard prescription emerging at this point is to put extra focus into working the two-hand coordination in one position on one string, and once you have that where you want it, gradually increasing lick complexity.

One thing to remember as you build up your accuracy and two-hand coordination (metronome makes sense there), is to ensure that at your slower speeds, you’re still doing picking movements that match as closely as possible the picking movements you’d make at your higher speeds.

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#3

Nice playing! This all looks and sounds pretty good to me. The “choking out” sounds that @Frylock points out, they could be synchronization errors but the rest of the pattern sounds synchronized, so it really doesn’t sound like it. Instead, when I see those in my own playing, it’s usually for one of two reasons:

  1. When the fretting hand lifts off too soon. Like you’re lifting the index finger to get to the new string so the pick plays a half muted dead note. It looks like you’re lifting the index finger independently, Di Meola-style. Try keeping it planted and see if the choked notes go away.

  2. As the result of a “push”. A push is what I call a picking error where the pick fails to pick all the way through the string, and instead presses against it, making no sound. It results in missing or dropped out notes. It’s an advanced error, in that it usually only affects single notes or single string changes for players who already have the basics down. In this case, the choke notes are the final note on the string. if you are trying to move to the new string too soon, and not fully picking the note on the top string, that could be why. A more Magnet-style camera angle, in slow motion, can verify for sure that’s what’s happening.

In general, a clearer closeup look at this will tell you what’s happening. You can get this on a tripod, or you can have someone hold the phone in a Magnet-style position. You’d need 120fps or better to see this.

Otherwise, I see no stringhopping issues here and honestly the playing sounds pretty synchronized here. I’d be interested in seeing a max speed attempt, even if the synchronization suffers. That will tell you if you really have a synchronization issue, and to what extent.

Again, nice work!

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#4

Thanks for the feedback, I’ve definitely noticed all of the things mentioned here although I had a difficult time articulating them. I’m going to take the next week and practice with planted 1st finger and see how that goes–I did a practice session today with that style and it seemed to help smooth things over. We’ll see if this is just a weird mental “Honeymoon” period though. :wink:

The “Push” is definitely a thing that happens with me and I’ve certainly noticed that if I’m going to miss a note, it’s probably the last note on a string. My natural inclination is to rush and anticipate the next thing. I also find that when I’m changing strings or patterns, my grip on the pick will change and I think that has an impact on missed notes as well. Physical consistency is one of my biggest struggles, and not just on guitar.

I’ll try and get a tighter angle in the next couple days and I’ll go for a max speed attempt as well and see what happens. I’ll have to look into my options as far as 120 fps cameras–not sure where mine sits right now

Cheers!

#5

Took some more clips here. Added a filter to brighten up the picking area a bit more. I’m using a tripod but this is about as good as I can get with my set-up. I’ll need a better phone/camera and a magnet to do any better than this I think.

Anyhoo, onto the clips:

Another 6-note pattern bit. It’s a lot tighter and more fluid than before I think

Tried my hand at Gilbert stacked 6s over the past couple days. The string tracking throws me off sometimes but this is a relatively easy lick to try out a “max speed attempt” which I do at the end of the clip.

And I’ve tackled one of the scarier techniques on my list recently, the classic Paul Gilbert 2WPS lick. I really want to get good at this so I can do more of the Meola/Strunz types of lines. Sometimes I really LOCK in and can play this at a decent speed with pretty fluid repetition but I would say that 80% of the time I am guessing and getting stuck in the strings. This clip almost felt right but I just couldn’t quite get it at the time of recording.

I know you folks are busy so no rush to check these out. I’m going to be using this thread as a personal picking journal as much as I will use it as a critique thread

My band also recorded 3 new tracks for an upcoming EP which will feature two guitar solos of mine so I’ll post some audio of those when they’re up, if folks are interested in hearing a newer band playing older Heavy Metal.

Cheers!

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#6

Sorry if this is obvious but have you tried the Gilbert lick “the other way up”, so to speak, i.e. starting with the three notes on the lower string rather than starting with the one note on the higher string?

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#7

I totally have–can’t do it at the same speed though. Still got lots of work to do with ascending string tracking

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#8

These look great. I don’t really see anything ‘wrong’ with the form, per se, other than the occasional flub in execution. This might simply clean up with occasional mindful repetition, now that the parts seem to be moving appropriately. How long have you been working on this?

Also, have you ever tried not trying to make any pickslanting movements? Meaning, like you have the Gilbert pattern, and you’re starting on the topmost note, using your uwps form and don’t consciously try to rotate anything, you’re just trying to be relaxed, and play that pattern with hand synchronization. What happens if you try that? How about doing the same thing with the desc sixes pattern, which may be a little easier:

https://troygrady.com/primer/two-way-pickslanting/michael-angelo-batio/clips/descending-6-the-scale-chunk/

What I’m getting at here, is that there will come a point when the movements are so memorized that you can no longer turn them off. At that point, attempting to actively “do” those movements can be overkill. It can make you dig in harder than you want to, which adds arm tension, which makes smooth playing harder and makes mistakes happen. By attempting to “not” make these movements, or at least to not think about them at all, you may still make them, but you may make them more gracefully and more accurately. Maybe.

Give that a shot and let us know what it feels like.

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#9

Thanks for the quick feedback again! I started taking my UWPS seriously in mid-October by tackling the material in the Pickslanting Primer. Single string stuff has been ongoing since then but the Gilbert stuff in the clips from today I’ve been working on for 2-3 days maybe, although I’d idly tried them before in the past.

A couple years ago (pre CTC for me) I’d tried some of the Gilbert stuff like the signature pattern and stuff similar to the desc sixes with not-so-hot results. I’ll take your advice here and try adjusting my mindset and see how things go over the next few weeks or so.

Have a great weekend everyone!

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#10

Been enjoying the crosspicking material that’s coming out lately so I’ve been whipping up a couple chord progression to practice with. Not my most accurate take but the movements are there.

No discomfort from playing this way and this is NOT max speed, I can go faster (but even sloppier) with a softer, smaller pick. I’m getting some of the motorcycle twist that Andy Wood mentions, as far as I can tell. My biggest foe is just accuracy and fretting hand synch with this stuff. I seem to panic when changing chords and keeping the picking hand consistent while doing so is tough.

It’s kinda cool though. I couldn’t have done this maybe a month ago.

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#11

Aiaight, been fiddling with my camera mount and railed off a few takes of crosspicking. I’m not really getting it.

EDIT: Just saw that the workshop went online this morning. Huzzah!

1st clip is a full speed attempt on 3 strings. I’m not able to clear the strings at this speed.

2nd is my most comfortable tempo on the same 3 string pattern. This is the fastest I can play 3 strings with the fewest errors.

3rd clip is a slo-mo take of my 3-string pattern. I think I tried to play it a little faster than clip 2

And 4th is a 4-string pattern in 7/8 time that I wrote for a new Gatekeeper song. I find 4-string patterns much easier to play though I still have accuracy issues from time to time. This would be approximate song tempo

This next one is unrelated and more of a camera test. The further away the camera goes, the more it shakes on the mount. Gotta work out a happy medium. The 6’s are more or less together though.

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#12

I’m not qualified to comment on the crosspick, but I thought the uwps gilberts at the end were very good! Only small comment is that you lost coordination for only about 2 notes at the turnaround point, I don’t think you’ll have trouble to fix it though as the picking is solid :sunglasses::metal:

#13

Thanks for giving this a shot! The camera is really too close up to see what’s going on in the wrist and arm. A tripod would honestly be fine for this sort of thing. Just work out where you need to point the headstock to get the angle you want and you should be good.

If you’re attempting the tutorial approach specifically, I can see there’s thumb movement happening and that should not be necessary. Is that wrong? No, of course whatever works is good. However I feel like there is value in learning how to do the alternating wrist movement because it leads to being able to do lots of other crosspicking techniques, from Steve all the way to Molly, along with different grips as well. Which is a cool core skill to have. And I think learning that wrist movement is easiest when you remove all other motion and allow your body to figure out one thing at a time. No forearm movement, no finger movement, no arm tracking, just the movement of the wrist itself. This means use the Molly grip, pad-side at the joint or just past the joint. It should look like what I’m doing and what Molly is doing, or somewhere in that ballpark.

The pickslanting clip at the end actually looks the best so far. That looks like a clear 2:00 uwps pickslant, like Andy uses. That’s half the movement. The other half is the 9:00 part. You put them together, you’re good.

I would set up a tripod with approximately the angle we used in the broadcast, and simply do this first:

https://troygrady.com/channels/talking-the-code/clips/902-crosspick-easy/

And then this:

https://troygrady.com/channels/talking-the-code/clips/forward-roll-easy/

And then you will have something very clear to compare with.

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#14

Been working on this regularly for a few weeks and trying to dial out the thumb movement but it’s really difficult. I end up squeezing the pick really tight.

I’m trying to do a more Andy Wood setup because the palm muting is an absolute must for me. I can’t get it much faster than this while keeping the motions large and smooth. Motion path makes perfect sense to me but my body just won’t comply.

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#15

This looks good so far. I can’t tell from the clip that you are gripping the pick tightly. Why are you doing that, as a way to “stop the thumb”? I don’t think that’s going to do it. What you really want to do is simply not give the thumb any reason to do anything. So it’s less of a focus on “stopping the thumb” and more of a focus on “doing a wrist movement”, if that makes any sense.

One thing you can try is using a grip more similar to what I’m using in the tutorial:

This will put the thumb flat up against the side of the index, and close up that gap. The point of this is twofold. One, in that position there’s less the thumb and index can do, so you may feel less need for them to “want” to move. And two, it’s different than what you’re currently doing, so it may have less interference or baggage. You don’t have to want to play this way, but you can use it as a way of getting the feeling of wrist-only in your mind.

This raises the question of why we would ever ask a person to play a specific way, instead of the way they already play which is habituated for them. In the past it was always “do what works for you”, where the way you already play becomes this sacrosanct thing that can’t be touched, because it is somehow specific to your body and “natural” for you. And I think that sentiment has generally been overblown.

At least one good argument for doing something a specific way is because it can make it possible for you to learn something you want to learn, when interference from your other ways of doing things have become a mental block. If you cannot get the feel of “all wrist, relaxed fingers” the way you are currently playing, then perhaps switching up the grip can help you zero in on what that feels like. Once that’s in your mind, you may be able to go back to the other grip while keep that mental image of “wrist movement”.

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