Europe Superstitious solo cover. My fastest ever picking!

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#1

Alright! When I joined CtC, this is what I wanted to be able to do! Here’s my cover of Superstitious. It hits nine-tuplets at 89bpm, which by my calculations is equivalent to 16ths at just over 200bpm. I would never have believed I could do that six months ago.

Weirdly, I can see a bit of elbow picking on this video. Nothing wrong with that, but I swear I don’t do it when the camera isn’t rolling. I think it’s a bit of tension because of the pressure of filming. Still, it sounds good so I’m not too worried.

Thanks CtC for making this possible. I’ll try to get a more technique friendly camera angle next time!

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#2

Sounds great! Very inspiring to see fellow members making such progress. In six months too!

It would be great to hear more about your methods and “aha!” moments, if you have anything to share?

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#3

Thanks! Yeah, I did have some aha moments. I’m planning to make a video about then because I came up with a burst picking routine that really helped, but would require a long and boring written explanation.

To be clear, six months ago I had a range of sextuplet licks I could pick consistently at 110bpm, so I was not starting from scratch. Now I’ve got some sextuplets at 135 or 140, and making that transition was a major hurdle. I switched from a side pad grip to a trigger grip for my fastest picking.

One thing that helped a lot was stopping after each burst and analysing what was happening in my body. I noticed I was tensing my shoulder at higher speeds. So after a burst I’d think “OK, can I do that without tensing my shoulder?” I found that I could, but I had to focus on it.

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#4

Body awareness - I think that is a good way to deal with unwanted tension. Something I do in addition is to stop playing when I notice, then tense it more for a few seconds and relax it…then continue in a relaxed state for as long as possible.

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#5

sounds great and your fast picking is spot on!

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#6

Fast playing. Keep Going.

#8

Great playing there, feels good getting better here.

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#10

Its all in the hair obviously!

Jokes aside, well done mate

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#11

nice job there.

Kee Marcello is awesome.

that is a great solo, and you handled it very well.

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#12

Nice work, but I don’t think he’s actually playing 3 notes on the A string before the turnaround. If you slow down the album version or even check his fretting hand motions in the official video, for me it seems like he’s playing only the 19th fret on the A and starts the ascending lick straight after that with 17-19-20.

Also, he plays it a bit differently even on his REH instructional video where he repeats the 20-22-23 notes on the B string before the last note on the high E.

Maybe I’m wrong, I’ve just started learning this solo today and came across your transcription. (which is still the closest to the original regarding the fast run I’ve seen on YouTube).

Same here on the live version, he plays 4 notes on the A string at the turnaround.

(And also screws up the last note, despite repeating the 3 notes on the B string to make it easier to switch after the downstroke).