Hi all - currently going through the Pickslanting Primer exercises which feature the Yngwie Volcano 6 note patterns. I can get up to 75% of Troy’s normal tempo (130bpm sextuplets) on the first 2 exercises.
Should I focus on building my speed closer to his normal tempo before I move onto the subsequent exercises? Or is it ok to keep progressing through the exercises at 75% of Troy’s tempo?
Thanks all!
Hi there and welcome!
Definitely try many different exercises, you don’t want to get stuck on a single thing for too long.
At the same time, sometimes it’s good to try and shoot for the target speed even when you don’t feel “ready”. It may be sloppy at first, but you’ll start getting a sense of what it feels like to play at different speeds.
Note: you don’t have to necessarily play the same tempo as Troy in the examples you mentioned. Anything in the ballpark will do the job 
PS: one video is worth 25000 words per second 
I’m going to make a refinement to what @tommo is saying - I think it’s important to push the speed up but don’t drill actual patterns you want to play too many times over and over sloppy. Try it at speed a few times and stop.
I’d say for trying to get speed down, have you started by finding a motion that lets you tremolo pick with no left hand involvement at Yngwie equivalent speeds? If not, then work on trying to find that, and see if it works across each open string. Not really focusing yet on string changes. Incorporate that as a daily exercise and make sure you can reliably and evenly hit speed on the open strings first.
Why would I say that? In my experience, practicing patterns too many times when you’re still trying to find your motion will have a tendency to mess with hand synchronization/tension and I’ve found that going back to pieces I learned before I could play them, but drilled them too many times sloppy, I have to unlearn the bad habits and it’s slower going.
Similar for crosspicking, I think if you have some dedicated exercise you want to use to just find the motion - that’s fine, but you might be better off doing open 3 string rolls (and maybe just muting them with the left hand for clarity) then only bringing in the left hand when you slow it down to clean things up.
Well thank you for those tips and insight Tommo & cMcgee. Sounds like it’s good to not focus too much on 1 exercise/tempo and also to isolate the trem hand to find a motion that provides Yngwieish speeds.
To expand on this topic - would you say the Yngwie seminar should be completed first prior to jumping to the Eric Johnson seminar?
I’d say if you want to switch it up and check out the EJ stuff then go for it, better to have a few things to cycle through and switch it up. I like to be working on several things at once, sometimes progress stalls on one so you get more out of changing things up often
Agreed, there is no set “order”, and if you like the EJ stuff go for it.
HOWEVER! 2 warnings I should have issued at the very start:
These seminars (Volcano and Cascade) will only help you if you already have a USX motion. Minimum requirement is to be able to do a fast tremolo on a single string with USX motion. Bonus points if you can already apply this to some phrases that change strings only after upstrokes (e.g. the classic chromatic 1234 exercise, or YJM 6s moved across the strings in a 3nps scale shape). Check the various primer sections to verify that indeed you can do this.
The seminars use the “old terminology”, where we basically assumed that having a downward pickslant automatically implies that your motion will be USX. We now know that this is not the case: pickslanting and picking motion can exist in different combinations. Watch the seminar with this distinction in mind, and be aware that the key ingredient is to have a motion where the upstroke is free (and the downstroke is trapped).
That’s very insight. Thank you both for your guidance. I have watched all of the primer and noticed that I prefer the USX motion with the downward pickslant since I tend to play more pentatonically with 2NPS licks.
Only thing I am not sure about is my primary motion. Sometimes I notice I use my wrist and other times my elbow. I hope to post a technique critique soon to hopefully get some feedback on this.
Thanks again Tommo and CMcgee! Your feedback is greatly appreciated!
A lot of the times we make “idealisations” (wrist player, elbow player, forearm player etc.) to distil concepts down to the fundamental level. However, it is totally common for a player to use slightly different motions in different situations.
In practice: you don’t need to worry about what you are exactly doing when things are working. Of course, when things are not working it can be useful to understand why (e.g. mismatch between the motion you think you are making and the one you are actually making).
Another warning: in the typical ways we hold a guitar, the elbow on its own can only do a very shallow DSX. So be mindful of that if you notice that — for example — some USX stuff seems to not work when you engage the elbow.
But once again, don’t get bogged down by theory unless you feel there’s a problem to fix
Also pay attention to tension when playing with the elbow. When I first figured out how to fast tremolo pick and started trying to do scalar runs as a teenager I would elbow pick everything and try to ignore that I’d feel a lot of burn in my upper forearm and lower tricep. Don’t ignore that and get tendonitis.
That said, if you can play without too much tension in your elbow, you can combine it with careful finger muting and get a good swiping technique out of it.
I think I still slip into elbow picking if I really push my limits with speed.
Well I can’t stress enough how grateful I am to hear your advice! I wish you all the best and thank you again!