Fast Downstrokes for Thrash Rhythms

Playing Technique
#11

This is an error in picking technique that I see under the magnet often enough that I actually came up with a term for it: a “push”. Most of the time, at least when I do it, it produces no sound. You end up with a missing note in the phrase.

As far as picking errors, it’s a “good” error, in the sense that it means your technique is becoming precise enough that single notes go missing, instead of whole phrases. But it’s still an error.

It would seem unlikely that you could get a real clear / aggressive muted sound by doing something like this, but as usual, let’s get it on video. If it’s happening, then it exists!

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#12

That’s cool, definitely want to see video of this. Your whole technique is a little bit of an awesome puzzle, as we’ve come to expect from you!

1 Like
#13

That’s a fairly accurate description of how it feels when I try to push it really fast, yeah. I’m gonna look pretty silly if that’s not actually what I’m doing :frowning:

Here’s a quick clip I threw together just now, in glorious comical 5-year old phone quality. Feel free to laugh amongst yourselves at how you can see the individual pixels. I’ll steal a better phone again some time.

This is the first time i’ve tried any fast-ish picking for a few weeks since I felt some pains and twinges in my wrist/arm, got scared and decided to take a break (around the time I was posting videos in my critique thread), so it was very stiff and crappy. And this kind of stuff is a one way ticket to Tendonitis Town. I’m gonna have to build back up to my top speed gradually, which was 15-ish bpm above this like a month ago. I can probably make a much more useful video then.

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#14

Cool clip, and great playing. I think what you’re describing as “bouncing” is the wrist extension movement, similar to what Marty does here:

https://troygrady.com/interviews/marty-friedman/clips/rhythm-muted/

The pickstrokes that you and Marty are doing all move away from the body of the guitar. This is partly because you’re using a supinated forearm, and partly because the wrist actually bends away using extension when you hit the string. Everyone does this. It’s how you can hit a power chord with a wrist movement and still somehow end up with your pick up in the air, away from the body.

Contrast this with what happens when you do dwps rest stroke, where the pick stays buried in the string. I bet that in the majority of such cases, players feel much more like the pick is “playing through” the string. In reality, that’s probably what’s happening in both cases, but the extension movement feels more like bouncing off the string because the pick ends up airborne.

To really see what happens at the moment of pick/string contact, you’d not only need a better phone but it would have to be in 240ps mode or even higher, with a s**tload of light. Examining physical phenomena of that sort is almost more engineering lab experiment territory, where you’d use a Phantom or something. That we can even talk about doing this on a device used for phone calls still blows my mind.

As a general note, considering how well you play and considering your interest level in these subjects, you really owe it to yourself to get a better phone. Almost all phones these days can do at least 120fps, even the lower end models. Totally worth starting a piggy bank for this.

4 Likes
#15

When I was trying to learn this stuff, there wasn’t anyone to tell me “Hetfield does mostly downstrokes”. I got into Metallica after “And Justice For All” had been out for a little while, and then cut my teeth on the Master of Puppets tab book using alternate picking for the fast single-string rhythm stuff. And I suspect that on lots of Metallica’s fast triplet gallop stuff that James is alternate picking.

And trying to play the fast triplets before the famous “landmine!” part of One was probably my first foray into attempts at a fast alternate picking movement. So even if I’ve been wrong all these years, trying to play those parts with a mix of up and downstrokes was a productive use of time for me.

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#18

If anyone wants to get all forensic, there are at least some short fragments of Hetfield’s fast picking from a magnet-ish angle in the clip below:

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#19

I have that tab book! It’s full of mistakes.
Ben Eller (who was guest host in the Andy Wood interview) has some good videos ‘decoding’ Metallica riffs that are tricky to figure out by ear, e.g.:


He does a quick shoutout to Troy in this video too. We should get him on this forum.

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#20

Nice video!

I like it when some famous Youtubers embrace the CtC stuff and use it during their lessons (as opposed to the deniers, but that has been discussed in a separate thread).

Anyway, I wonder if UPWS is the only key element to achieving fast down picking. For me, it’s a bit harder to do palm muting if I do UWPS at the the same time.

Let’s see where this thread goes. Learned a few things already :slight_smile:

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#21

Yeah, there’s definitely a lot of wrist extension going on. I guess I’m not actually just doing a ‘push’ like I suggested before. Unlike my alternate picking technique I don’t think there’s any finger motion, although the hand and arm position is mostly the same. Maybe the reason I can downpick at a faster tempo than alternate is because pure wrist is just a faster motion for me than fingers, and I’d see an increase in alternate picking speed by switching to pure wrist.

Been planning on getting a new phone soon anyway, not just for guitar videos, but for, you know, phone stuff. So, better videos incoming.

To be honest I actually think Ben’s a little off the mark here. I don’t really see how pickslanting mechanics comes into play at all when it’s just downstrokes.

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#22

You are right, I tried it and it seemed pretty much impossible. I thought something akin to the slap bass movement, but my theory was totally negated by experiment (story of my life as a theoretical physicist :wink: ).

@kounistou and @mcm, I was also confused by (the otherwise great) Uncle Ben’s comments on why UWPS should be better for repeated downstrokes.

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#23

Haven’t watched this clip before, but it’s clear he’s talking about the whole motion mechanic pickslanting connection. As we’ve discussed here quite a bit, there is a definitely a relationship between the pickslant, the way you contact the guitar, and the type of motion mechanic you use. The choices you make are all part of a system and we’ve seen how they correlate: uwps players like wrist, dwps players use rotation, and so forth.

For whatever reason Ben finds the pronated setup more comfortable, maybe because he hasn’t hit upon the same motion mechanic that @mcm is using, and they’re just different movements. Doesn’t mean supinated can’t also work, just means that he hasn’t figured out the movement for it yet. And those movements are indeed different.

Edit: Or at least can feel pretty different, based on lots of factors.

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#24

Troy, I am guessing that you might have started this post from our conversation in my introduction? I have no problem playing the main riff all downstrokes, pretty sure I can play it faster than than album. But alternate pick…ughh…

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#25

I’ve been waiting forever for Troy and the rest of the CtC community to talk about downpicked thrash and metalcore type rhythms.

Whenever I try to do these machine-gun type riffs, I always feel my forearm tightening up and losing a fair bit of control, especially in that three-note burst. I’ll try to post some videos in the Critique section, and hopefully get to the bottom of my technique.

That said, while James Hetfield is the undoubted king of downpicked rhythm guitar and his three-fingered pick-grip is very distinct, players like Dimebag, John Petrucci and a fair bit of newer players like the guys from Lamb of God, Trivium, Protest The Hero seem able to use the same standard pickgrip in both downpicked rhythm parts and alternate picked lead parts. Dimebag, in particular, could do very aggressive rhythm parts and pentatonic shredding lines without looking like he was changing his pick grip.

3 Likes
#26

Me, too. I have even written Troy & co asking to cover this :roll_eyes:

I was very glad when the Teemu Mantysaari interview came out and he played and discussed some metal rhythms. Even if it was for just a few minutes: https://troygrady.com/interviews/teemu-mantysaari/teemu-mantysaari-clips/rhythm-tritone-chug/

He seemed to be very fast with both alternate and downpicking riffs AND to have a very good understanding of the mechanics. So I checked his website to see if he was giving Skype lessons and decided to take one. Next thing I know - Wintersun are coming for a show in my town! Logically I booked a face-to-face lesson. We discussed exclusively rhythm playing for half an hour. He more or less confirmed the conclusions I had come to - use heavy DWPS and forarm rotation. He also said he uses the same technique for alternate and downpicking. That being said there must be some extra/different component in downpicking because the pick has to get out of the way of the string on the way up. Watching the high speed video I made in the lesson confirms that - he uses wrist extension in addition to the forarm rotation in downpicking. So I guess it’s more how he thinks about it. Still it will be very valuable if we can get a proper Magnet angle high speed video of him doing both.

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#27

Indeed, Teemu often uses rotation, and wrist extension is probably the way he avoids the string on the upstroke. However in @mcm’s clip above, there doesn’t appear to be any rotation, although extension is still present to get away from the string. And in Hetfield’s clip, it’s unclear how much if any rotation is involved, but extension strokes are still present.

So: if wrist extension is the universal component of downstrokes, and the good players all do it this way pretty much with no special instruction, even when their picking motions and hand positions are different, then why do some players fail to do this? I think we need to see a clip of someone who is failing at this to see what they might be doing differently.

Who sucks at downstrokes? Show us your bad thrash rhythms. For science!

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#28

Time for me to shine :smiley: I’ve got a Magnet and an iPhone6 so I’ll make a close-up high-speed video. Any idea where I can upload it at full fps?

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#29

Excellent. Try not to get too closeup - somewhere back around the 12th fret is great because a lot of this stuff involves arm movements that won’t be visible if you’re right on the pick.

There is nowhere you can post 120fps on the tubes. In fact, Final Cut won’t even export at that frame rate. Best thing to do is play the take at normal speed and then paste in a slow motion version afterward. We can edit that for you if you like and send it on back if that’s easier. Let us know and we’ll get you a DropBox link.

#30

With the help of Troy’s professional video editing skills we’ve got a video. First, I’ll use his compliment about the light as an excuse to show off my setup :roll_eyes:

IMG_7701
IMG_77013264×2448 1.4 MB

And here’s the video:

I alternate (pun intended!) between alternate and downpicking and gradually increase the tempo. After each alt/down take at normal speed you can see the slow-motion of the same. Towards the end I push myself to downpick faster than I can to see what happens. One obvious problem is that sometimes wrist extension is not enough and I hit the string on the way up. Another one (that is not seen on the video) is that I became so tense I had to stop. Also, the amplitude of the motion gets bigger.

What do you think?

P.S. I should do this more often! Thanks for reminding me what wonderful analysis tools I have!

5 Likes
#31

As I mentioned on DM great job filming this. Do you normally play with this kind of rotational technique, and how long have you been playing this way? Is this something you learned from us, or were you already doing it?

The flexed wrist approach, like what Teemu and the Gypsies use, is certainly one way of doing this but it’s not the only way. I’m looking at Hetfield’s clip in slow motion and he is supinated but the wrist is not flexed. In other words, his wrist is straight. There does not appear to be much in the way of forearm rotation at all for his alternate picking technique. The gallops are supinated dwps, and his escaped downstrokes are of the extension variety. It’s pretty straightforward, powerful, and effective. Such a great player.

Ergo if your flexed rotational thing feels weird or stiff, try straightening that out and see where it gets you. Take a look in a mirror, or film it, and see if you can do it without rotation.

Also, if you were to hit a power chord on the A string repeatedly, while anchored, at a medium speed, and without thinking at all about your form, what would that look like? Would that be rotational, or more Hetfieldy?

3 Likes
#32

Is Teemu’s wrist really bent as much as @BurningAXE in his video??? It sure doesn’t look that way to me in the interview video