Feedback needed: Forearm USX & Pronated DSX

[Shredd]

Tap test with forearm/wrist, 230 BPM:

Tap test - Forearm 230 BPM

Forearm/wrist tremolo:

Forearm/wrist test

I tried this forearm/wrist motion just now. It felt okay and I think the tap test checks out. It’s easy to do 2-3 bars at 230, and I can do 240 for two bars, then it falls behind.

For the tremolo, I had to tool around with grips and forms for about half an hour to get to what you see on the video. I couldn’t go fast if I ditched the flexion and anchored the palm heels on the saddles, or tried the “semi-muted sound” like in the Primer chapter. The motion got clunky and slow, my thumb would accidentally mute the string I just played etc. I’ll shoot some clips of that later.

After filming I these videos, was able to do a couple of single-string chunking reps at 215, which felt pretty amazing to do! I’m gonna keep experimenting with this form. My main concern right now is the unmuted lower strings, but I’ll focus on getting the motion smoother first.

Next, pronated wrist DSX tremolo:

Pronated DSX - far angle

Same but a closer shot (sorry it’s a bit too dark):

Pronated DSX - closer angle

I started trying out pronated wrist DSX a couple of weeks ago and noticed immediately that it’s much easier for me than, say, supinated wrist USX. In fact it feels almost effortless at 180-190 BPM. It lacks attack, but I’m trying different grips to help that.

I don’t think the motion is escaping correctly yet, at least not all the time. It turns into a trapped motion quite easily. But even when it does, the ease and reliability of starting and repeating this sort of motion is huge compared to wrist USX. With that motion, I feel like I almost don’t even know how to play upstrokes, and by looking at some old footage of my USX, I think I can see this DSX motion trying to push into existence.

What could I try to get this motion to escape? I’m pretty much maximum-pronated, but whenever I go fast, the motion flattens out. My suspicion is that the fast motion itself doesn’t want to move away from the guitar’s body even though my arm is tilted to facilitate the escapes. I tried exaggerating the escape trajectory for a second, but I seemed to lose the ease and smoothness and kinda discarded that idea.

I’ll try to get better close shots of the pronated DSX tomorrow. Thanks for any tips or ideas guys!

[tommo]

You totally captured the spirit of the tests and it seems you got great results already

I’m a bit jealous of your forearm tremolo, looks like you may be getting close to @qwertygitarr’s form! Great job!

Only feedback I’d give - maybe a bit academic - is that I’m not sure I’d call your DSX form “pronated” as it looks like the underside of the arm is still fairly visible. But all that matters is that it works!

[gabrielthorn]

I’m also jealous of that forearm motion

[Shredd]

Thanks guys!

I checked out @qwertygitarr’s videos and that’s some serious speed, and sounds really consistent! Goals for sure. And @gabrielthorn, your videos inspired me to try this! Especially when you mentioned that your motion is like “shaking water off of your hand”. That really sent me to the practice room. I’m gonna keep exploring this motion.

@tommo

Only feedback I’d give - maybe a bit academic - is that I’m not sure I’d call your DSX form “pronated” as it looks like the underside of the arm is still fairly visible. But all that matters is that it works!

It’s not pronated?

This is what it looks like down the strings:

And this is what neutral feels like:

The motion is easy to do, so it kind of works. But looking down the strings I see now that the motion is definitely trapped, it doesn’t really escape. I can turn my arm to the radial side some more, but then I can’t reach the strings and the whole setup would have to change.

I feel like I can’t make the fast motion diagonal. It stays trapped no matter what my arm position is. If I try to “aim” a diagonal motion, the pick starts missing the string and my wrist starts extending into the air, doing the same trapped motion. Like this:

As soon as I’m not hearing what I want to hear, or if the string attack feels sticky, my hand starts reacting and doing stuff to fix the issue.

Not sure what I should do. Seems like I’d need to break out of some habit or try pushing past some limit, which I’m not sure what it could be.

[tommo]

@Shredd

It’s not pronated?

It definitely looks more pronated from this angle, thanks for the new pic

@Shredd

The motion is easy to do, so it kind of works. But looking down the strings I see now that the motion is definitely trapped, it doesn’t really escape.

Leaving the “look” of things aside for the moment, how does it sound? Is the swiping really obvious when you change strings? Or is it like Jorge Strunz, where you can see it on camera but it’s 99% silent?

[Shredd]

Here’s a swiping test on distortion:

Cleaner (same takes):

Those are the best-sounding ones I cropped from a while of playing around with this. It’s maybe not the prettiest sound ever and there’s plenty of noise other than the swipes, but especially on distortion, it’s sometimes surprisingly passable. I wouldn’t put the clean ones on a record though!

I also found interesting that after moving to the next string, I wasn’t always picking the new string’s first upstroke properly. Once I focused on that a little, the whole phrase seemed to sync up better between the hands and the overall clarity increased. The swipe noises seemed less prominent when the actual notes were stronger. I think this was really good advice @tommo, thank you!

I’ll be going forward with the forearm motion and testing these swipes, but I’m still curious about how to produce an actual diagonal escape motion with the wrist. Is there anything that I could try with the motion I’m doing in the videos? The motion is easy to do, it just doesn’t escape and turning my arm doesn’t make the pick’s path any different.

I’ll try the other tapping tests meanwhile.

[carranoj25]

Ive been trying to implement more forearm usage in my licks. Logically speaking, it’s the easiest for me to get that flow, but I think it’s harder to go across all 6 strings with it. Maybe just need to engineer licks better for it? If I could take a pill for Molly Tuttle’s joint mechanics I’d take 10! haha. Hers seems the most “liberating” to me if you will

[Shredd]

I did the Al DiMeola 2 o’ clock motion test:

2 o' clock wrist motion

Slowmo, different clip:

2 o' clock wrist motion - slowmo

At first it was awkward but it got much easier after a couple of minutes.

Around 175-180 is the max right now. I can do it for a couple of bars. If I try to go faster, I start making twitchy tiny movements and the speed goes involuntarily faster and faster without control, until I tense up fully. Those jittery moments of faster speed are not me trying to go faster, they just happen when I’m trying to relax.

Should I worry that my upstrokes look a little different than downstrokes (see slowmo clip), so that the pick seems to move in a slightly elliptical path instead of an identical back and forth curve? I can feel this happening on a guitar too sometimes.