Feedback on technique for a newcomer on the forum

Technique Critique
#1

Hey guys, hope you all are doing well. So I found Troy and his team some time ago and decided to just join the forum. I’ve been looking at the posts here but I never posted anything here. So I thought this will be a nice first post.

I’ve been playing guitar for 2 years and am self taught. So I’m very scared of developing a bad habit lol.

I’ve been trying out these exercises for around 3 weeks now and here is my progress so far. I need some feedback on my playing so I can improve more. Any sort of practice suggestions, hand movements etc are appreciated.

There are 4 videos of 2 exercises at different speeds. Please leave your feedback and suggestions about my technique.

Here is the first video : [90 bpm sextuplets]

I started with this exercise as Troy says it helps with chunking and I’m at a speed of around 80-90 bpm. I tried playing at higher speeds here so if there are any flaws in my technique they are magnified and are easier to notice. I can play continuously at this speed.

[112 bpm sextuplets]

After being stuck in the 80-90 bpm zone for like 2 weeks or so I thought I’ll see what happens when I force myself at higher speeds. I can sort of play the notes here but I can’t play them continuously. I play a “chunk” and then I wait a click and then play another chunk and so on. Any suggestions on how should I try to achieve the continuous playing ?

[120 bpm chromatic 4nps]

So I have been doing these chromatic 4nps exercises before I knew about DWPS and my speed was around 90-100 bpm. But after focusing on the technique I was able to reach the speed of 120-130 bpm comfortably and play the chromatic sequence all the way from the first position to 12th position. I’d like to get faster here too so please give me suggestions on my technique here as well.

This is the last video [145 bpm chromatic 4nps]

Similar thing happened when I tried to go past my comfortable speed in the chromatic exercises as well. I could do little chunks like on one string and 2 strings but I can’t do it on all 6 strings at once. I saw in a Ben Eller video that trying to play 1 string fast then 2 strings fast can help until you gradually play the 6 strings. But idk if that works. When I try doing chromatic 4nps at this speed across all 6 strings I do kind of stumble.

I also got the " Speed mechanics for lead guitar by Troy Stetina" and have started practicing with his exercises.

Lastly, I want to ask is there anything specific I should also include in my practice routine ?

What are the things I can improve in my playing technique ?

Thanks for reading,
Cheers.

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#2

Thanks for finding us!

Without going into super detail on this, which I think is missing the point a little, I’m seeing perhaps a mix of finger, wrist, and arm, and it appears to fluctuate. Others can comment.

In general, when you don’t have a specific movement completely habituated yet, this is the kind of thing you see, i.e. a mixture of things that appears to fluctuate. In other words, I don’t think “speed” is the issue here. It’s choosing one type of movement and making it habitual.

I don’t use a metronome at this stage. Instead, teaching yourself to perform a specific motion smoothly and accurately isn’t specifically tempo-related. At least not at first. We’ve discussed this at length in numerous recent threads so the search feature may pull up some more results. Here’s one example:

In general, in your case I would decide specifically which picking motion you want to use, be it some kind of wrist motion, elbow motion, wrist and forearm, and so on. When you do this, you are also choosing an escape path, whether that’s downstroke escape (‘uwps’) or upstroke escape (‘dwps’). And finally note that your arm position affects the way some of these movements operate. In the clearest scenario, you would decide all these things and that would eliminate the most variables in your motion. This way you know exactly what you are shooting for.

Then your goal is to make repeated attempts to do the movement correctly. You start at fast speeds to see what happens naturally when you “floor it”, as per that thread I linked to. And you watch in a mirror or film yourself to see if you got it right. You’re paying close attention to the feel, looking for that “click” when you get it right. You can make all sorts of changes to try different approaches but if you’re not clicking, and if in your visual review, the motions don’t look like what you’re looking for, then you try again. Personally I do this type of work in short sessions of a few minutes at a time with frequent breaks. Again, no tempo reference because I’m constantly changing that to see if different speeds might feel different.

Others here can comment on how they approach this but that’s a quick and dirty. For some more thoughts on this, here’s our getting started guide which has been updated with a little bit more of a “sequence” for going through the process of demoing different picking motions and choosing one:

http://troygrady.com/start/

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#3

Thanks for replying @Troy

I thought I was doing downward pickslanting. This isn’t that ?

Also, before watching you guys I had sort of a mixed movement, but after I watched the rotational mechanic video, I tried to do that motion for picking.

#4

I’m sorry I see that you mentioned that - not sure how I missed that!

Possibly, sure - it’s a little hard to tell from this camera angle. But that’s ok. What I was commenting on is the appearance of the motion itself, which I think is more operative at this somewhat early stage.

Have you tried other motions, like dwps wrist with no forearm, or uwps wrist, or elbow? I recommend taking an unbiased look at all of them to see which one is working better right now, and then proceeding with that one to start. Whichever one is the fastest and looks the most ‘correct’, use that one. You can learn them all eventually but you want to get the most head start you can.

#5

I’m curious about something: Is being self taught the way you prefer to learn to play guitar or is taking lessons weekly from a teacher who would either come to your house or who you would go to for your lesson just not a possibility at the moment? Because unless it’s not a possibility for you I believe taking lessons is the best way to learn guitar. There are some people who have so much God-given musical talent that “self-taught” works out very well for them. For the rest of aspiring guitar players, taking weekly lessons from a competent teacher is the better way to go. That will help you avoid developing the bad-habits you mentioned being in fear of picking up. When you have a teacher observe your playing every week, if he’s any good he’ll notice if you start developing a bad habit and will point it out.

Name a couple songs that you are able to play in entirety (including the guitar solo). Name two of the most difficult guitar solos you’re able to play and then, if you can remember that long ago, name one or two of the most difficult songs/guitar solos you could play a year ago. This will give us an idea of the speed of your progress and how being self taught is working out for you. Welcome to the forum! I hope you enjoy it!

BTW, don’t hesitate to ask me for advice. I genuinely enjoy helping guitar players improve. I find it a very rewarding experience. My advice may differ from another guy’s advice but we all have our own unique life experiences from which we’re drawing, don’t we? The beauty of a forum such as this is it gives you the opportunity to get a variety of different opinions regarding advice from which you can choose the particular advice which you believe best suits your needs!

#6

Thanks for the advice. I can’t really do lessons here, teachers here are not interested in metal/rock playing. I went to one a few weeks ago( because I genuinely wanted to learn) and he was “teaching” the kids while sitting in another room, and the guitars weren’t even in tune.

Anyways, the first solo I learned was wish you were here, that was about a year ago then I learned highway to hell solo, then layla solo after that I started learning sweet child of mine solo but that was a bit tough for me to play at full speed so I learned the stairway to heaven solo ( this was about 6 months ago).

After that I revisited sweet child of mine solo and I could play it at full speed. Recently I started learning the solo to symphony of destruction but that seemed hard to play at full speed so I learned the solo from unforgiven. Now I’m again going for symphony of destruction solo.

I tried what @Troy said and focused on one type of motion. I just played one note on a string. Seemed like elbow picking was the fastest but it causes my elbow to lock and tense up really quick. Next motion which worked for me was DWPS with slightly supinated forearm and my palm resting on the saddles. So what should I do to ingrain that mechanic in my playing ?

#7

That’s too bad about the lack of good teachers where you live. It seems you’ve been doing well on your own though. I think you’re on the right track. From the songs an solos you’re playing I would say you’re at an intermediate level. This is a good time to start refining your technique which this forum can help you with. I think Troy can give you some good advice regarding how to ingrain that mechanic into your playing.

One thing I’d recommend is taking some licks that are challenging for you but not overwhelmingly difficult. Play them slowly about 90% of your practice session and then fast for about 10% of your practice sessions. Right now learning the correct motion is much more important than being how fast you can pick with that motion. The slow deliberate playing will help ingrain it in your playing.

#8

@Troy I searched the site a bit and understood what you were saying. I understand now speed and downward pickslanting are two very different things. I was under the impression that downward pickslanting made you speedier and ofcouse that was wrong.

I understand now that speed comes from whatever mechanic you use for picking movement, like, elboy, wrist, forearm rotation or whatever combination of those. Then after I have a “fixed” movement which is ingrained I work on the string escaping techniques which are the pickslanting techniques. I was wrong in assuming that they were the first step towards being fast.

So, I analysed my picking with a better angle in slow motion and saw that I’m using a combination of wrist deviation and forearm movement for picking. I can pick faster when I use my elbow but it doesn’t have that feeling of control and my elbow gets tense after a very short period.

So since I think wrist and forearm movement will work for me what are your further suggestions ? What should I try to do to get faster with that mechanic. Or should I work on my elbow picking mechanic and how would I reduce tension in the elbow ?

Here’s the video. I’ve timestamped it so you get directly to the important part.

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#9

Not exactly! Your picking motion is your escaping technique. Whatever motion you use, it should follow an escape path. This way when you have to change strings, you don’t have to change your picking motion. This is the “one way pickslanting” approach.

Great filming angle and lighting. Try to include regular speed in addition to slow motion - you can just put the regular speed clip first and the same clip in slow motion right after it.

In general, yes, it looks like you’re using a mix of wrist and forearm. However I’m not really sure what the forearm is doing for you here. And it doesn’t look super consistent - sometimes the arm is moving and sometimes it is not. In general, a smooth alternating motion with no inconsistencies is what you are shooting for.

This is very common - a lot of people say this. And a lot of people eventually develop multiple picking motions so that’s fine too. For example, lots of wrist players switch to elbow for things like tremolo. A clean, consistent elbow tremolo can sound really nice so if you want to work on that occasionally, it could end up being a good thing for you to have.

Since your elbow motion is already fast, then your goal with that motion is making it smooth and as relaxed as possible. Elbow motion may always feel a little athletic, especially when you go fast. It’s a powerful movement. But it shouldn’t feel like strain, and the attack should sound consistent and even.

Re: the forearm/wrist motion, that doesn’t look smooth to me. Something about the synchronization between the arm and the wrist is off. However, since you can clearly do wrist motion, why not try just the wrist by itself. It’s simpler because there are not as many moving parts. This means relaxing everything else and only moving the hand at the wrist joint. You can choose whether uwps wrist motion or dwps feels easier for you, but you should definitely choose one of those paths. Test to see which one can do - you can use your camera setup to verify that the escaping is happening properly.

Both of these projects are firmly in the “motor learning” spectrum. When I do this type of learning, I don’t use a metronome, and I use lots of trial and error to see what things work better. I keep sessions short, limited to a few minutes at a time. And if I experience any success, I come back a few minutes later and try to reproduce that success by feel. I don’t set specific bpm goals or even worry about tempo. This is more about occasionally experimenting here and there to see if you can find a way to make things feel smooth and coordinated. And it is about making lots of little changes to see if certain things work better. That is the active part of the process. People think number of repetitions is the real work of practice. It isn’t. It is number of tests and re-tests, until you find some combination that works.

And I don’t worry about how long it is going to take me. Sometimes these things take time. If you’re not a professional guitarist on a deadline, then it really doesn’t matter. And honestly, even if you are, it shouldn’t matter, because you can’t give your nervous system a deadline. When you get these movements you will have them for life. So give the process time to work.

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#10

Thank you so much for the feedback ! I have a clear path in front of me now. I’m really glad now that I decided to post on the forum. I hope this forum reaches out to even more people.

I’ll keep posting update videos and such in future.

Thanks and Cheers ! :slightly_smiling_face:

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#11

Not a problem. Keep us posted - we hope you see the results you’re looking for!

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