Figuring out how to pick a double time Link

Technique Critique
#1

Video length one minute or less.

Hey peeps. Trying to figure out what’s wrong with my picking–I don’t like edge picking on my current setup. I pick mostly with forearm rotation and pick slating (upward and downward). Let me know what suggestions you have–can’t get the motions fluid and at the tempo I want – 140 to 160 sixteenth notes. I don’t have a Troy Grady Magnet–because I am SmartPhone-less (I like to be as smart as my dumb phone).

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#2

i would say practice the phrase swing tempo first then burst into triplets might help iron out any kinks.

by this i mean altering this kinda exercise to the phrase you are working on.

#3

I do love the sense of polyrhythm and drive that those 16th note triplets give. I’ve been enamored by my fleet fingering peers just like everyone else, but my relationship with “playing fast” is now more about rhythmic variety and drive.

More about the specifics of my playing–to figure out what’s not working. I play with a 2mm BlueChip pick. My string gauge is heavy up top and light on the bottom (14-17-26w-32-42-52)

I can get the line to work at 50bpm with 16th notes and the arpeggio at the end clean, but above that gets sloppy. Maybe I have an issue with down strokes/ upstrokes or where I pick slant? There are 3 notes on the D string… always hard to talk music without a staff of music paper. The line has F-E-Eb-D on the “g” string, then C-Bb-A on the “d” string, then G-F-E-Eb on the “a” string. Then Eb-G on the “a” string continuing up the Eb maj7 arpeggio… Does that make sense?

Thanks for the advice Brade! Nice to meet you!

#4

ok well in order to break this out smoother you will need to do a downstroke pick note, upstroke pick note, pulloff to note or downstroke to note, pull off to note, upstroke note during the 3 notes per string fragments. or learn to double down like gypsy jazz players do (half rest stroke in this musically descended instance), or use the opposite of your natural picking escape maneuver during that string change.

do you mean an ascended maj7 arpeggio? what is the path you are choosing to play this arpeggio?

of course i could have all this wrong do you naturally escape the plane of the strings with a downstroke or an upstroke? if you are downstroke let me know and i can soundslice you some options. the options i have laid out above are for escaping on upstrokes.

#5

It’s a little hard to tell from your video, but I think you might be more DSX inclined… you could slightly re-finger it like this and start it with an upstroke, and it should be easier. Or you can continue starting with a downstroke, but still use the same fingering - in either case it will reduce how many changes to escape need to be made.

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#6

Interesting suggestions!

Excited to try them all, keep 'em coming!

I’ll report back with another video update later in the week with both of your suggestions in mind. Oddly, it’s hard to get jazz guitarists to talk about pick technique–unless they play Manouche style–so all this is very helpful :slight_smile:

#7

If you tremolo as fast as you can on a single string what does it look like?

How do your pickstrokes naturally escape?

I don’t think I’m seeing any forearm rotation, your motion looks more wrist based to me, if I had to guess, probably DSX wrist

I think your problem is you haven’t learnt a picking motion capable of the speeds you’re trying to play (from what I can see in this video). Look through some of the CTC content and assume a similar setup to the motion that feels most natural (potentially DSX wrist) and spend some time working on your tremolo until you can comfortable play around 115bpm sixteenth note triplets for minutes at a time (that’s what worked for me). In my experience, any less than that I could do with an inefficient motion for bursts at a time and any faster seemed unnecessary.

Once you have a solid foundation in a fast motion (you’ve learnt/internalised the motion) the speed should always be on tap and you should be constantly going back and locking into that fast motion again to make sure you’re not practicing with an inefficient motion :grin:

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#8

could we get a video of that? haha i call bullshit but maybe you can go for two minutes? i am kidding by the way, but it just sounds pretty rough. sextuplets at 115bpm for 2 minutes, to go that long i would have to use tension. my tremolo completely loosey goosey twitchy manouche turning motion high e string tremolo maybe 20-30 seconds, probably more like 20, tops then the pick will likely get hung up somewhere.

#9

Nah this is nothing super human. I just tried this, cold (first time I picked up a guitar today). It takes focus and yes, at times I drift a little and have to get back on. Tension never happened though. The point isn’t really that this motion can be done for minutes on end. The point is that the motion that’s the correct one is capable of speeds like this (and a good bit higher) for decent durations. So we should be highly suspicious of a motion that can’t go at this speed for even a few bars. That means, throw that motion out and find a new one.

I suspect @Jacklr is just recounting something that he did as he recently cracked a good rotational mechanic. I never timed myself but I definitely did long-ish tremolos when I was shopping around with motions. Longer durations do help us really identify what the movement feels like and how to recognize what happens when that motion begins to “fall apart” (i.e. slow down, get “stuck”, change into a new motion entirely etc etc etc).

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#10

I agree about the motion appearing more like a wrist based dsx motion.

Also agree about recording a fast tremolo. I’d not worry too much about the bpm though, just use it as a reference to what we mean by “fast”.
I’d recommend experimenting with tremolo without a metronome, initially at least. Personally I find it too distracting when in the finding a motion stage. That’s just my two cents :slightly_smiling_face:

#11

He actually did post a video, in his own thread, where he got the fast forearm and wrist Usx going for an extended period of time. I think the tempo was actually 120bpm, if I remember right.

I remember this because it made me go back and have a closer look at my own forearm and wrist mechanic.

Anyway, this is @Pickinstone technique critique, so best to focus on his technique here :grinning:

#12

Filming this made me realise just how long two minutes (in the context of music) really is, luckily most songs aren’t two minutes of straight alternating picking sixteenth note triplets at 120bpm :laughing:

I don’t quite make it to the two minute mark but hopefully you get the general idea that an efficient motion can be used for a long time without rest and tension

Personally, I would advise against using speed bursts as a learning tool when attempting to learn a motion as my old inefficient motion could play at this speed for a few reps at a time. I think the key to learning this motion was lots of re-adjusting and trying to play for extended periods at a time :smiley:

This is a much more sensible way of conveying what I meant!

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#13

haha i am glad you got what i meant about the minutes thing, although being able to do it for two minutes will likely help tackle combinations of strung out lick and arpeggio ideas in a complex order.

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#14

Ok, I take back my 2 cents. Listen to Jacklr :sweat_smile:

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#15

Okay, so I tried the tremolo idea. I marked my forearm for you all to see–look at the great lengths I am putting myself through to figure out my technique :rofl:

The exercise is a great meditation–and ear training for getting those attacks in the pocket and even… which they were NOT in this 1st try.

Maybe my lofi video with forearm tattoo will shed light on my shreddy problem…

All puns aside, I do appreciate you all taking the time. Brade, I took a lesson with Denis Chang–of DC MUSIC fame–a while back. Interesting lesson on picking and he had a lot to say about what I was doing. He said it was all about “being able to see the inside of your palm–of your picking hand” and to “let gravity do the work.”

Anyway, I want to keep my talk short–that’s how I got in trouble on other music forums in the past :frowning:

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#16

You know I think i read and seen some posts of his saying he (denis chang) is releasing a book. I wonder how much he has to say about it. I learned from Christiaan van Hemerts YouTube Channel, and watching Stochelo do it with detailed picking, fingerings, and close up of Stochelo Rosenberg on his academy which Christiaan also helped transcribe all of those solos, the most accurate tablature I have ever seen on the earth, better than japanese tablature books and young guitar. I don’t get paid anything, but other than being a member here I would say try out a membership for a month over there if you already have a decent understanding of the rest stroke if you have disposable income. Incredible solos, phrases, and detailed analysis. The more solos you learn the more you start to grasp everything. I only have 7 songs learned, but with each one I gain baby steps into the real journey of what it takes to be able to improvise. As well as trying to uncover my own abilities, and the abilities that I lack that need work.

see i had a suspicion you were usx, that first video tripped me up so i stand by what i said as my suggestion. :wink: i mean with a nice guitar like that it had to be rest stroke you sly devil.

#17

It looks to me like your tremolo is a different motion than your original clip.

It appears, in your original clip, that you have pronated the arm a little and your upstrokes are a little trapped.

Copy the form you have in the first few seconds of your tremolo clip. In this form the upstrokes are escaping with ease.

Also, you should arrange your lines so it’s upstroke string changes, when using this form. Descending downstroke string changes when using forearm and wrist setup are very difficult as you need a secondary motion to achieve this. You can refinger the line, or use legato to make it work

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#18

Okay, two bigs things I noticed!

In your first video your motion is completely different to your tremolo, your arm is a lot flatter to the body of the guitar and you are using a lot of pronation.

In your second video you are using lots of (gypsy-style) supination that kinda reminds me of Joscho Stephens technique. It starts great with some forearm rotation giving you a nice blended wrist-forearm motion. Around 0:40 the forearm stops wiggling and the motion changes to being sometimes more elbow, sometimes more wrist and your picking becomes more inconsistent, skipping the odd note.

This is completely typical of what happened with me when learning this motion!

At the moment I’d say you’re wrist-forearm motion isn’t completely learned and not completely efficient, although it is on the right path. My advice would be to play with your tremolo while looking in a mirror and constantly be looking for the forearm wiggle. I’d recommend playing along to something at a high speed and constantly re-adjusting your technique in search of the forearm wiggle, this way you have direct audible feedback if what you’re doing works at high speed in context. (For me this was the end solo section to Highway Star by Deep Purple, trying to play along at speed for the full length of that solo section was probably the most important part of me learning my technique, though this may not be your style :grin:)

Sorry for the essay, hope any of it helps!

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#19

Just wanted to let you all know that I’ve been applying your advice about 16th note triplet tremolo to my high E string. I recently had a new pickguard made for my archtop guitar, the older Eastman guitars had an odd pickguard setup that set the guard right next to the high E–where you would often hit the edge of the pick guard, mid stroke, when playing on that string. For a while, I was in the habit of totally floating my picking hand. These days, I lightly rest my fingers to mute strings and stabilize my picking hand. Never had a chance to work up my picking on my high E till now, noticed that I get stuck when I play on that string. I’ll post some new videos to critique soon, because I know many others have asked about this type of picking situations unique to an archtop (the strings being farther from the top of the guitar).

#20

Wow, that’s a beautifully smooth rotation motion! I saw you thread about picking motions and it is so cool that you found this in the end since it’s something completely different from the wrist mechanics. I think it’s what makes Yngwies picking look so effortless.