I am typically play DWPS and try to economy and inside pick most things. I have always had this strange idea that if I practiced something like crosspicking or TWPS that I would somehow lose my other techniques. However, after watching the Martin Miller interview and loving every second of it I decided to try my hand at crosspicking. It feels fairly natural and I think that I used to use a motion like this a very long time ago when playing arpeggios, but a teacher insisted on sweeping them.
Most of the misses or wrong notes and due to me only being able to practice these patterns and movements for about an hour this morning before running off to class.
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Nice work on this. There are bits of good here, and some things to watch out for.
In general, you have all three ingredients present here - finger movement, wrist movement, and forearm movement. There is nothing wrong with that technically, and we have seen similar things work in Martin Miller’s playing. But it is going to make it a little more challenging to sort out what you’re doing, and learn to control it by feel, because of the various things that are happening, and not happening, all at once.
One thing that you need to watch out for no matter what, especially for approaches like this which involve wrist movement, is stringhopping. When you hear the pick clicking against the guitar body like it’s doing here, that is a warning sign that this might be happening. In wrist-oriented attempts there is a strong tendency to lift the wrist, using extension, on every note. This works your wrist extensors twice as hard compared to alternate picking. If you try and speed this up, and especially if you do this for prolonged periods of time in the old ways of the metronome, you can quickly do some RSI type damage. Do not work on this for prolonged periods of time if you hear that clicking sound, or if you feel any arm tension.
When done correctly, wrist crosspicking movements should feel like nothing. As in, no sensation of jumping or turning at all. Finger and forearm approaches will alter that feel, and may feel more “effortful”, as in being aware you are doing something. Hoever, again, none of these movements should ever feel like doing reps at the gym. If they do, stop and try something else.
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How can I make sure that I’m not stringhopping while doing this?
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Also, I believe the clicking sound is actually my nails that I use for classical! This probably still means I’m hopping though.
I’ve been trying to learn that Glass Prison solo with cross picking as well. Only recently have I consciously started adding finger movement to my cross picking technique like you. I used to fight finger movement thinking it wasn’t the “correct” way, but I’ve since decided to embrace it, and now my cross picking feels a lot more consistent and accurate.
What I find interesting though is that you bend your thumb on the downstrokes and and straighten it out on the upstrokes. I’m the opposite. I bend my thumb on the upstroke and straighten it out on the downstroke. In Grady’s Volcano seminar where he analyzes Yngwies finger mechanics, you learn Yngiwe bends his fingers like me, although that’s in the context of sweeping 3 notes per string scales.
I crosspick with an upward pick slant though, so I think that might explain the discrepancy. Straightening out the thumb /w a DPS on a downstroke causes the pick to go underneath the strings, which is what Yngwie needs to sweep. Straightening out the thumb /w an UPS on a downstroke though causes the pick go above the strings, which is needed for cross picking. In your case, straightening out the thumb w/ a DPS on an upstroke causes the pick to go above the strings.
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Wow I totally didn’t realize that I was doing that! I think my thumb bend is maybe me trying to compensate for pick angle or to get the rotational movement feeling better. I’ll look into the Yngwie finger mechanic.