Hi there,
I know this is pretty basic, comparing to other stuff on this site but I’m struggling with this Pentatonic Lick:
Here is Video of me tremolo picking:
And here I try playing the lick in medium speed:
Can you spot any major problems in my picking technique from this videos? Any training drills you can suggest that work towards descending runs like that?
Thanks so much in advance!
Hey there! Not as basic as you think, a lot of people struggle with fast 2-note-per-string stuff.
Tremolo video looks good! As far as I can see, it’s a wrist based USX (upstroke escape). So, in principle that should work perfectly for these kinds of pentatonic lines.
The pentatonic video is too slow to tell us much - because at this lower speed you can get away with a lot of inefficiencies, and you will not have a realistic representation of higher speed technique.
So as a next test I’d recommend trying to play the pentatonic line closer to the speed of the tremolo. You already can pick fast, and you already have the correct picking trajectory. It’s a matter of convincing yourself to just go for it 
Hi tommo,
thank you for the quick response! I don’t think it’s possible or realistic at this point to play the Senta Run anywhere close to my one-string trem speed. Maybe it’s the fretting hand that I need to train… It feels like a total trainwreck and I don’t know where to start to fix it.
okay, I tried, here is the Penta run with 4 strokes per Note:
and slowmo:
And I tried the real deal faster, but that hurts to watch!
And slowmo:
Thanks for filming these! That’s the spirit, try to play the patterns a bit faster even if they get messy. Maybe not all the time - you still want to work on being clean etc., but trying to go fast is an essential practice tool. For this purpose, maybe the “4 notes” exercise is a good way for you to try and apply your tremolo picking speeds to upstroke string changes.
However, I think something changed here, compared to your USX tremolo motion. I hear some lower strings being caught during the descending pentatonics, which would suggest you may have changed the trajectory to DSX (downstroke escape), or perhaps fully trapped?
I may be wrong, but one easy way to test this is to try and start with an upstroke, and see if the string changes feel easier/cleaner. Alternatively, you can skip the first note of the pattern and start with a downstroke, so the notes per string will be 1-2-2-2 and so on (instead of 2-2-2-2). Both approaches will give you only downstroke string changes.
More generally, have you already had a look at out free picking motion pages? That may help you figure out more about what movements you are making:
