First crack at TWPS, looks like I may be swiping instead...?

Technique Critique
#1

…at least I think swiping is the CTC code, as I go from the lower to the higher string in this six note pattern, it appears my pick usually travels through the upper string rather than passing harmlessly over the top. I originally tried this on the (high) B and E strings but when I saw myself making contact there I thought I’d drop down to the heavier strings to see 1) if it was still happening, and 2) if it was making the same pattern harder to play on unwound rather than wound strings. It doesn’t seem to, but while it’s subtle, it’s probably slowing me down a hair and creating a bit of extra noise (though at least just jamming in the room it doesn’t sound TOO obvious - I should probably record it at speed though and listen to the playback to see if I can pick it up).

Odd thing is, I thought I had a natural bias towards UWPS, but it’s the part that should come naturally with an upwards slant where I’m making contact, whereas the change down to the thicker string where I’m coming off an upstroke looks like it’s escaping the plane of the strings pretty consistently.

As far as breaking that habit is my best course of action here just to slow the mechanic down and repeat ad nauseam at a pace slow enough that I can be sure I’m truly escaping the plane of the strings, rather than just swiping through them?

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#2

Think you’re almost hitting a crosspicking motion. Just not giving yourself a wide enough arc so you’re hitting strings. This doesn’t look to be either upward or downward because it looks like you’re exiting the plane of the strings both ways.

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#3

to me it seems as if you hold your pick like uwps but the motion seems to be clearly dwps.
the upstroke is almost like gypsy-style which is probably the most obvious dwps.
to me the motion itself seems pretty efficient so if you’re fine with the tone i see no reason for significant changes.
swiping is nothing bad (at least in most cases), many players do so - at least at hight speeds - so imo the tone should decide if its sloppy or not.
as far as i can tell swiping gets problamatic if you need ringing tones or using open strings and have no options for muting.
its hard to tell how clean the palying is in this case, by seeing it’d say muting the swipe might work or using a minisweep (econmy pick) the next string should be fair enough.

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#4

Huh. So I clearly have no idea what I’m doing, then. :rofl:

If this IS in fact some form of almost-crosspicking, are there any good drills to work on getting a better arc in my pick attack going?

If this is in fact just weird looking downward slanting, then I guess I should spend some time on DWPS-oriented licks and see if they come pretty naturally, and if not then what I can do to work on that. I’ll say that having made it through the Masters in Mechanics stuff, stylistically most of what I’m trying to do more closely resembles Yngwie and Johnson than it does the UWPS guys presented here…

EDIT - other thing I’ll add, is my actual picking itself is kind of uneven here - I think some metronome time doing single-string patterns is in order, there are too many inconsistent/missed notes…

#5

hehe i guess very few players knew what they’re doing before CTC.
first of all i’m not a pfrofessional - its just the impression of an interested amateur.
IMO the goal should be to master DWPS, UWPS (which’d include TWPS) and crosspicking, so its not about deciding which to use its when to use which of the techniques.
crosspicking seems to be the hardest thing to learn, troy wrote in another post that they’re still investigating it thrmselves (eventhough his demos are more than impressive IMO).
just to me it seems that you are a natural DWPS player and your motion is pretty good, probably you’re just trying to figure out something else - which’d be fine too.
i see the rotational move when you play on a single string - with very tiny motions.
i’m not sure how much effort it’d be to make that big enough to enable you to switch strings with the same motion, but i’d place a bet that you master DWPS pretty fast cause it seems all ingredients are there and ready to use.
fo metronom works my tip from personal experience is to be very proper in analyzing your motion. its waste of time practicing motions that you dont use when speeding up.
i changed my picking motion when speeding up for years but always practicesed accuracy with the ‘slow’ picking motion … finally managed to use the the fast motion on slower speeds now and everything’s fine (took some months to get the feeling that its the common mechanic).
so for me the problem was not the metronom (eventhough i need to spend some time with it now) it was more the mixing of mechanics.

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#6

Hey, thanks man! I’m just excited I can play at all right now, to be honest, I had shoulder surgery about two and a half weeks back, and while I did a ton of legato practice, it’s really only over the weekend that I’ve been able to use a pick without pain again.

I guess I’m not quite sure what you mean by this, though, and you have me intrigued - if I’m close to being able to do something that would allow me to change strings easier, than by all means, I want to try. :smile:

I definitely will be spending a lot of time with a metronome in the next couple weeks, though - first evening out my single string playing, and then trying to really hone in on where I can smooth out my string switching.

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#7

you’re are not close you already do perfect shifts after your upstrokes. the problem occurs after downsrokes which is the thing to avoid with DWPS. the EJ or Yngwie approach is econmy pick (minisweep them) or rearrange fringerings for even number of notes - i’m quite confident you’ll get that managed pretty fast.
if you have 3 or more notes on a string another way’d be switching between DWPS and UWPS.
i’m not a doctor but i’d say it might a good idea to wait until your shoulder is fully recovered before trying a new picking mechanic.
for the rotational thing (sorry english is not my native language) i meant that you have a rotational movement - which would allow you to crosspick - in your single string playing but it very tiny. for crosspicking it’d would require it big enough to move from one string to another. i did that myself but didnt manage to convert it without getting a weird feeling.
i’d recommend you to read that topic with the ‘transition time’ in the title before starting with metronome. there’s some valid thoughts about practicing speed.
probably the most important thing last: dont overwork your shoulder, sometimes the body needs some time … believe me youd dont want to have long time problems with your shoulder, i had that in the past based on an sports accident - absolutely no fun.

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#8

Don’t worry, I discussed guitar with both mu surgeon and the physical therapist I’m working with for the recovery (who’s also a drummer, as it happens), and both of them have told me it’s ok to play, provided I’m careful with my posture. For the first two weeks I grabbed a few of those Gruv Gear wraps and did legato-only practice, but I’m finally back to the point where picking feels comfortable. :slight_smile:

Also, thank you for your detailed feedback and analysis! This forum is great.

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