Flight of the bumblebee arrangement technique issue

[bungholio]

New to the forum. I absolutely love the breakdown of picking techniques here and Im trying to apply some of what Ive learned to flight of the bumblebee. I wanted to get your opinion on 1 small part of it. The main theme.

The issue im having is the part where it alternates strings with the lower string having 1 note then 2 notes. When arranged like this is forces 2 consecutive pick slant changes but 2wps seems to breakdown when this happens (or maybe a small 2 pickstroke burst of crosspicking). The way I do this is all upward pick slanting until those 2 notes happen.

*edit: forgot to mark that it also occurs on the repeat

Now obviously this can be played pretty fast but those 2 notes hold my picking speed back compared to the entire rest of the piece. I’ve found myself questioning whether I should arrange it to just be on 1 string in which I would have to do some position changes to compensate. What do you guys think?

[Tom0711]

Cool Nickname, Beavis!

Your analysis of the necessary pickslant for this line is absolutely correct. “Short burst of crosspicking” is exactly the same as 2WPS. I’m sure @Troy will tell you the same as soon as he finished breakfast

UWPS is the approach I would also choose for this line. If you incorporate a 1-fret-slide to solve your problem or work on 2WPS is up to you, but I consider the position change to be way easier in this case.
Just slide up to the e-note and back down on the c-note.

Tom

[tommo]

It is actually possible to rearrange this so that you never have 1 note per string: it starts like (I’m typing quick, so let me know if there are typos)

-5-4-------6-5-4-5-4---------
------7-6-5-----------7-6-5-- etc...

[hamsterman]

I think we need John Taylor ( @milehighshred ) … the master of this song to come up with the optimal arrangement for speed.

I know what your talking about with the 1 NPS followed by 2NPS issue. It’s bugged me as well. But I guess my question would be… how fast do you plan to play this? If you are playing at the notated speed of 170… I would honestly just try work on the 1NPS, 2NPS weaknesses.

If you are trying to get in to the ‘hyper-picking’ range… then I agree with tommo… I think you’d need to rearrange it… and do a lot more position changes.

[milehighshred]

I think we need John Taylor ( @milehighshred ) … the master of this song to come up with the optimal arrangement for speed.

Awww shucks! Appreciate the compliment. I’m definitely no master any more. I can’t even remember the whole piece!

Yeah, I agree with what others have said, just rearrange it. The way I play(ed) it does involve a finger roll, but you never bounce back and forth between strings after a single note is played. That way is FAR too inefficient!

I do a weekly shred letter (news letter) and for those that sign up are a couple of free eBooks. One of those books has FOTB tabbed out at the end with some pointers on how to play it.

At the risk of getting in trouble for spam, and self promotion, here’s the link if you’re interested: https://www.milehighshred.com/get-two-free-ebooks.html

[Troy]

At the risk of getting in trouble for spam, and self promotion, here’s the link if you’re interested:

I’m getting out our ruler for your knuckles!

I know we don’t have guidelines for self-promotion, which we probably should. There are plenty of cases where I really don’t have a problem with it, and probably also cases where I do. Suggestions from forum-savvy feel free to let us know in Site Feedback how this is typically handled.

Edit: Sorry, to be clear, I think it’s fine here! It’s relevant to the topic at hand.

[bungholio]

It is actually possible to rearrange this so that you never have 1 note per string: it starts like (I’m typing quick, so let me know if there are typos)

-5-4-------6-5-4-5-4---------
------7-6-5-----------7-6-5-- etc...

I hadn’t thought about doing it this way yet. good idea.

hamsterman

I know what your talking about with the 1 NPS followed by 2NPS issue. It’s bugged me as well. But I guess my question would be… how fast do you plan to play this? If you are playing at the notated speed of 170… I would honestly just try work on the 1NPS, 2NPS weaknesses.

My goal is always to make my performance speed be 85% of my top speed so I’d like to shoot for technique that would allow me to do it at 200bpm. And I want to be sure I’m practicing the most efficient way so that when I cross the threshold from fast to very fast that I don’t have to relearn something haha.

milehighshred

Yeah, I agree with what others have said, just rearrange it. The way I play(ed) it does involve a finger roll, but you never bounce back and forth between strings after a single note is played. That way is FAR too inefficient!

Is till don’t quite understand the term finger roll yet? And do you have your arrangement in tab somewhere?

[hamsterman]

My goal is always to make my performance speed be 85% of my top speed so I’d like to shoot for technique that would allow me to do it at 200bpm. And I want to be sure I’m practicing the most efficient way so that when I cross the threshold from fast to very fast that I don’t have to relearn something haha.

Yeah 200 bpm is just too fast for me to play cleanly. I just tried it… and I was swiping a lot. I’m sure Troy could probably do it… but I think most of us can’t.

But 170 was doable, I attempted it, and it actually sounds pretty good at that speed.