I want to get some opinions on forarm rotation. I’ve always thought it was necessary, yet hidden.
An example here.
I thought I was doing a forearm and wrist blend, until it was pointed out to me that I was actually only moving my wrist.
If it’s a very subtle forearm motion, it can be hard to spot and I find quite hard to feel also.
Don’t you think, as I discribed the wrist rotation blends into other motions? But it is still the driver of the motion?
I described it as best I can in the vids, I don’t think it is just wrist, The forarm does a lot but gets hidden/ blended away. Without it I don’t believe you can escape the strings.
Your wrist has only four actions up, down, in, out. A smooth action needs the left n right wrist rotation to add up to six. Six ‘pints’ of refrence for 3d space.
Like at the end of that video I’d love to just have Troys head floating there LOL
Thanks for sharing! I’m not sure if I follow what you’re asking or are going for, though… Do you like that rotational motion or do you not? To me it’s not clear but maybe I missed that in the videos since a jumped a bit in there.
To my eyes the motion you’re demonstrating at first looks like a rotational motion (maybe a bit wrist as well) that has good attack and rhythmic stability. Great work! You just need to work on lowering the amount of bend in the wrist to get your hand closer to the strings for muting. That can be hard since the power you generate with a straighter wrist is a lot less.
In the second video where you go for some scale playing you use a completely different motion that’s more of a wrist thing and at times a bit of elbow as well. I’m not sure if you are aware of that or if it feels lika rotation still. I would encourage you to try to do scale playing with your bended wrist using your rotational motion to see how that feels. You might need a string dampener at first.
I am showing how wrist/forarm rotation is real rather than asking for help. Been a long standing question on the forum.
The bend in the wrist is to show the rotation. As I get flater to the string it seems as tho rotation goes away, but it doesn’t, it’s still a major part of the movement, just hidden, blended away.
Ah I see. Interesting! In what threads are people questioning it?
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Good question, anyone who disagrees with me can bring that up lol.
Multiple years of this discusion. I’d like to link to them but would take me hours.
I don’t think I’ve seen anyone claim forearm motion is not a thing… They just different joint motions.
Ignore my past edited text in this post…
CTC has said as far as I read that you can pick without forarm rotation.
So you can do the full six string picking without a single touch of wrist rotation…
Look at this, claimed no forarm, but take into account my vids I posted, The forarm blends…
On a single string you can get away with it, going across the strings requires wrist rotation.
I’ll reitarate that you can not have a 3d position in space with only 4 movements, pre this video.
You need six.
But the wrist doesn’t just move four directions, the combined deviations and flexion/extension creates a variety of diagonal paths
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For me to an extent, can you go over the six string length with that?
Can you cross the strings anchored with that?
My wrist only flexes so far. And I think most peoples wrists only flex so far…
Without a forarm rotation you are stuck.
Also you are fixed to the wrists movement speed which is quite slow… Especially at the extremes of flexion…
Forarm rotation gives you all the speed you need. Without needing to much flexion…
I just move my arm to track. I can reach four strings using the wrist to track, but any more and I’ll move my elbow.
I recored a video but my daliy upload limit is reached… Great…
I havent got much to argue anyway, I will practice more. I see what you are saying. I have always used forarm rotation.
Do you have a vid of you strumming I can learn from?
Interesting demonstration! My fastest possible motion looks similar to what you expose here. Do you think this might be forearm rotation as well?
You got me curious on how to achieve a flatter version of that motion.
I think that what the CtC video shows is that a lot of players have a motion that is wrist-only that does something like 9-0-2, etc. (nearly flat, where 9-0-3 would be flat). Then, they have appropriate fixed forearm rotation to make the motion look not like _/ viewed from the bridge but more like V (although Troy says “u”). The forearm does not have to rotate during the stroke.
The distance covered doesn’t have to be that large because the shoulder can push the wrist around on the surface of the guitar.
Does that seem right?
Note: I think that you can easily create other motions like EVH’s tremolo motion that seem to come from the forearm, but the 9-0-2-type motion is probably necessary for alternate picking with single strings.
That’s actually what I meant. I said elbow, but the motion starts somewhere above that.
In my experiance, yes. Thats forarm rotation.
Why do you want a flatter motion? I think that is more likely to get caught in the strings and take the swing out, physically and musiclly.
