Fretting hand question - sliding down followed by fretting up

Playing Technique
#1

Ok, so for a long time legato guy, it pains me to say this… but I have a pattern I’ve done variations on pretty much forever (including my pre-CtC days, when I thought the fact it felt easy was a bad thing, and not something that maybe I should explore further - this motif once I figured out the picking was a big part of the reason I was pretty sure I’d been an escaped downstroke player from long before I joined here). And, I think I’m hitting a point where my fretting hand is holding me back. :rofl:

Video:

and tab:

Screenshot 2026-09-19 at 3.06.02 PM
Screenshot 2026-09-19 at 3.06.02 PM1758×838 108 KB

Not my best playing, this is immediately after a two beer brunch at a beer hall. :rofl:

But, this is sort of a meandering escaped downstroke pattern. 8 notes, but if you slide into a new position along the same string you finish on the picking stays constant. Ascending in one motif, descending in another (I have second variation on the descending where you go up a note rather than down and it loops the picking in the same manner; the real fun is when you start throwing them all together interchangably, but again there’s a specific fretting hand combo I’m truing to suss out here).

So, my question - particuarly on the lower frets in this motif, the slide down to the 5th fret on the D and 3rd fret on the A, the combination of a downward shift followed by fretting upwards feels, well, awkward. Is this just an unnatural series of movements, something idiosyncratic to my wrist angle or playing position, lagging the beat on the position change, or lack of practice?

This is 16ths at about 165bpm, and it feels, well, comfy, aside from that specific combo. So I think there’s quite a bit of upside above that, once I can get to the bottom of this. My best guess is the slide isn’t rhythmically in the pocket, and slowing it down on youtube suggests the same… but I’m curious. Thanks!

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#2

Hi @Drew.

You’re shifting abruptly with a fixed wrist. Try to lead the shift by letting your wrist begin the action of the downward shift before your finger moves downward.

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#3

Just the man whose input I was hoping for. Unfortunately I’m. not qwuite sure I know what you mean. :laughing:

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#4

Actually, watching this video a bit - my wrist position looks maybe a little canted relative to the neck but fairly stable when I start descending on the thinner strings, it looks like it gets a touch more vertical when I change position with the shift down for the top half of this run… but the two shifts that feel a little awkward, the first one (down to the 5th fret) it appears like my forearm drops a little further below the neck with the shift, and the second one, there’s also a pronounced flattening of my wrist.

So, are you saying, try to do that before and not during the shift?

#5

Hi @Drew

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you, it’s been a busy week. I made this video for you.

I wasn’t sure if I’d share it publicly but I think the ideas might be helpful to others.

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#6

Tom posted that clip specifically to give me Pacifica GAS. Rude

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#7

It’s a Revstar, and it’s phenomenal value for money. Totally recommended.

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#8

Thank you both for keeping this discussion available for others. That clip about shifting positions was really insightful.

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#9

Tom - my turn to apologize for a late reply, I was out of town this week, solo parenting while my wife was away so I went out to see my parents, and for whatever reason forums have always been a “big screen” activity for me.

But, this is awesome, I think once I have some time to digest and impliment, it’s going to be a huge help. I was trying to figure out what you were talking about and messing around, and doing sort of slide-followed-by-three-hammer-ons-and-hold Satriani type slurs (I’ll prtactice this against a click every once in a while, great way to ensure the last note you’re landing on is rhythmically in the pocket, and lately it hasn’t felt that way, so here we are), and it did feel like that was less awkward even sliding down then hammering up and i was curious why that might be.

And, it does seem to all be wrist angle - as your wrist opens and you “open the valve” there (and sure enough, I do habitually lift my thumb off the neck just a hair while shifting), I never really get out of that position while slurring up and down a single string, but I do when I’m playing a pattern along two or more strings. So I think I just need to practice starting to open my wrist like that on the last note or two rather than with the position change… which is exactly what you were telling me, but a video really IS worth a thousand words.

I’ll check back in in a week or so once I’ve had some time to really practice this. I spent the last four days trying to keep up with a two year old, so tonight I’m having a beer and getting some practice in, but it’ll be an early night for me after that. :laughing:

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#10

Hey @Drew, no problem at all.

I’m really glad to help. I think these are important concepts, and they really helped me to develop my capability with position shifts.

Yeah, you’ve got the idea. The wrist movement here makes the shifting more gradual and it “opens the valve” to prevent a jam. The result is that the shift can be executed faster, while actually feeling slower.

Yeah, that’s exactly what I was trying to say in the earlier comment. Remember, your fretting hand is always moving. Perpetuum mobile. Everything should feel smooth, nothing should feel sudden or jerky. This isn’t just important mechanically, it really helps with your rhythmic perception of the movement, too.

I had tried writing up a comment first to explain the idea in more depth, but it was getting quite long and I felt it wasn’t very clear.

Cool. Don’t be afraid to shoot another clip if you feel I need to see something.

I hope you enjoyed that beer!

I’m glad you found it valuable @steve506. If others have questions related to the video I posted, I’m happy to answer them.

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#11

I think this is going to take a little while to get ingrained… but it DOES help I think to have a motif or pattern where I can feel it happening smoothly, to really draw out the differences where it isn’t. One initial thought is that I can feel the edge of my hand hitting the side of the fretboard as my hand “opens” and that this is probably why my “default” here is one where my hand stays clear, but I also think it’s not likely to create much/any drag, so it probably won’t slow things down any as I get used to the motion.

Hopefully the next video I’ll have to share is one where I’m effortlessly ripping through that pattern without feeling like there’sa drag somewhere. :rofl:

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#12

Supwer quick note here, I was away Sunday through last night and am paying for it at work this morning.

But the biggest lesson from me here is Tom’s comment about your wrist should pretty much alwayd be moving. I wouldn’t say mine is ENTIRELY locked (though for some of the faster stuff, and the slides at the end, i’s close to), but I think I’ve generally adapted a fairly “neutral” position that’s ok for most things but not really optimized for any one thing, and there’s upside here not only in just opening my wriast a little more fully for the slides, but also “closing” it more fully for the hammer on and pull offs, and while it’ll take some gtting used to the subtly different fretting mechanics, it DOES feel a little smoother.

So, more to come, I have to unlearn some stuff here and learn some new stuff.

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#13

Very quick update on this motif, by the way:

Part of the issue I think was a chunking one, it felt like by the second half I was settling into an offset pattern where the slide was the second, not the first, note, so I’ve worked on getting that tighter.

I’m not sure if wrist fluidity is MUCH better here, it’s still a work in progress, but it’s getting there. Though, somehow a neck singlecoil makes picking sound automatically that much more aggressive. :rofl:

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#14

Sounds ferocious :fire: :fire: :fire: :fire: :fire:

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#15

I think it’s a significant development, even if you don’t feel that it’s much “better” yet.

It’s a different movement pattern from what you were doing before, meaning you’ve broken what was previously a strong attractor for your motor system.

#16

Thanks!

One additional observation - the hitting on part feels different, too, in ways that I’m still getting a little bit of a feel for, but because it’s happening at the same time/in line with the wrist rotation, it’s like there’s more momentum to the movement, and I think it’s starting to translate into cleaner/clearer articulation, as I get more comfortable with the movement. Definitely a “more to come” observation though.

Thanks man! Like I said, a good singlecoil and some decent pick attack is a VERY aggressive sound. This still isn’t flawless, but it’s sort of wild to me because this is WAY better picking than I was capable of doing when I signed up here… and this was a motif that, while I didn’t recognize it as an escaped-downstroke-friendly pattern because pick escape wasn’t even on my radar, was definitely part og my playing vocabulary back then:

See 3:25 or so. I didn’t know WHY it worked, just that it did.

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#17

Interesting video but what does that clip of Buckethead shredding have to do with the topic? :rofl:

It sounds amazing, dude! Is it just me or is your picking technique becoming smoother as you work on your fretting hand?

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#18

:rofl: You’re too kind, man.

So, I think a few things are happening all at once here.

  1. It IS becoming smoother, independently of anything related to my fretting hand. I think I’ve had a bit of a breakthrough in my ability to sort of fine-tune my position and “feel” when it’s working vs when it isn’t, and with time I’m getting more comfortable and more dialed in there. This is happening concurrently but independently with fretting hand stuff.
  2. I’ve also felt, for a while now, that my fretting hand was starting to be my limiting factor here as I’ve gradually gone from being an abysmal alternate picker who leaned on loose, fluid legato lines in his own music, to increasingly at least a competent alternate picker within cerytain bounds, at least, and it’s begun to expose that some of that looseness in my fretting hand wasn’t a choice as much as just a lack of strong sync. So, some of the smoothness you’re hearing is also probably coming from that, that as my picking hand is smoothing out, dialing out some of the hesitations in my fretting hand is having the effect of also making things sound tighter and more in sync.

fun fact - waaaay back in the early days of sevenstring.org, we’d occasionally look at popular search terms that led people to the boards, and for some reason “Buckethead unmasked” was one of our leading hits, along with - oddly enough - Humboldt squid. We naturally then had to start a whole bunch of threads about Buckethead unmasked and the mighty Humboldt squid, and now that Buckethead actually IS unmasked it’s kind of a moot point but it’s something that always makes me laugh.

“Colma” is such a staggeringly good album, too.

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#19

Agreed. “Population Override” was the first Buckethead album I got, and “Electric Tears” is one of my absolute favourite guitar albums ever.

Too many humans, not enough Bucketheads.

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#20

Too Many Humans is great! His album “Chicken Noodles” with Travis Dickerson is also incredible. Enter Tomorrow may be a top BH song for me

ETA: forgot the YT link:

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