"Glass Prison"-arpeggios at 125-130bpm...and my 2cts on what to do when crosspicking is a nightmare

Would love to see your progress. I would love to tackle the GP arps and tumeni notes, but I am quite obsessed with pushing my 2WPS, which is coming along nicely (but still a away to go to reach that magic 200bpm 16th goal! :joy:). I havent tried it much to be fair, but the crosspicking mechanic is really alien to me, so mucho respecto to you guys going for it!

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Very insightful post. Another problem that throws me off in this case is this:

You see these movements from Albert Lee and Miller, and it’s difficult to execute them, because they don’t consciously think about them, while you are approaching it consciously. Somehow there, there is a problem. It’s feels like thinking consciously about how to run or something, counter-intuitive.

For example, I do this thing where I bend my thumb downward at downstrokes. I just can’t play for the life of me by holding my thumb rigid, like Steve Morse does; it feels impossible for me to do that.

Also, I noticed that my hands play tricks on me. If I play the guitar ten minutes here, ten minutes there, my hands behave completely differently than when I play daily for 1-2hrs.

When I play sporadically, the hands simply won’t do what I want them to do, accuracy, stamina and speed all suffer. It feels very hard to execute something “hard” and it feels that I have to work for every note. This even applies to things like tight funk strumming things; it just doesn’t sound right.

But, I noticed that when I play 1-2hrs per day, suddenly, I get in this space where my playing seems to just flow, without effort. The hands just seem to know automatically how to behave.

This can be quite frustrating if you are stuck in phase 1 and you are wondering what you are doing wrong. Maybe you are doing everything right, but your hands just aren’t strong enough or “drilled” enough.

I’ve seen versions of Glass Prison being played at 170-180 bpm sweeped and Miller plays it at 160bpm alternate picked. This feels like a lightyear away, but now I know that it is possible I will keep on trying and use it to improve on my current technique.

In this case I started the arpeggios with an upstroke, but I noticed that starting with a downstroke has a few more advantages in this case. Having an upward pickslant helps me during the first arpeggio, but then sort of throws me off with the diminished one. I’m curious to see how you cope with all these things.

I would love to see your execution of it :+1:t3:

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How have you been getting on? Any progress?

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Hello! I have increased the speed 5-10bpm, now I’m struggling to hit 140-145bpm. I noticed that my left hand got smarter and that my right hand slants automatically. As soon as I can I will upload a video.

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Doing well my friend, keep it up!
I have just started on a bit of crosspicking, I also have the Glass Prison in my crosshairs! I think it will take me a while though, but I’m not in a rush - trying to keep the pressure up on 2WPS.

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Did anyone get further on the glass prison?

Does Petrucci use this picking pattern anywhere else in his playing, and if not, why not?

I have seens several live clips where he actually sweeps through these arpeggios. The studio version may have been alternate - picked, but this is probably too hard even for him in a live setting.

EDIT: for example, this looks mostly like sweeping to me (or a mix of sweeping and a bit of alternate):

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I practiced it for quite a while. I managed to play it at around 130-140 alternate picked, although Miller can play it at 150-160. What I found is that you can only play it with Miller-picking or two way slanting.

I found that at the high tempos I can play it much easier with economy/sweeping and it sounds basically the same.

I think the pattern is a good one to have (the 2-1-2 pattern) because it occurs often, but for me economy picking feels much more natural for this pattern.

I might give it ago again, it’s been a while.

That’s really cool. I think that a lot of people struggle (me included) to be satisfied if they are playing something in a different way to the original - even if it sounds (basically) the same!

I remember Rick Graham doing a video of the GP arps both alternate and economy picked - both sounded excellent.

I think its impossible to do with two way escape picking, it is too fast. I tried this pattern on the b minor arpeggio which starts the run with cross picking, but then changed my approach which I think is working.

First, you anchor the hand on the strings for balance through all the movements.

Second, I used forearm rotation but it may work with wrist, to play the first two notes startingon the high E string.

Third, rather than thinking of the next three notes as cross picking which is done with a curve on top of the string, I found if I thought above them as inside turns of the sort you would make with economy picking played with finger movement and a bit of elbow movement, with the third note taking the plectrum up towards the high E string again for the forearm rotation to play three notes starting on an upstroke.

Now, I asked this question about Petrucci using it elsewhere because this technique might be used to play an inside lick of one note on the first string and two notes on the second string, the single note played with the finger movement. I wondered if anyone has seen him do this?

Do you mean 2 Way Pickslanting?

No, 2-way escape means that the tip of the pick rises above the plane of the strings on both up and down strokes.

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Yeah, I understand the difference, but @NTC is stating that 2 way escape is impossible with the glass prison arps - but 2 way escape is perfect for 1NPS. Just making sure he wrote what he meant to. :laughing:

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Two way escape picking means that the escape can happen from either direction using a curved motion, whereas two way slanting allows an escape from a single direction and is linear not curved in motion. As such, the notes picked on the high E string in this arpeggio example are linear.

How can it be 2wps if it’s 1nps?

I’ve never seen a footage where he alternate picked this, and for me the ascending portions of the groupings sound like sweeping on the album version. Who knows, he was a monster during the early 2000’s, maybe he could do that in a studio environment back then. I’ll never feel ashamed playing my sloppy version with sweeps :sweat_smile:

I dunno, makes no sense to me either (post is in 2019 so couldn’t remember anyhow!), considering that I was talking about crosspicking at the time… maybe I got confused.

Confused… So double escape is different than 2 way pickslanting which is different from crosspicking?

I think I suck at all 3 of them at the same time over here… Close to an "Aha" Moment with Crosspicking... Maybe lol

Thanks for the posts on this topic, guys. Lots to think about.

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Well the term 2WPS doesn’t mean what it used to… does it? As in was replaced by ‘mixed’ escapes, bit is still valid in an economy picking scenario? Crosspicking was replaced by double escapes (DBX) as crosspicking was already heavily associated with type of music rather than mechanics…I need another drink…

the thing i notice the most is not having the fretting hand thumb behind the neck to be able to push on to allow for the fingers to relax and stretch out your thumb is constantly moving you want to use that as leverage to allow the hand to relax. this should help the fingers come up to speed a fraction more.

i understand that the way you position your thumb is good for bending. but when you are doing fast passages and arps you need that support.