Has anyone here figured out a way to overcome the speed barrier on this EJ lick here?

Playing Technique
#41

Sorry in advance if I’m misunderstanding but this suggests to me that you may be practicing “hard” things over and over hoping that some day they’ll become “easy”.

I and many others can relate because this approach is ingrained in popular guitar culture (“you just need to practice”). The problem is that it does not work. The best players don’t do “hard” things. They find an easier more reliable way to play stuff.

Anyway, in more practical terms, Troy’s advice above remains the best way to go about this. Film a tremolo in slomo, then film some repeating 2nps phrase in slomo. Go from there.

And if you do happen to have a solid USX motion and don’t want to resort to hybrid for that higher note, just hit that muted string (swipe) and you’re good to go!

EDIT: In case you didn’t buy the Primer (not a requirement :slight_smile: ) you can still check out these free webpages to get a summary of all there is to know about picking motions, what does/doesn’t work for various phrases etc. etc.

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#42

I keep saying no matter what a more pure usx approach with upstroke escape only musically descended changes, using downstroke swept musically ascended string changes when advantageous, and if desirable to learn to further the speed incorporate swybrid during musically descended string changes and half swybrid maneuvers during musically ascended string changes, this will always be faster. but apparently he hasn’t come to this conclusion yet. but of course for him maybe he can go faster, but i see most people ultra speed using a more pure single escape above all else, otherwise you will become a tensed up elbow monster which is something i frown upon. Maybe when he gets the string hopping up to par he will get it, but probably by then his more pure usx utilizing elements of swybrid will be even faster, and the cycle will continue. :sweat_smile:

i would offer my own advice if you desire to get string hopping faster, you just have to start incorporating it into your playing all the time once you find the correct motion. And not shy away from it as much by retooling licks and fragments if you want it to get faster. Also it’s not the end of the world if you don’t do it, not everybody picks the same, find your way. Sometimes it might be worth it to assess how well something is working, and also how poorly something is working. There are other ways to skin a cat beyond all this talk of single escape. i have a thumb thing lick that literally goes against the grain of all the stuff i play because when i first started back playing i wanted to do a descending 2 octave harmonic minor run as fast as Yngwie. So i retooled it with upstroke swept string changes using a more dsx thumb thing to be able to. And if I didn’t frequent this forum I wouldn’t even know how to describe the motions I use to do it. :sweat_smile: So every technique can be improved, but if you want it to improve more you have to do it more, and in different facets of your improvisation.

for instance in my playing i look back into the licks that i can play extremely fast, and i try to kinda work with this as an advantage if i am trying to scout out a ultra fast phrase that i want to create. because at the end of the day you won’t be able to play it all, there isn’t any artist that can do it all.

#43

yes it can. but not on the slider. you actually need to use the +/- keys on the number pad to do that. but the best part about transpose is that you can set as many markers as you want and loop sections

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#44

also, i posted this in a separate thread but it didnt get any traction. you guys need to watch this rig run down from EJ 13 years ago. its the ONLY video ive seen of him playing in short sleeves thats from an angle where you can actually see what his arm is doing.

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#45

Tasty playing!

Correct. I’m pretty sure the problem is that your core motion is not actually USX, and you are trying to play USX phrases. This typically results in stringhopping, as you are experiencing.

There is no way to “fix” your current technique to play the original arpeggio phrase better. The most likely reason that lick is failing is beacuse you haven’t learned the technique that it requires, which continuous USX motion at high speed. Again, we’d have to do the tremolo test to know for sure.

The reason we keep asking about playing a tremolo is beacuse we want to see if you have learned how to do continuous, repeated USX pickstrokes at high speed. Doing this on a single note, i.e. “tremolo”, just eliminates fretting hand complications.

For this test to be of any value, you must perform it with your usual playing motion, not a different technique that you only use for playing tremolo. After all, your lead playing motion is the one you are trying to use to play the EJ lick, so the goal is to test that motion specifically to understand what it looks like when moving fast. This will help us understand why you are stringhopping. Switching to a different motion defeats the purpose.

Are you saying you can’t play very fast with your typical lead motion while fretting only a single note, because that’s “tremolo” and you can’t do that with your usual motion? If you have to fret notes in your left hand to trick yourself into thinking you’re not “doing a tremolo”, that’s fine too. Just use a simple repeating single-string lick like the Yngwie six-note pattern. Don’t do anything that switches strings, because that could trigger more stringhopping.

Your playing is super tasty! You will carry those skills with you to any new techniques you learn. So learning a new picking motion isn’t like starting over. But if you really are “stubborn”, as you say, then you probably want to take the steps that will get you results the fastest, without wasting more years doing it wrong. That’s the good kind of stubborn: doing whatever is necessary to get results, even if it’s a little psychologically painful or time-consuming, because you refuse to accept anything less than constant progress. These tests, and potentially learning new motions, are those steps.

Alternatively, you can sidestep the issue by playing different licks that don’t require USX. You can also use solutions like hybrid picking. Nothing wrong with that at all. Up to you.

1 Like
#46

Is there a video of what USX tremolo in the EJ/Mike Stern style looks like? I cannot do this at present as my natural motion is DSX Elbow/Wrist. Continuous USX wrist/EJ /Mike Stern style trips me.

#47

This has a good demonstration of wrist based USX

3 Likes
#48

Why does it have to be Mike Stern style? If you already know how to do wrist / elbow DSX motion, it’s going to be difficult to learn a nearly identical form but a different joint motion, because when things feel very similar, you’re likely to revert to the motion you already know.

Some type of Gypsy form would probably be easier to learn since it looks and feels different from what you currently do. If you want to learn a USX playing style I’d do some experimentation with that style.

3 Likes
#49

i have identified my problem. I have no problem with USX motion, and alot of my EJ stuff uses it (my slower stuff is double escape motion), but what throws that motion off, im finding, is when i am doing a multiple string movement. two or three strings is fine, more than that, and the posture of my hand/wrist gets put in a position where im not comfortable or literally CANT make usx happen. ive never really tracked which string im picking with my elbow, but is this something that is neccessary? Starting to see why EJ wears long sleeves alot. cuts out the “forearm stuck to guitar” issue that makes some string movements difficult hahah

#50

im starting to further diagnose my problem. i have no problem maintaining USX motion. HOWEVER. if a two note per string sequence is following a DDU (or economy motion), my hand wants to bounce those 2nps. how can i address this?

it seems maybe my upstroke coming out of the DDU may be different than my normal USX from straight alternate picking and is positioning my wrist in a manner that promotes the bounce? im not sure what to do here

edit: even in my original video, you can see that the first half of the lick is USX for the 2nps on the A and D strings. its not until after the DDU motion that my right hand starts to get a little wonky

#51

It’s possible your motion for the sweep has either too much rotation or extension and making more of a DSX path, then to compensate you’re “bouncing” out of that position.

What if you just try playing a lick like this as fast you can?

fingers: 2  1  3 etc
E|----------------------------------------------|
B|---------12-15---12-15-------12-15------12-15-|
G|-------14------14------12-14-------12-14------|
         D  D U  D  D  U D  U  D  U  D  U  D  U

It should force you to constantly change between the economy and alternate picking.

Also, if you haven’t yet I’d highly recommend taking Troy’s advice about the tremolo, with the same motion you’re using in actual playing, not the rotational EVH tremolo you default to when you do a tremolo “effect”.

Another thing that helped me this motion was just doing it as fast as I could on muted strings. It sounds like the “pac man” game at the higher levels when you do it correctly and you can really focus on the upstroke escaping. It’s sort like a tremolo on 2 strings, but on the upstroke you only hit the higher (in pitch) string

E|------------------------|
B|---x-x---x-x--x--x---x-x|
G|-x-----x-----x-----x----|
   D D U D D U D D U D D U

It should sound even faster than that, but you get the idea :slight_smile:

#52

i will try that! another thing ive noticed that this happens much more often when i play my strat because that pesky volume knob

#53

ah! i figured it out. when doing the DDU, on the second downstroke i had a tendency to not push through to the next string (rest stroke) before the USX. when im doing pure alternate picking with USX, on downstrokes im going all the way to that next string. for some reason, when i dont do this on the DDU economy motion, it doesnt set my wrist up right to get into that alternate USX motion and forces my wrist to want to bounce for some reason. only took me a week to figure this out lol

edit: i think by continuing all the way to the next string on the rest stroke, its focing my wrist lower, setting me up to keep moving lower towards the ground and higher strings.

#54

Going off on a tangent here, but here’s the exception that proves the rule. From Steven Wilson, who I’d expect to be a total diva/control freak, of all people. :laughing:

Should start at the right point - thankfully, it was while they were filming a live DVD, and they had the good sense to leave it un-cut.

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#55

Ha, well instrument casualty I guess is the exception, because the performance would most likely be really bad. Though, the only time I saw the Allman Brothers band live, Derek Trucks broke a string mid solo. He played through and it was just absolutely amazing. Props to him.

I should have qualified my absolute-ish statement in that this is the way I was trained to perform, which was in a classical context. We had to perform for the faculty at the end of each semester and they’d have flunked us for sure if we stopped and re-started. A few bad notes, like whatever happened in that EJ video I linked…I guess my point is most people listening won’t even notice if you play right through it.

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#56

Eh, I still agree with your absolute-ish statement, and feel the same way myself. “Trains” is an amazing piece of music and a beautiful song, and like many I suspect was part of the reason I fell in love with Porcupine Tree… but, let’s be realistic - this is an avoustic guitar, not a floating bridge electric, and Wilson absolutely could have finished that song without a G string. :laughing:

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#57

Found this online today and would be some fun material to get into over a weekend.

Anyone ever find this in PDF though? I can’t find the product in pdf form and I much more prefer pdf/iPad over softcover tab book lol.

#58

Some of the titles in the Hot Licks series are currently offered in a proprietary digital book format (sometimes from multiple vendors), but not Total Electric Guitar.

1 Like
#59

All I’ve ever been able to find is a pdf of the first 40 examples. Search Eric Johnson Total Electric guitar pdf and several options come up.

Scribd is the only one I trust. They’ve been around for a very long time.

1 Like
#60

Whenever I try Scribd it says I need to make an account for 30 days free access. So
You’re saying it is a legit site and not a scam site? If I decide to make an account