Also, I believe your video is set to private instead of unlisted so I’m not able to see it
Haha sorry. I hadn’t completed the upload.
One thing you didn’t say you had experimented with is different amounts of edge picking. This can really help with friction. But I have the feeling you already have thought about this.
I definitely have but i’ll try it to the extreme. The fact that I’m able to do it with the round side of the pick seems to support that this might be the path
Man i’m super jealous of your rotation haha. That is some clean, great picking
Well thanks, but I’m sure you’ll find a way to get it to work too.
You can clearly do the motion very well in the air. I believe a bit faster than me. When you do the motion in the air, it’s a much bigger motion with high momentum. When you apply it to the guitar i looks like you try to minimize the motion. The reasons can be many but a common one is to “not be sloppy”. I very much try to keep the motion as big as possible to keep the momentum.
Also, are you very conscious of your time when you try out the rotation? When playing the riff, your time is impeccable and looks very controlled. Maybe the controlling of time makes your body incorporate other more controlled parts of your body. For me, the whole thing is and have to be so loose that it can sometimes be hard to control the time of it. If I try to take too much control, some wrist or elbow creeps into my motion as well. I have to keep it just as free as it feels when air playing which can be frustrating in a way. I’m not saying that is the nature of the technique for everybody (and my time has developed considerably with practice) but maybe you have to just let loose and not worry about the time being perfect at this time of exploration. It could be the culprit.
I don’t mean to hijack your thread but I think I have a similar motion as you and I’m also having trouble applying forearm rotation:
Maybe so. I’m trying so hard to loosen up and just let the motion happen no matter what mess it makes on the guitar. What it seems like to me is that the resistance of the strings throws my rhythm off and makes the motion gets out of sync.
It seems like I can do the motion correctly at lower speeds- 140 bpm 16ths maybe. But it’s those higher and much desired speeds that I lose it lol.
Hey, no problem, hijacking is very welcome especially when it’s extremely relevant.
In that vid, that looks like elbow picking to me. I recommend taking the approach that I’m currently taking- doing the relaxed forearm rotation tremolo picking motion in the air, and work on bringing it to the guitar
I will do that, thanks!
Thanks for posting! @qwertygitarr’s observations are on target. This is not forearm motion. It’s wrist and wrist-elbow. Only the motion at the end of the clip is forearm. You can see how different they look.
Most players who use forearm motion don’t use the EVH style approach for riffing since there is no strings contact for muting. Also, most players who use forearm don’t really use pure forearm at all, but rather a blend of wrist and forearm.
In general, we get the best results when players test out lots of different motions and choose the one that’s working best. I know you said you did that in the air, which is a good start. But if you can’t translate that to the guitar, then that’s not super helpful. Try testing out different motions that are more similar to what you can do on a guitar and going with one of those. You’ll be much closer to a functional starting point to begin with.
Edit: Also, when you post YT links, don’t use the link function - just paste the link on a line by itself with a blank line before it and after it. The form can then embed the video so we can watch it in the browser. In know this is our fault, so no worries. We have the link button, but not sure how to disable that for videos.
Thanks Troy!
I’m pretty hellbent on getting this to work haha because I know it can be done, and out of all the air picking motions I do it feels the best. But I will take your advice and try out a whole bunch. My ultimate goal is to completely minimize tension, and I still had lots of that when I was a pure elbow picker, and a wrist deviation picker.
I’ve had a few mini eureka moments since posting the video. When I air pick with forearm rotation, it seems to be the downstrokes that I focus on for counting. Starting on an upstroke feels much more difficult. So I think any impedance in general makes the motion jumbled up, but it seems to be the return trip where I get especially tripped up.
As for riffing- I understand that the EVH style rotation is not ideal for heavy palm-muted parts, and pretty much has to be combined with some other motion in order to play those. In the air, it seems that I can add wrist flexion and extension to the motion no problem, without any loss of speed. I’m hoping this will help me with playing those types of parts
Hey again Troy, I took another stab at rotating here. This motion feels much more like rotation, but still not as loose and relaxed as the air movement. I’d love to get your analysis on it. Thanks!
This is a mix where the top string is forearm and the lower string is wrist. The top string motion looks a little awkward because you’re turning the arm even farther to make the pickstroke escape. Nobody we have filmed does this, though it’s interesting. If you pursue this, you’re making up your own thing. Don’t let me dissuade you! Come back when it’s perfect and then we’ll interview you.
Just to be clear, we have not filmed someone whose primary motion is pure forearm rotation and can play three note per string scales without swiping. I’m also not aware of any “famous” player that uses only forearm rotation as their main picking motion, with no other motions involved, and can pick every note on any phrase without swiping. I mention this because I’m getting the impression you may not realize that this is something we haven’t seen. I know the motion itself feels comfortable, and it seems like, hey I should be able to use this and pick whatever I want. But surprisingly, this is a thing for which I cannot think of any famous player examples.
Ninety-nine times out of 100, forearm players are upstroke-escape players exclusively. Meaning, they can only play lines where the final note on every string is an upstroke, usually with even numbers of notes per string. So this means no three-note-per-string scales, unless you’re doubling up the notes to six, or involving some kind of mix of motions like what you’re doing in this clip. Nothing wrong with mixing motions. But I’m just explaining that the smooth feeling you’re getting from the joint, is normally associated with even-numbered phrases.
That said, ascending 3nps scales can be done with @qwertygitarr 's motion through swiping. It may even be possible to do it without swiping with the right arm position, because the downstroke string changes would be outside picking and that’s more likely to work. Descending scales where there is inside picking would probably involve some kind of motion blend. @qwertygitarr can offer more insights into this.
If you like forearm, I’d get it going using something resembling @qwertygitarr’s form and sticking with single string lines and even-numbered phrases, just until you can actually replicate the motion on the guitar. Qwerty does not use a highly flexed wrist position like a Gypsy player. His wrist is more straight, so if you want to copy his form, get rid of the flex. Keep trying until you can do the straight version in the air and on at least on a single string where it looks and feels exactly the same.
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Once again I appreciate your very detailed response.
My guitar teacher is Wes Hauch. I’m not 100% sure he is pure forearm rotation, but I believe he is. That’s where I got the arm turning thing from, to achieve the upward slant.
He seems to be able to play 3nps scales no problem, so either he’s using some hybrid motion, or he’s your first guy.
As for the even-numbered phrase thing- this is what led me to ditch elbow picking, was because I wanted to be able to alternate pick any phrase regardless of note quantity. I may have it wrong on this as I haven’t watched the elbow picking section, but I personally found myself stuck with those even note phrases for 8 years as an elbow picker.
Not familiar with Wes’s playing. If you can find an example of it with a good “down the strings” angle on single-note playing, happy to take a look.
But so far, @qwertygitarr’s technique is actually the most “forearm-appearing” of anyone I can think of outside of Eddie Van Halen. Eddie did actually use the motion with a flatter form, closer to being anchored like what Qwerty does. You’ll see this occasionally in concert footage. So he could have developed that further for lead playing.
But it’s unlikely Eddie was going to play something like “Hang 'Em High” with only forearm motion. If you want to play arbtrary patterns like that, or what Andy Wood, Olli Soikkeli, Paul Gilbert, or Anton Oparin do, wrist motion or some type of mix and match blended motion, like what Martin Miller does, are the only ways we’ve seen that be done.
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I’ll see what I can find of a close up of Wes. In the meantime, I tried to record a video where I’m using rotation for both strings. I definitely slipped up a couple times, but I believe I got a few repetitions of strict rotation.
That looks pretty good. But you’re going to have no muting that way, and you also need to be able to do it fast. Which means just trying to “go fast”. That will probably result in motions that aren’t as huge. I really wouldn’t spend a lot of time at this type of picking speed, it’s only going to fool you with motions that might not work when they get faster. But you are on the right track with your spirit of experimentation. Just do so at faster speeds.
Yeah this was just for demonstration purposes, and I’m still trying to unlearn the wrist muscle memory but I hope to get back to you with a video of this at a high speed soon.
I really appreciate the amount of time you’ve spent on this post. Thanks again, Troy!
Not a problem. You’re not “unlearning” wrist motion. You don’t have to give up what you already know, you’re just adding to it. And the only way that can be done in the initial stages is fast. That feeling of “it’s easy” that you get with air picking is what you’re looking for on the guitar, and slow playing just doesn’t feel that way. In the early stages of learning a new motion, the feedback of feeling easy and fast is the only reliable guide you have, so start with that.
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“Unlearn” was probably the wrong term haha, I just mean ignore it. You can see in the video that I revert back to it several times.
And I fully agree with you on the fast thing. I think I need to get the “feeling easy” feeling on one string down before I attempt this lick on two, and then I suppose I’ll find out if it’s possible or not