Hello new member here, have pretty bad right hand technique

Technique Critique
#1

Hey guys, I’ve been playing for about 10 years but first 8 were not really consistent and I was messing around a lot… Never paid attention to right hand technique really, just played what I felt was most comfortable and as a result I developed some bad technique. I feel like I’m not a consistent player, sometimes I can play complex songs because of muscle memory but if I had to play a simple fast run that was new I would struggle, I just never thought about angle of the pick or when to do and upstroke or downstroke and all that good stuff.

Past 2 years I’ve been getting more serious about guitar, started watching video lessons on youtube to relearn how to play properly and decided to start with alternate picking first… The Cracking the Code video with Steve Morse completely blew my mind and I’ve been working on those alternate picked arpeggios for the past few weeks so I also decided to join Cracking the Code and get a critique on my alternate playing first before I start with the pickslanting primer.

I would like to eventually play this passage really fast… It’s still slow now but I’m struggling to play it… Also audio starts loud then gets lower, my iphone mic is messed up sorry.

Also just noticed black pick with black guitar lol, bad move

Thanks

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#2

I don’t know, this looks pretty good to me. Some of these movements are little more inefficient than you’d like - either stringhopping or just movements with direction changes which are too aggressive and not flat enough. But these things are pretty correctable and you won’t have to re-learn everything you’re doing.

Given that your technique currently is wrist-based, I’d go through the “getting started” guide, especially the intro to picking motion part, and the wrist crosspicking part. First try and get smooth single-string motion happening with the Andy Wood / McLaughlin tecnique that we discuss, since it’s close to what you do currently. Once that’s in place, move on to the crosspicking stuff which you will need for the types of pieces you’re playing here.

And check out @superslip103’s thread while you’re at it. He’s the acoustic version of you and is having some success with those motions right now. He has posted some great video examples of his progress.

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#3

I have but i am still nowhere this level of playing. If I could play this i would be very pleased with myself!

This looks really good to me. As a rookie all I could spot is a bit of string hopping, but there is no forearm rotation which is my issue as well as string hopping.

Also this sounds really fast to me, good job! Although I’m guessing you want to play at Steve Morse speed?

#4

There is nothing wrong with forearm motion! We did an entire lesson demonstrating how certain picking techniques combine wrist and forearm:

In your case you were making an effort to learn a technique that doesn’t use forearm. So you kept correcting until you started to get the motion you were targeting. That’s a big learning opportunity and quite different from trying to learn one motion, but ending up with another and not knowing why.

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#5

yes that’s very true - I stand corrected!

#6

Thank you, I appreciate the guidance. I have already started with the “getting started” video where you explain the different types of picking motions, and like you said, the Andy Wood style fits my right hand technique the most. Also that superslip thread has a bunch of very good information, I am a bit overwhelmed by all the details you need to practice for fluid, fast picking, I have always thought the left hand was the hardest part… I guess that explains what has been missing in my playing all those years.

#7

Thank you man, I checked out your videos and I can see the similarities, we struggle in a lot of similar things.
I would love to play it Steve Morse speed, but it seems light years away still, any decimal faster than the video and it starts being sloppy

#8

Yeah one thing i am finding is that there is so much good stuff here, but it is exposing how sucky my technique really is. It’s getting better though

There are people posting on here asking for advice but to me they sound awesome! Even you sound like a solid player.
I’m just trying to make small changes a bit at a time. At the moment the Andy Wood 902 thing is what I’m focusing on. If i can get a consistent picking technique that should open so many more musical Avenues than shredding, which i feel like I am light years away from.

Crosspicking seems like it allows you to play so many more passages as you are escaping the string each note you play, so someone could ask you to play anything not shreddy and you wouldn’t have to think about it in terms of ‘is this a uwps lick or a dwps lick?’

Anyway keep going! As you practice keep posting video clips. The guys here are so good at giving feedback!

#9

This is an illusion. Crosspicking lines still need to be memorized. Think about how much work you’ve put in to play six lousy notes and you’re still ironing it out. When you’re done with that, you’ll still have to memorize that motion on other fretboard patterns until you’ve got so many that most things are covered. Only then will you be automatic with the phrases you want to play.

In similar fashion, pickslanting lines get memorized too so that you’re not really thinking about anything when you play them. Someone says play “XYZ” and you just do it. Doesn’t matter which flavor it is, or if it’s a mish mash of different flavors.

We’re finishing up editing the Oz Noy interview and it’s honestly amazing how many different picking motions he uses that he claims to have no idea he’s using. He’ll play the same lick three different ways, with one way pickslanting, two way pickslanting, sweeping, and crosspicking, and claim he can’t tell the difference. I believe him. It all gets memorized eventually.

#10

That’s a helpful insight, thanks. Looks like I’ve got my work cut out :s
Hopefully though getting a more consistent picking motion will make memorization and the feel of playing easier, even if lots of work is required still to get hundreds of lines under my finger fingers

#11

I re-recorded the arpeggios with a quickly made backing track and put some tabs… So wrist crosspicking is the best way to get this faster? Also is playing this piece at 120-130bpm a realistic goal (it’s at 102 bpm now which is my limit for most of the passage)

and sorry last question, is it smarter to work on one picking technique first then when you’re good at it move to the other or can I practice pick slanting and cross picking in the same session?

Thanks

#12

Once again this looks pretty good and sounds great! Unclear from the video whether your motions or optimal, but if you’re saying things don’t feel smooth when you speed up, then that is usually an indication that something isn’t correct.

Re: what technique you should use, any line that has one-note per string playing in it requires pickstrokes that are “fully escaped”, i.e. completely leave the strings so they don’t hit the surrounding strings. We’ve done lessons on lots of ways to do this, so there is no best way. However since your approach looks mainly like wrist motion, it’s a good fit for the wrist crosspicking lesson in the getting started guide and this way you’re not running around learning a whole new technique when you already have a serviceable one.

If you’re not totally clear on a what an escaped pickstroke is, aka “downward pickslanting” and “upward pickslanting”, it’s worth getting familiar with those concepts and learning to do those motions cleanly. They’re not hard and you’re probably already doing them to some extent so I would recommend checking out those concepts. Again, the intro to picking motion is the first place we discuss this. Then the Pickslanting Primer discusses this again but doesn’t go into as much detail on the hand motions. Spend a few minutes and try to do the wrist version of those two motions. If you can get them to work right away, then you’re good. If you’re slow on those, come back and show us with a will-lit clip filmed at 120fps and we’ll take a look.

Once you have that, move on to the wrist crosspicking lesson which builds on those concepts and see how far you get with that.

Don’t kill yourself or spend huge time on this. The pickslanting / single-escape motions are simple motions and given what you’re doing you should be able to get them right away.

#13

Got it man, thanks a lot for the detailed reply… I’m still in the intro video so getting ahead of myself a bit haha