Help with tremolo technique

Technique Critique
#1

Hi to all! I’ve been around for a while now, becoming familiar with the concepts that @Troy developed, studying videos and interviews and trying to apply the concepts to my own playing.

I’m interested in playing mostly jazz lines now but in all my years of playing I’ve never got to develop a technique that allowed me to play at fast tempos before so got quite frustrated. After experimenting for about a year since I’ve came across this forum, I can say that I’ve learned a lot and can now think about solving technique problems in more helpful ways, so I’m thankful for that. Nonetheless, I can’t seem to get my tremolo picking fast enough and I also can’t really tell if I’m in a good path or not, because I think that first, I developed bad habits over the years, and second, I’ve tried so many things that nothing sticks.

After spending quite some time trying to understand the technique that I developed intuitively over the years, I THINK I seem to resort to a sort of DBX (combination of wrist and forearm movements) for solving almost everything, but not really fast. After trying different things, I got this DSX motion, that feels relatively easy but can’t get really fast. I would be really grateful if you could let me know if i’m in the right path or not with this (regarding hand placement, grip, etc) , and to get some of your helpful comments about how to improve my situation. I’ll attach two videos with different points of view. Thanks in advance for your time :raised_hands:

#2

Thanks for filming! I’m pretty sure you can move much faster than this, whether it’s with this motion or something else. What were your table tap results?

If you haven’t taken those, you can find those here. You don’t even need a metronome, just tap along with the video and let us know the numerical values you get up to:

#3

Hi Troy! Thanks for your answer. I redid my results because I lost them in the aether and I got this:

180 -190 Van Halen
210 - 220 Di meola
230 Elbow
150 Forearm (though I can somehow access a much faster speed but I can’t quite control it or the transition between slower to faster speeds)

#4

Thanks for doing this. These look good. What about the very first test where you just tap on the table like knocking on a door, did you do that one?

#5

Yeah, sorry, I totally forgot. Kind of got to 215 bpm, not really comfortable, but for two bars it’s ok.

#6

Ok that sounds in the ballpark. By any of these metrics the motion in these clips is too slow to be conclusive of anything, so I’d say keep experimenting. Are you trying to “do” a specific motion or are you trying to just go fast without thinking too much about it? What happens if you just go fast?