Hi guys. Do you have any examples of ways to practice UPSTROKE escapes? I know thats kind of weird everyone seems to find this easy. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
It is not true that everybody finds it easy but I understand there might be a sort of “content bias” because the USX material we have available is just mind-blowing (Yngwie, Eric Johnson, etc.). Actually, I’d dare say the DOWNSTROKE escape is intuitively easier but some people seem to (pointlessly) think less of it (poor Al Di Meola xD ).
In my case, the only way I have found to kinda function in a USX context is to flex my hand and use a rotational motion with a key trick: your fingernails have to touch the surface of the guitar. I can’t say that’s the only way to do it but it’s the only method that’s worked specifically for me.
On another note, how’s your DOWNSTROKE escape? Have you tried it? Chances are it works more naturally for you.
1 Like
My downstream escape is great as of right now, but I’d like to learn double escape movement. Im studying the technique of anton oparin and am trying to imitate that.
Anton is a monster player, so I understand trying to imitate him BUT I think his pedagogical approach is counter-productive.
I’d personally suggest just trying different things - different grips, different hand positions, different motions, and experiment until you start to get something working. Your body (and brain) will probably find a solution to explore which is probably going to be different to Anton’s specific approach, and that’s okay.
5 Likes
Holy cow! lol That works awesome actually! Thanks!
2 Likes
I know right? It’s a funny mind trick and I have no idea how or why it works.
2 Likes
Yeah… It’s weird; I “sort of” have a “kind of USX” where I use my shoulder, that doesn’t make any sense, and it’s only good for certain moves but this… I am so dense, I can’t believe I didn’t try to pick like this before. Interesting.
I’ve been messing with it for the last two days and it’s opened up a lot of new possibilities. I am primarily DSX, and I have this hybrid pick and fingers thing I can do, but adding this to the toolbox certainly is inspiring! Going through “Volcano” again and it’s a real a-ha moment!
1 Like
It was not easy for me, it took a few months of trial & error til it started to click.
Watching this guy do his USX motion slowly in this video was helpful for me https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KghiVUmZrDs&t=1024s
If you already have a fluid DSX motion, use that for reference regarding how effortless the USX motion should feel; if you’re feeling a lot of tension then you know that’s not the right motion. In fact, now that I can do both, despite being a DSX only player for decades, USX feels smoother than DSX and I can do it for a longer duration than DSX without feeling tension build up.
Palm muted USX was very difficult for me at first, maybe because I do wrist/forearm rotation, not pure wrist. Turns out it was important for me to not worry about palm muting at all for a while until I got a solid non muted USX going for a while.
My DSX motion is pure wrist. I learned wrist/forearm USX. Pure wrist USX is a mystery to me, I think the setup is too similar to DSX so my body just reverts to DSX and can’t learn the USX motion that way.
I assume you’re asking about continuous USX (not a USX helper motion) and I assume you’re already a DSX player. As a long time DSX player, I needed to learn continuous USX before being able to do a USX helper motion; I feel like learning just the helper motion first would have been nearly impossible for me.
Hey thanks for the video, I’ll give it a watch. For usx I just feel like the string changes aren’t clicking. There’s a sort of hop to it, not like string hopping but like I lean into it more before switching if that makes sense. It may also by my forearm position as well. Thanks again!
I definitely understand this, I am not trying to 100% replicate his technique (I can’t anyway, if you pay attention his thumb bends wierd and I cant do that) but a lot of the stuff he preaches for free just on YouTube has helped me a lot, so I figure ill use his information because it has worked for me.