Hi! New here, where to go after watching pickslanting primer

Introduce Yourself
#1

Hello everyone, I’m new to CTC website, and I’m glad i discovered what seems to be a promising path to improve my technique.

A little background about myself :

I’m 30 years old, I play electric guitar for 3 years now , purely as a hobby. I’m by no means a fast player or close to it. I max out at 80 bpm alternate picking clean 16ths. I found out i have a problem with string hopping and inefficient mechanics, so I watched the primer and now i understand what I’m doing wrong and what I need to do , but i’m clueless about how to go from here.

I found out my natural picking motion is down escape picking when doing fast tremolo, and i tend to pick from a combination of wrist/forearm (with my arm floating around with no anchor. Watching the videos, the Reverse dart method with down escape picking felt the most natural to me, and i feel able to adapt a pure wrist diagonal motion with anchoring at the bridge which feels comfortable.

My question is:

  1. How do I practice this? How do I make this motion permanent and muscle memory, in the other speed video Troy mentions its futile to practice those motions at slow speed, which I’m assuming my ceiling at the moment falls below. I cant produce accurate synchronous fretting hand movements to practice the efficient motion at a higher BPM. Do i continue practicing with my current technique at slow speeds with a metronome until i can reach a fast enough BPM to see the downescape motion be implemented? Is it useless to practice it now? Wouldn’t i just be ingraining inefficient picking technique?

  2. Do i bother posting a technique critique video at my current ceiling ?

  3. Am i supposed to use any pickslant when doing RDT, or just edge picking would be okay

1 Like
#2

Welcome to the Forum and site!

Yes :slight_smile:

#3

Thanks!
I tried to capture different angles of me just playing random stuff which is me not focusing on the way i play and letting my subconscious mechanics take over.
sorry for the sloppy playing but I tried to play relatively fast and include the first takes which are not the best in order to get an honest review.
I dont have a magnet so this the best angle i could do. Any criticism welcome :slight_smile:

https://youtu.be/BAinDU25d3I?feature=shared

https://youtube.com/shorts/yJy465vS1AY?si=mJL6xvRfxz41bXnz

https://youtube.com/shorts/TdVjKRlYrjE?si=NaxbnuV_bULl-7_w

#4

Welcome!

As a MIM member, you can open a Technique Critique to work directly with one of CtC’s coaches to analyze your technique in detail. Totally recommended!

Based on the videos you shared, the tremolo looks fine. However, alternate picking does not seem to translate very well to the pentatonic patterns you are playing (I find legato and/or sweeping more efficient for those). Have you tried any single-string patterns like the famous Yngwie sixes explained in the Primer?

1 Like
#5

Hello steve and thanks for the suggestion! I’m still working my way around the website so will try to find that.

As for the second point, I just posted a random run like this pattern to demonstrate my picking motions. I’m mainly looking to improve my global speed/technique to play songs i like and have a better time jamming to backing tracks. I don’t write music or need specific string patterns to fit into my playing. I use legato sometimes but i suck at sweeping :slight_smile:

My main issue is that i freeze up on most stuff as fast or faster than the bpm i posted , i think its most likely a synchronisation issue and inefficient picking motions + lack of practice so ill have a look at the synchronisation course.

I’m a bit lost on where to go from here, practice with a metronome, do the synchronicity course or practice at fast speeds, a lot of stuff here are making me question the way i used to practice for speed. I never really had much luck with starting slow and building up speed .

#6

The thing about picking motion is that it directly affects your repertoire of licks and musical lines that flow naturally for you. Of course, it doesn’t mean that you are doomed to play a limited set of ideas. Instead, your primary motion dictates how you can adapt any lines to your convenience.

Unfortunately, picking technique is not a technique you can arbitrarily use in any context like ,say, writing which once you learn how to write, you can just do it anywhere. Single-escape alternate picking requires a little more prep work but once you develop your own technique, things start flowing naturally. Alternatively, some players develop double escape alternate picking that would potentially let you play anything anywhere but such technique seems so obscure and hard to achieve for me that it’s not worth it, in my opinion.