How do I find my "right" wrist motion without my forearm interfering?

Playing Technique
#1

I’m in the infamous position where I hit a wall at ~130-135bpm (16ths), and I’m trying to do something about it. So naturally I’m trying to do this thing where you’re supposed to find a comfortable alternate picking motion by starting with tremolo picking and going from there.

The thing is that even at “relatively slow” tempos like 150bpm (i.e. anything that’s sufficiently faster so I don’t fall into just my slow technique but sped up to where it’s sloppy), I notice that tremolo picking for me comes primarily from my forearm, which is not a motion I can “imitate” at slower tempos so I could practice it consciously - not to mention that I’m pretty sure that my forearm should not be the primary means to move my pick. And I seem to be unable to get a pure wrist motion going that works anywhere near 150bpm or above, making it difficult for me to find the “right” wrist motion I should focus on and try to speed up…

Anyone any experience with that, or tips how to go about this?

#2

Tons of excellent players play with forearm as their primary motion or with some combination of wrist and forearm. Don’t restrict yourself just yet. Try anything and everything and just get one motion working–any motion! The first one is the hardest, because you have no reference for what a good motion feels like. Later on you can work on getting other motions, if that’s even needed at all to play the music you like.

#3

Don’t restrict yourself just yet.

Thanks for the reply! Good to know, so I’ll less focus on strictly avoiding forearm motion :slight_smile:

There’s still the problem though that it’s difficult to practice/observe my fast motion consciously, since I seem to be unable to replicate it slower. If I try to do the same motion slow, I either fall back into a different technique, or it feels extremely unnatural, uncontrolled and I miss a decent percentage of notes, even staying on one string - additionally, I’m never sure whether I really am doing the same motion, or rather, I’m pretty sure I’m not doing the same thing…

On the other hand, eschewing that and just trying to practice fast, I face the problem that (just as one example) string skipping seems to be completely out of the question (I miss the first 1-2 notes on a new string pretty much every time), and because of the speed it’s difficult to observe what’s going on precisely. My current guess is that the angle/height of the pick just isn’t quite right when I skip strings, and it takes a couple of notes to adjust “automatically” to the right one, but… wll, hard to tell, given that I can’t consciously replicate the movement slowly…

Try anything and everything and just get one motion working–any motion! The first one is the hardest, because you have no reference for what a good motion feels like.

I should mention I’ve been playing for almost 20 years, and am currently trying to “clean up my act”, so to speak, and get rid of all the bad habits I’ve ingrained (now that I’m stuck in home office anyway :smiley: ). I’m almost sure the forearm motion is a result of me waaaay too often trying to push myself above the 130 limit… like, I’ve played stuff at 140bpm, usually by sheer “force” >.<

#4

Most guitar players have many motions that they weave in and out of seamlessly. Since you’ve been playing for a long time you probably have quite a few ones yourself. One obvious example is strumming. It’s extremely likely that the motion you use for strumming is different from the one you use for single line playing. That’s fine. It’s also fine that you have a one motion for slow single line playing and one for fast single line playing. This is super common.

When I’m playing slowly I use a very precise but slow string-hopping motion. There’s no reason to unlearn this as it works really well. Then as the speed increase I use a wrist-based motion. If I keep pushing the speed I will eventually transition into an elbow motion, as that’s the fastest motion I have.

The important thing here is that you can transition more or less seamlessly between these motions. If you have to radically change your form e.g. between extreme levels of supination and pronation that won’t work. That’s the major constraint here, finding a group of motions that can work together to get the job done.

edit: I’ll also add that as you get more accustomed to these motions it’s also easier to use them at different speeds. But you can also think of them as different tools for different jobs. You can see this in some of the interviews on the site where the artist has to start at a fast speed and then work quite hard to try to maintain the same motion as the speed decreases. It’s very clear that they don’t usually use all motions at all speeds.

1 Like
#5

It’s also fine that you have a one motion for slow single line playing and one for fast single line playing. This is super common.

Yeah, that makes sense, and I get that. Except that this technique I use when playing fast totally doesn’t work for me. It’s what happens naturally when I tremolo pick, but it’s only fluent after a couple of notes, when my hand/arm “settle” in the right position, and it fails if I try to play anything that involves more than one string :confused:

The important thing here is that you can transition more or less seamlessly between these motions.

Yeah, that’s the other thing that doesn’t even remotely work in my case :smiley: so my slow, comfortable techique seems to be largely a downstroke escape motion, which I would describe as a wrist extension (roughly 1 on the clock) coupled with a slight rotation. When I tremolo pick, I settle more into a downwards pickslanted motion with the whole hand basically completely stiff. I mean, it feels relaxed and comfortable, but largely because my elbow seems to be doing all the work, and that doesn’t feel very “controlled” on my part…

#6

I think this is pretty common too. Transitioning in and out of motions is a skill in and of itself so this might resolve over time. The same with changing strings. You might need a little time to work on getting string tracking to work with your new motion (assuming you’re doing the string changes that match your motion).

Using elbow is fine, it’s the fastest motion of them all. If it’s fast and relaxed, then you might try to spend a little time fixing the motion before you give up on it. Maybe you just need to tweak your pickslant, adjust the pickpoint or be a little bit more or less pronated. There’s a wiki for all these terms somewhere on the site.

At this point it might be easier to help you if you post a video.

#7

At this point it might be easier to help you if you post a video.

Oh, if you (or others too, for that matter) are willing to take a closer look, gladly :slight_smile: I’ll see if I can manage to film myself such that it’s possible to see what’s going on properly…

#8

Right, I made a video and put it as unlisted on youtube. I recorded it in 4k and 60fps so you can zoom in and slow down if necessary, but the HD and 4k versions are still processing, so if the quality is too bad to see details, it should be better in like an hour or so.

Thanks for your help :slight_smile:

Also, it should be noted that I’ve toyed around a lot with my pick grip etc over the last year (e.g. I used to play with an extended index finger, which wasn’t sustainable when I joined a band where I have to strum a lot and fast without constantly hurting my index finger nail :smiley: ), so if you were to compare this to older videos on my channel there might be noticable differences. But also, and not surprisingly, nowhere in my older videos do I alternate pick faster than 140bpm, and when I do, the elbow starts to come in…

#9

This looks like a pretty good foundation to me!

Are you sure you’re rest-stroking on the downstroke when you using your elbow at speed? Elbow is usually downstroke escape. We have some rare examples of upstroke escape elbow on the forum, but not many!

Maybe the problems you’re having with string switching is because you’re not changing strings at the appropriate time? Normally elbow based movements escape on the downstroke, which means you can comfortably switch strings only after downstrokes (without involving helper motions to get out of the plane of the strings). If you investigate exactly when you’re escaping the plane of the strings and then line up your string changes with that, does that help?

Here’s a random example of Bill Hall, from the forum. He plays with a form similar to what you’re currently on track for. Wrist for slower lines and then elbow at higher speeds:

(put youtube links on their own line and they will embed nicely).

Maybe looking at this can give you some things to experiment with.

#10

Thanks for the feedback! Also, thanks for the video link, that is somewhat reassuring :slight_smile:

Are you sure you’re rest-stroking on the downstroke when you using your elbow at speed? Elbow is usually downstroke escape. We have some rare examples of upstroke escape elbow on the forum, but not many!

Pretty sure, yes… but experimenting, it seems to not be any more difficult for me to play downstroke escape elbow either, so that might be a starting point…?

Maybe the problems you’re having with string switching is because you’re not changing strings at the appropriate time?

Hmm, that doesn’t ring true for me… like, I currently primarily practice simple pseudochromatic runs with 4 notes per string, so the string skips are naturally on downstrokes, which fits with my upstroke escape motion…

(without involving helper motions to get out of the plane of the strings).

Yeah, that’s something that still confuses me massively, in particular how to practice that properly - e.g. taking a simple scale pattern like

-------5-7-5-----
-5-7-8-------8-7-
where the string skips alternate between downstrokes and upstrokes - they’re such a standard element of pretty much everyone’s vocabulary, but I’m utterly stumped on how to practice those with a technique that doesn’t quite feel controlled to me (yet?), in a fast tempo so I actually use my fast picking technique, and with an eye on what-I-need-to-do-depending-on-the-stroke-on-which-I-skip-the-string… like, how do I even go about practicing these things if I can’t slow things down?

#11

This is the reverse of what it should be. An upstroke escape motion affords string changes on the upstrokes. It’s easy to remember because it’s in the word. As you escape (the plane of the strings) on the upstroke you’re free to move to another string. Hopefully this solves your string-switching problems. :slightly_smiling_face:

#12

Oh, sorry, I might have misspoken. When I said “string skips are naturally on downstrokes”, I meant the first note on a new string is a downstroke - which fits with me escaping with the last upstroke on the previous string/note. As in:
------------5678…
--------5678----…
----5678--------…
5678------------…

#13

Maybe it’ll help, maybe not.

#14

Thanks for the tip. I tried it for a bit, and:

So, the thing about the wrist rotation is: I can actually get a decent tremolo going with that, and it does indeed feel a lot more natural and controlled than with the elbow. Even better, I can do it slowly too, so I can observe what I’m doing and practice in a more comfortable relaxed tempo, which is nice.

But I only get the motion to work fluently if I reeeally flex my wrist. Like, basically the kind of hand position that Josho Stephan has and is somewhat discussed in the primer (forearm motions, chapter 1), which is quite different from my “normal” hand position - so no way that I could switch fluently between the two positions. So I’m wondering whether it makes sense to try to switch to that position completely and start with the slow stuff again…? Or might I be able to extend my wrist more with some practice, once it’s gotten used to the rotation motion?

Also, how the hell do these people palm mute, when the palm is like a finger’s length away from the strings? :smiley:

#15

Start with the Josho Stephan position (That Gypsy extreme downward slant with your hand away from the strings) and then gradually bring your palm more and more downward, keeping the actual motion the same, until you can rest your palm on the bridge/strings for muting.

1 Like
#16

Check this out too.

#17

Thanks for doing this! But just to be clear, elbow motion doesn’t require a separate lifting motion — it includes a downstroke escape by default, so string changes are efficient. No forearm rotation is necessary to achieve this. A variant of elbow technique used by players like Zakk Wylde and Tommy Emmanuel can also do upstroke escape, but we think that may involve some other joint joining the party, possibly even shoulder / rotator cuff. We’re not sure.

TLDR, elbow motion doesn’t result in stringhopping when done correctly.

1 Like
#18

So update: I basically did what @Andjoy recommended. Additionally, I found a forum comment on ultimate guitar, where someone recommended getting the elbow to stop “interfering” by resting the picking hand (with a pick) on a desk and and doing a pure wrist motion there - basically quickly drawing circles with the pick on the desk. That way, I stay relaxed in the wrist while taking the elbow out of the equation entirely.

The combination of both extremely helped in getting a feel for a fast relaxed wrist motion that does not involve the elbow. Notably, that doesn’t work for long before I start getting tense, so it’s clearly a motion my muscles aren’t used to - but seems like I figured out the right motion for me now. I was surprisingly quickly able to play chunks of 8 notes at 150bpm that way, so I’m now able to practice this and likely increase the length of chunks and speed over the next weeks :slight_smile:

Thank you all for your feedback!

1 Like
#19

As far as I’m aware two joints are nessicery for any picking motion? I remember you talking of an x-ray view or motion capture type video before? Were there more videos made about that?

Apologies for the awkward video…

#20

Filming today and can’t watch the whole video, apologies – try to keep comments in text form when possible for ease of quote / response.

But generally speaking, two joints are not necessary for switching strings. Elbow does this just fine on its own. In its standard mode of operation it creates a DSX motion path because it pushes away from the guitar’s body when you play a downstroke and toward the body on the upstroke. Thus it can switch strings when the last note on each string is a downstroke:

More generally, here’s our intro to picking motion — most of which is viewable / readable with a free account:

There’s a lot here, and we’re currently working on video versions of same which should be out in a few weeks, including lots of great tips for identifying different picking motions in your own playing. Any feedback on the presentation of the concepts always appreciated.

1 Like