Hello guys. I wonder how do you do wrist motion (deviation)?
It’s hard to do for me. I mean not just in terms of picking but as a movement per se. It feels so awkward and unnatural regardless of speed.
I can do elbow movements, forearm rotation, flexing/extension. These movements are natural for me. But that deviation… it’s hard to do it even slowly. When I speed up I end up with a combination of rotation+flexing/extension.
Here’s a video of me testing these four movements
Yeah I’m in the same boat. Beats me how you can do that anywhere near 150bpm 16th’s.
Instead of going 9-to-3, try going 9-to-2 or so, might help.
sorry… what does it mean? -_-’
well i think its hard considering your reference point is not fixed doing straight up an down like this.
I would rotate your arm and wrist so its parallel somewhat with the wrist and the desk and deviate side to side. Try to go between your pad where you pinky is and the pad where your thumb is after a few tries of each then try to feel both sides touching and do the same thing. i think doing it the way i state helps imagine the pivot point or fulcrum point where your hand rests on the bridge either on pinky side (DWPS), thumb side (UWPS) or both (either DWPS or UWPS). When doing this your Wrist should be in contact with something fixed IE Guitar, Desk Top, even your chest area per se to get a good sense of reference and feel.
Which wrist motion? There are 360 degrees of them! Many common picking motions aren’t really deviation. For examp[le, Eddie Van Halen’s wrist picking motion is a different set of motions from Mike Stern’s wrist picking motion, even though they are both “wrist” and appear to move side to side when viewed from the typical audience perspective. Their grips are different, which means their arm positions are different, so the available angles of wrist motion are different. It all flows downhill.
What I will say is that even motions that are deviation are much easier on a guitar than what you’re doing. When you try to isolate the movement in the air, it feels super unnatural. Notice also that the desktop is stopping you from moving ulnar, where many wrist motions feel comfortable. Again, this is all much easier on an actual guitar.
I hate to be a shill for our own products but we’ve spent so, so much time on this topic recently that I’ll just leave this link here:
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Well, yes in this video there were no fulcrum. But why it’s so hard to do even slowly? I’m not even talking about fast picking, it’s literally hard to do that movement even if we are talking about 1bpm. Is it just me?
When I fix my hand on a guitar I tend whether to use elbow or (when imitating DWPS) forearm rotation+flexion/extension.
…
Hah… I’ve just tried to hold my wrist extended instead of keeping it straight or flexed. And seems like I got the idea!
Seems like I can’t move my wrist easily in that directions until I extend it a bit.
Obviously, I started from a guitar, and then I realised that I couldn’t do it. Experiments with isolated movements started later.
I watched some videos (I’m not sure if I watched that one though) about four basic movements. Three of them I understand. One is a mystery to me, or should I say for my body.
Nevertheless, I’ll try to experiment more. Thanks for your answer.
Didn’t mean to be a jerk about trying it on a guitar! Sorry if that came off that way. This thing about certain wrist movements feeling strange is a very common complaint. When you use the grip you are using here, being on a guitar resting on the strings guides you toward doing some of the slightly diagonal motions, like what John McLauhglin uses, which are not immediately obvious how to do in the air, and are actually not pure deviation.
So does using different grips. A middle finger grip for example, leads to a more supinated arm position and a wrist motion that looks more like flexion-extension. This is the EVH / Albert Lee style, and it is still very much wrist motion. It has all the characteristics that wrist motions have: low escape angle, semicircular motion path moving toward the tone/volume controls, the ability to do all pickstroke types (USX, DSX, double escape) without changing your arm position, and so forth. But it feels just different enough from an index finger grip type of motion that it can help you learn what ease of wrist motion feels like.
You might give that a shot, with some experimentation, to see if you can get any of these motions to work. Every motion you can get makes it that much easier to get any of the others.
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