Thanks Troy. And yep, well noted about the 1nps not being the requirement. I regularly have a big bucket-o-licks that I practice that require more than single escape. I’ve been doing it the Andy Wood way, and having good results (good enough for a hobbyist like me anyway). Like I mentioned though, that more neutral wrist motion doesn’t feel great for me with other stuff, and it’s the one that I’m burning out on pretty quickly when testing some tremolo endurance.
The RDT trailing edge grip so far feels great, as does the little bit I’ve played with the impression I just did of your Morse solution. Easy to switch between both modes too.
There is no forearm in Steve’s technique. What he demonstrates in the air at that part of the interview, and what he says about it, is not correct, and not what he does when actually playing.
However I wouldn’t read too closely into what he’s saying. He knows he has some way of getting out of the strings in two different directions. He’s flubbing the description a little but the intent is basically clear. To his credit, he has always known this, and that’s a lot more than most people know about their technique. Steve’s a picking pioneer!
Edit: I’d also add, that you can ignore everything we say about Steve’s technique in that video. Sadly, it’s also… not correct.
The videos we did afterward on Albert Lee’s technique are for the most part correct. And of course everything in the Primer where we talk about Steve, that’s correct as well:
I’ll blame this for my lack of understanding on…everything (Just humor me, it’s definitely not you, it’s me. Makes me feel good to claim an excuse though lol)
That Steve Morse video was my gateway to CtC. It was the first time I ever saw your stuff, instantly made me want to check out more. YouTube’s search algorithms thought I’d like it. I’ve been hooked ever since!
Awesome video in terms of the production, we put so much into it. But the explanation was just a guess, and of course, totally incorrect. That should be painfully obvious to anyone on this forum watching it now. If you know how Steve’s technique works from the Primer, there is none of that in that video.
I really wish we had the explanation since Steve is a great guy and I know he watched that, and was probably thoroughly confused. A million other people have watched it since then, but I’ve wanted to delete it for years. Or at least do another one. But we have redone that explanation many times at this point, in the Albert Lee Videos, the Primer wrist motion videos. Its time has passed.
A couple of things that are visually striking and kind of jump out at me about Igor’s playing from that video is that he picks closer to the neck pickup and has a very diagonal string tracking trajectory ending closer to the middle pickup on the higher strings. He also holds his pick closer to the first joint on the index finger (very wide negative space between thumb and index) and grabbing the pick towards the back half of it giving his thumb a lot more overlap over the index.
Troy is definitely right that there’s almost no rotation. His forearm is pretty stationary on the guitar body. He uses a bit of hybrid picking when needed, and it almost looks like his down strokes are pulling away from the guitar body, although this pretty tough to really see and he isn’t making very drastic pick strokes.
Any thoughts on his opening lick? I watched Troy’s linked video on EVH wrist motion and it mentions the wrist being able to do USX, DSX and DBX from nearly the same position. Is he just changing the pick the trajectory when he needs to on the 2nps pentatonic lick at the beginning.
All D U D U etc. No way in hell at this speed that’s not a USX lick So at least here, his pick can’t be traveling away from the body. Right? RIGHT??? lol! I just feel like at this point…I know nothing. Nothing at all haha! We don’t get a great view of his picking there in the video, but still…
Yeah I guess that explains it. I guess using the wrist, from this posture, offers a lot of flexibility in terms of what escape you can make.
Yeah, very cool. I think I’ve seen that before but probably didn’t pay attention to that part. Makes sense and definitely seems like his default placement.
I think a lot of us will agree on sentiment like this. If someone can play at 240 bpm for an extended duration like he does, a song like the subject of this thread (195bpm) would probably feel like you’re cruising. His technique and control are certainly top notch.
I can’t replicate the type of motion he is doing when I try copy his setup. I don’t understand dart or reverse dart thrower, is there a video that shows those motions close up on this site?
Same here. I’m not going to spend tons of time on it. I can now do a pretty fast RDT with a trailing edge grip. Different muting contact points, but it does the job. I can also, from his setup, come off the strings a little and do a forearm rotation movement that is fast and USX. Well, I think it is forearm. Who knows, with as bad as I am at identifying motions. Here’s what that looks like:
Troy shows the reverse grip RDT here:
And in this (Igor) thread, Troy mentions that as a foot in the door to the motion. So maybe once I play with it more I’ll be able to mimic Igor’s motion a little better. Part of me doesn’t want to spend the time though lol!
Honestly I’ve made pretty good progress just noodling along with the backing track that came with the lesson I bought. Just trying to play as many beats of licks (that work with a particular escape) until I start to lose it. I’m reliably getting 3 or 4 beats of all 16ths when I lock in, so hopefully it will help develop a series of chunks I can stitch together. If nothing else, it’s helping 195 to not feel so scary.
Thanks I’ll have a look. I’ve always struggled to understand the dart thrower motions, which leaves me scratching my head with many topics. It’s come up a lot lately!
I think that many people have issues grasping this from a purely literal reference, because you can flick darts in many different ways. Some people when they think of dart throwing, think of flexion and extension, (the exact movements responsible for string hopping) or using more of the arm. Or if you are like me, you wind up your whole arm and hit the wood beside the dart board. But if you view it as a form of wrist translation with a slight diagonal wrist flick it makes more sense. It’s more of a way of describing how your wrist may move in a 3 dimensional plane, and not so much a 2D one like strict translation. At least that’s what my interpretation is.
That’s correct but it can be even more vertical. 7:00 - 1:00 still counts as RDT and for whatever reason, the more ‘vertical’ this motion becomes, the faster I can do it. If I balance my arm on my thigh, let my hand overlap my knee and do a door knocking motion as fast as I can, all I need to do is supinate a tad and try to get it a little more diagonal. I can get this crazy fast. My hand and wrist just look like they are made of rubber. I can’t necessarily apply those big uncontrolled movements to guitar playing but just feeling that freedom and elasticity of the motion is valuable.
(Just humor me, it’s definitely not you, it’s me. Makes me feel good to claim an excuse though lol)
