Hi there guys! Like anyone else Eric Johnson, Bonamassa and Andy Wood are alternate picking heroes of mine. Any of you have any good advice for me as far as my picking goes. Anything anyone is seeing that I might not?I’ve came a long way in the past couple of years but here’s me a couple minutes into playing for the day.
I’ve got no criticisms. Looks good to me. You’re going for USX and I see clear escapes after upstrokes. Your speed is above what would be possible if your technique was inefficient.
Is there anything you don’t like about it? Do you feel relatively comfortable and relaxed while you play things like this?
Yes, sometimes I feel like my index finger gets in the way. Also, my pick is more so covered by the joint of the thumb instead of the pad. Do you think maybe switching that up could help?
On a separate note, I want to start incorporating DSX as well to get best of both worlds. Any advice on where to begin?
I notice you’re looking at your picking hand for most of the clip. Can you achieve similar results if you focus your visual elsewhere?
Yeah, I think a majority of the time I’m looking at my picking hand but I can look away and still play. But never gave it much thought! Is there a correlation between that and picking?
I’d encourage you to spend some playing without looking at your hands.
We organise into postures and movement through tactile, proprioceptive and kinaesthetic information.
Constant focus of visual attention on our movement can detract from this.
Whether we realise it or not, we all have visualised “ideals” of what our movements “should look like,” and by looking at our hands we naturally attempt to achieve that visual ideal. This can prevent us from finding movements which are better optimised, for no other reason than it looking different to what we have envisaged.
We can also become over reliant on visual information in our motor control. Essentially, you could be practicing hand-eye coordination, rather than learning to play the guitar through haptic feedback.
A common trend I’ve noticed in students who focus on their hands too much is that they often can speed limit themselves to speeds they can visually decipher. Reaction to visual stimuli is significantly slower than reaction to haptic stimuli.
Also, the visual information you can gather in real time isn’t particularly useful. We need high-speed footage of playing to visually understand guitar technique, from angles not available to the player. To attempt to decode your own technique in the act of playing is difficult, and it’s well established in motor learning that attempting to micro-manage movements in their execution negatively impacts performance.
Interesting stuff! I appreciate the feedback and will take your advice to my next practice session!
Thank you!