How to start applying DBX outside of rolls?

Playing Technique
#62

The pick can follow a totally linear path if the string moves out of the way.

#63

If the pick was straight and not curved it wouldn’t move

#64

But it does move. Picks are curved and many flex.

Also, the 3rd dimension in picking technique is the axis defined by the string, ie, along the length of the string. The picking movement can follow a curve in a mostly 2D plane (up and down, in and out).

#65

Aka moving your hand or fingers out the way. And the picks curved nature allows this. without much movement.

Lol man this is getting into stuff I’ve acually run away from most my life, but I think you’re far more educated than me to talk about it. So rather than making a fool of myself All I can say is there is rotation. Forarm rotation. And If I am proven wrong I’ll increase my guitar playing :stuck_out_tongue:

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#66

No problem.

Whether you’re right or wrong isn’t so important. This is a discussion forum, you’re igniting discussion. It’s all good.

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#67

Fire to the flame ironic but true. Thank you.

#68

So in all this circular (pun fully intended) discussion we’ve been having, did we at least satisfy the request of the OP and determine “how to start applying DBX outside of rolls”?

#69

If you’re going to quote the video, at least use the correct quote. Troy doesn’t say 360 rotation - he says 360 degree motion. And that is entirely different.

You are right that that motion is in two different dimensions - up and down (flexion and extension) and left to right (radial and ulnar deviation), but by combining those two dimensions together you get a single motion as a vector - you’re not moving one and then the other, you’re doing both at the same time.

Meanwhile, the forearm can do exactly one motion - it can rotate along the axis of the forearm clockwise or counterclockwise.

It is entirely possible to perform motions that are curved using almost entirely no forearm component. Hell, you can even perform what I call the wristwatch test. Put a wristwatch on really tight and try to make curved movements while picking without changing the position of the watch face.

Incorrect. Troy has shown multiple examples of extremely accomplished players who ‘feel’ like they’re doing one thing and are actually doing another. The two big examples I can think of are Jimmy Bruno’s subjective perception of his sweeping mechanic - where he felt that it was the force of the string causing the pick to shift position, but when filmed he was doing it before the pick touched the string - and Carl Miner, who identified his motion as being a forearm rotation one - which it was when he was doing it slowly but when he picked up in speed shifted to an entirely wrist based motion.

This is why athletes have coaches - you can ‘feel’ that you’re doing a particular motion in one way but upon outside observation what you’re actually doing is different. In this case, the camera does not lie. Your brain does.

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#70

Agreed. But note that nearly all interesting movements (ambulation, throwing, whatever) are multi-joint, and it is the rare exception that a motion is single-joint. Indeed, the only joint that seems useful in isolation is the jaw? :thinking:

For picking, the main requirement seems to be “don’t use a particular muscle and it’s antagonist in a single pick stroke.” Other than that, it seems that it’s all good regarding finding a workable technique?

#72

Have you made any vids in the past that demonstrate this? I can kind of conceptualize it but would love a visual to see how you transition between all these if possible.

#73

Some of sources I’ve been reading break the muscular synergies down into three classes; Postural, Respiratory and Locomotor. Other sources are critical of this, and insist that these three classes can’t be understood as independent of each other.

The muscles of the neck are involved in controlling the the movement of the jaw. We’re not machines with individually actuated points of articulations, we can’t move one joint while passively holding other joints stable. The body is a tensegrity structure, natural movement involves wave motion through the entire structure.

Also, our senses of time are contingent upon natural rhythmic movement in our bodies. If we attempt to constrain our natural movements and prevent that wave action, we kill our ability to internalise rhythm. My father is a very good drummer and something of a rhythm shaman. He always told me “If you want to groove, you have to move. You can’t groove if you don’t move.” It turns out that this is now a scientifically verified fact.

There’s some subtletly here. First, we would have to ensure that each muscle of the antagonist pair is active in one stroke direction only. Second, we would want to ensure that we don’t have a cocontraction where both muscles in an antagonist pair are activated simultaneously. Third, we would want to ensure that no muscle is held in constant contraction throughout the alternate picking cycle. Fourth, we would want to ensure that all antagonist pairs involved are synergistic, with no redundancies.

I generally insist on five criteria in picking technique with students.

  1. Efficient muscular activation against low background tension.
  2. Strong connection to internal clock.
  3. High dynamic range.
  4. The facility to reliably escape in at least one direction.
  5. Tracking capability across all six strings.

I don’t mind what particular form students use so long as these five criteria are demonstrated. There are other things I personally value (damping capability, facility to incorporate hybrid picking, etc), but which I don’t insist on. Students have told me that these criteria have been helpful in developing their technique.

I made this discussion video about 4 years ago. I was super uncomfortable being on camera back then and I had no experience teaching guitar. I also have a much better understanding of the movements at the anatomical level now, and I’ve made further optimizations. I should probably make updated versions of these videos for students.

Incidentally, I’ve been teaching/consulting for a year now. Much of the reason I decided to start teaching/consulting officially was because I enjoyed working with you when you sought out a consultation. I hope you’re keeping well and I’m always happy to answer questions if you have them.

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#74

Thanks @Tom_Gilroy your consultations were great and I’ve made some improvements. It would be awesome if you
Could make an updated video about this Mode 2 above. I rewatched this again a little while ago and you mentioned how you tied this mode into Marshall Harrison’s techniqe and coincidentally I just started perusing through his SWYBRYD book recently. You also spoke about how you
really enjoyed the gambale/harrison techniques because it allowed you to work out a whole vocabulary from staying (trapped?) in between the strings (as opposed to constantly escaping on the outside after each pickstroke). This resonated with me because my first solid technique, and which I still feel is my strongest, is doing mini upstroke sweeps from in between the strings. Maybe working on hybrid plucks and some gambale stuff will help me take that strength further

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#75

This is something I respect a lot, I genuinely respect troys efforts in motion mechanics as it’s something I’m interested in but could never do as much effort as Troy has, So I’m willing to be wrong. And I’ve not fully educated myself in his recent stuff, so I’m in many ways talking shit. But in doing so I should learn a few things.

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#76

I’d love a new interview with Marshall, he’s got his regular live steams and I bet he could acually give some genuine insights into his technique after years of working with swybryd naturally.

The Sultans Of Swing - YouTube

Is something I wana get a grip on and you can’t use a pick to do it.

#77

You know, for everything I wrote in this thread, I didn’t really address this.

I’d agree with Troy’s usual advice on this. To learn wrist DBX, you need more than just one note per string rolling patterns. You need the one note per string patterns, but you need to assume the hand position and try to other things with strict alternate picking too. Wrist DBX (902 path) was mostly naturally emergent for me, and it came from playing everything with strict alternate picking from one central position, we no regard for notes per string. The caveat here is that I already knew what “right” felt like from other movements.

I was listening to Run To You by Bryan Adams yesterday, the verse riff is a nice DBX pattern. It breaks a repeating pattern of 8 into a 3 and a 5.

capo on 2nd fret
|---------------------------------|
|---------------------------------|
|---------------------------------|
|-----0-----0---------0-----0-----|
|---2-----2---2-----2-----4---4---|
|-0-----0-------0-3-----5-------5-|
  d u d u d u d u etc

Opportunities to use DBX are everywhere!

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#78

I wish I knew how to better articulate what wrist based DBX feels like. I learned it pretty quickly last year, by following Troy’s typical advice of starting with a speed above where inefficiency can exist. I think I got good results and I found the motion in only about a week. I’ve read countless comments of frustrated individuals who have been chasing DBX for years. I feel for them. I class myself as having pretty poor sensory perception so it’s a great feeling that I finally did something “right”.

My approach was exclusively playing 1nps patterns. I could immediately feel it when it clicked. To me, it feels nothing like efficient single escape playing BUT it’s similar in that it feels almost effortless when it’s done correctly. At that time, I actually hadn’t heard Troy’s advice of mixing in other varieties of patterns. Now, just because I learned the technique doesn’t mean I had it mastered. I still don’t. It’s always getting better though and playing more “scalar” type things is indeed helping. So once again Troy’s advice is spot on.

Looking back, if I were to have done the 1nps and scalar playing in parallel I’m sure the results would be even better. However, I’m not sure what would have happened if I would started with exclusively doing scalar playing to learn the motion. Since we can play scalar licks with Mixed Escape it’s possible I would have only learned to do that. Given how “different” DBX feels, maybe I never would have found it.

So, totally anecdotal, but I’d say to “learn” the DBX motion, 1nps seemed like the way to go. To refine/perfect it, we certainly need that variety of material Troy always recommends. Bluegrass or classical melodies, jazz lines with mini arpeggios etc. I want to make it better but I’m working on a nice arrangement of a bluegrass tune named “Rocky Top” that has a mix of everything and is proving helpful for me in really smoothing the motion out, regardless of escape or arpeggio vs scalar line. I’ll post it when I’m finished and link it here since it’s actually on topic :slight_smile: Most of this thread should be moved a new one titled something like “Wrist DBX and Rotational Mechanic Involvement - A Transformers Case Study”

EDIT:
P.S.
Bryan Adams is awesome! I’m a huge Mutt Lange fan too, even though he was an idiot to leave Shania.

#79

Does it ever feel like you lock into a groove with it? I’ve experience that feeling with USX and DSX but not so much DBX. I can play DBX stuff but the faster I push it, the accuracy falls off a lot. I’ve been spending more time practicing under 140bpm then I probably should but it felt like that was the only way to up the accuracy.

It never feels painful or tense to do the motion, always nice and easy, so I think that’s a good sign but whenever when I go into 140-150bpm territory the accuracy is not great :thinking:

#80

Yeah I think that’s good way to describe it actually. Definitely an aspect of “locked in”.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with playing substantially under 140bpm. I think Troy’s stance on it being “too slow!” was just his typical warning that a motion should be able to go faster than that. So, sanity check to make sure your motion can play fast, reduce as needed to work on accuracy aspects.

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#81

For me, absolutely. All of my picking movements connect strongly to my internal clock. It’s one of the ciriteria for picking technique that I insist upon with students.

EDIT:

I think this might be the only possible context where you can recommend Barrios and Paganini, I can recommend Bryan Adams, and both of us have contributed meaningfully.

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#82

Most people think it has to do with trajectory, but the real origin is that it’s short for “cross-genre” picking.

EDIT 9 months later, because the forum says I can’t make consecutive replies all the sudden lol

BTW @WhammyStarScream I wanted to issue you a public apology as I’ve changed my stance on wrist based DBX. I still stand by much of what I’ve said, but I’ve done a lot of work since this thread and (for me) I’ve come to the conclusion that knowing how to apply rotation in just the right fashion can really level up accuracy and speed. I still wouldn’t call it the “driver” of the motion but I’d consider it a crucial part.

So, like I mentioned to you in the other post recently, saying “I was wrong” is good and healthy. And I think I was partially wrong in some of my opinions here. “Yay, growth” though :wink:

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