How to steady the pick going over the string

Technique Critique
#1

Greetings,

This is first post since joining a few months back. And more coming.

Ive found that when the pick plucks the string, it it often moves my picking hand up and down, very similar to a string skipping motion. Is this because I am not holding the pick tight enough, not flexing my forearm enough, my pick is to thick?

or is it supposed to have that motion. when I watch others play in the videos, i don’t see that up and down motion. coule it be that i am digging the pick too deep into the string?

thanks you

#2

Post video and try a flexible pick as well as barely hitting the string.

#3

In my opinion this is totally fine, the picking GRIP should at times be like a record player needle, loose and able to flow over the strings.

Sorry when you say string skipping do you mean string hopping?

#4

Why? If it’s loose and flowing over the strings, a lot of the depth is wasted, and one could have used a more shallow impact, where a lot of this movement would not be necessary. I’m thinking that the pick “wants” as little interruption from the strings as possible, subject to being loud enough to hear. And if one wants an insurance policy for too much depth, that might possibly suggest a flexible pick… and note that Paul Gilbert has a rounded flexible pick, and he’s a monster.

#5

Yes, string hopping. Thank you :grin:

#6

It’s impossible to have a constant consistant depth in picking, so having a feel for it is better in my opinion.
And shallow pick depth as far as I’m aware has little to do with speed or control. You could have a very deep pick depth and still be playing well.

The original question I think was more about the relaxed pick bobing up n down due to the forces of the string, and how that may be Inefficient. Which its not. It’s acully very efficient to have the pick bobbing up n down vs pushing hard through the string.

I assume this is what you mean @greg.nate ?

#7

Yes, exactly. Although my movement is more bouncy than that.

I can get it to near zero bounce, which makes for fairly accurate playing, but I can’t do this for very long because my picking thumb gets cramped up, and pretty much everything between the thumb and my shoulder.

#8

can you make a video?

Do a sweep motion and an alternate picking one if you can.

#9

You’re a member, so why not get Troy or Tommo to analyze your video?

#10

Absolutely. I need to get the magnet device first.

Unless there is some other way people are using to make a video

#11

Well look at my vid, just held my phone with left n played with right.

#12

Yes, but say I ask you, “can you keep your depth within a 10mm wide tolerance?” Yes, you can. 9mm? 5mm? One can squeeze this down. Recently I have been trying to scrape the top of the string with my 2.0mm Dunlop Flow’s point, and I have missed 0 times and probably don’t even go 2mm deep (but guessing about that); it’s not difficult to do this, and I am not a gifted athlete! It’s just about having simple negative feedback, IMHO, and reasonable uniformity so abrupt changes are not necessary.

#13

That sounds like there is too much resistance when playing through the strings and may be playing too deep. Unless your primary motion is causing this.

I would also play around with the amount of edge picking you do, and if a beginner, I would argue it’s much easier to learn with a good edge picking angle even if you want to play flat at some point for effect. This is because it is much easier to develop a smooth fast motion with less resistance.

I did one lesson with Teemu a few years ago and picking depth was something he personally worked on extensively. Trying to reduce the depth as much as possible while not worrying about the actual width of the picking stroke. It helped my playing significantly, I play with jazz picks typically and so long as I have a sharp tip my picking depth is essentially 0, rarely going passed the underside of the string. It is also extremely consistent in this regard. I found this easier to practice acoustically.

It should take very minimal pressure to hold the pick, and your forearm should not be flexing. I essentially have no grip on my fingertips whatsoever due to chemical damage when I was younger, and still use very minimal pressure. In my case I do need to use extremely grippy picks due to this though.

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#14

Thank you. This was a very helpful post with several bits of good information for me. Depth, motion width, pick grip strength, forearm tension.

On the latter two, I am gripping the pick as if my life depends on it. Any my forearm to my shoulder are so flexed tight I typically have to take a breath and relax every few minutes.

From what I gather, these are all things that can be worked on, but in any particular order?

#15

When you write with a pen, do you have a death-grip? No? Why not?

1 Like
#16

I would work on relaxing prior to everything else, as it will hinder every aspect of playing. If you haven’t gone through the pickslanting primer I definitely would. I’m a somewhat advanced player and I still found it incredibly helpful. Especially the table top tests allowed me to have a better visual of what I’m actually doing with the instrument. Also the lap tests to ensure the motion itself is smooth, then trying to translate that without technique alteration to a playing position. If your primary focus is on reducing tension a lot of your issues may sort themselves out, once you’re relaxed you can re-evaluate.

I do have some tips for reducing tension, these may or may not be helpful to others. It’s something I need to focus on to a bit of an extreme extent as I’m a bodybuilder which means my muscles are often quite fatigued:

  1. Always warm-up with things you’re very comfortable playing. This is mainly to relax and get your mind in a state of confidence. Once you’re in a nice head-space, playing some single note tremolo so long as you can remain loose and relaxed is good to physically warm-up the picking hand.

  2. Sustained mid-tempos are always going to be the most challenging even once you become a comfortable picker. When it comes to picking, finding a comfortable fast technique is extremely important. It is easier to slow down a relaxed technique, than it is to try and gradually speed up. What might work at slow tempos, may not at high tempos. Very few people have an identical slow-mid-fast tempo technique. Interestingly this is the same on a lot of instruments, double kicks for example often have a necessity for technique differences somewhere between 120-160bpm which is also largely based on momentum.

  3. Understand why you’re playing something during your practice sessions. For example, 1-2-3-4 chromatics have often been shown to develop picking speed. However I personally think they’re a poor exercise for this, they are an excellent synchronization exercise assuming that the motion itself is already in place. Obtaining a relaxed tremolo technique should be contained to it’s own exercise. Working on multiple things that all require mental investment is a recipe for tension.

  4. Something that never worked for me, but has worked for people I know is air picking all day when listening to music. This actually just generates tension for myself, but it’s worked for others.

Hopefully something here is helpful.

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#17

I agree with you, I think most warm ups are getting a feel for that depth.
I think single string escape, USX, DSX
VS
alternate/DBX
have different depths that work. A single pick escape can dig into the strings with little issue, but an alternate/DBX double escape needs a shallow escape to make it work well.

#18

Well, let’s think about this for a second. Consider a single-escape motion. There are two ways that I can hit a string, as the pluck (where I believe the pick should just scratch the surface), and as a rest stroke, where the pick can hit anyway that it wants, with more depth being perfectly harmless.

I suspect that there should be no difference in the impact depth on the plucked string between DSX, USX, or DBX. But am I right? You tell me! :grinning:

My current rule of thumb is to basically scratch the top of the string with the point of the pick. I’m still trying to figure out how to get good dynamics, and it’s a problem on my current rig where it usually pretends to be a “Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier.”

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#19

from my playing experiance a single pick escape can have a lot of lax to it, but an alternate pluck needs to keep tight as you say. If you do usx or dsx you can relax a lot.

Jason doing single dsx, down stroke escape. That pick depth its much loser than an alternate dbx stroke

dbx/ alternate picking requires a relatively consistant depth as you say. As its going back n forth non stop.

I think jason was utterly disabled when making this masterpiece so dont matter.

#20

I’m not sure if I understand, aren’t DBX, USX, and DSX all considered to be forms of alternate picking? I agree that USX and DSX aren’t very general, but I still view them as being alternate. Is that right?

And I’m thinking that for all of these techniques one “should” (cough!) scratch their rigid pointy pick on the top of the string, although I’m sure that nearly anything can sound great with the right player. For example, Troy has a powerful picking action and he’s not scared to get some depth, etc.