Do players whose what has been called “hyper speed picking” all describe it as a completely different feeling from when they pick at moderately fast speeds? I seem to remember reading that they tense up their arms to the point that they have what some describe as a “controlled muscle spasm.” They all have that in common, don’t they - the extreme amount of tension in their arms and elbow joint? This is what players like John Taylor, Roy Marchbank, etc do to get extreme speeds, right? For example, the speed of the playing in videos where Roy Marchbank does what he calls “picking drills” can’t be done if his arm and wrist are relaxed, right? I suspect that if those speeds could be reached when relaxed, that we’d hear players who have practiced a ton to be fast all their lives like Morse, McLaughlin, DiMeola, Malmsteen, Batio, etc would be able to reach those speeds too.
Both me and John have said we feel the same muscles activating when we do it. He uses a different hand position to me:
John has the upward angled wrist.
I do the clenched fist thing (but only at the ‘hyper’ speeds.)
John told me he could get the same result with my hand position. I can’t really get the same results with his, but I don’t think that means much. So, that was the long answer to your question, yes me and John do the same thing. From the looks of it, Rusty Cooley has an almost identical movement as well. As for Roy, like I said in the previous thread, he seems to do something entirely different. I believe he was talking about to send some videos to Troy for analysis so with any luck that will happen so we can get a better understanding of it.
@TheCount OK, thank you. I know you don’t know for sure the way Roy generates his speed, but from what you’ve seen, would you think that his arm is also extremely tense when doing licks like he does in his “Picking Drills”? I’m guessing he does because if that speed were capable while playing with a relaxed arm, we’d see players like McLaughlin and Batio hitting similar speeds.
I’m really not at that level as TheCount or John.
But I’m pretty sure that I use the same mechanic partially, and I have a theory describing the idea behind which also describes that ‘spasm’ feeling.
The basic idea is to reduce the range of movement in a joint by tension of muscles in both direction. For elbow that should be biceps and triceps, and it’s the same muscles that are used for the repetition
Now you move in the physics model from a pendulum to a spring, and then the frequency depends on the tension. Still the effort in one direction is pretty small, but holding the tension is energy consuming.
That spasm feeling is the result of using the same muscles to fix the joint as the ones to move it.
I’m absolutely not sure if that is necessary to gain certain speed levels, in Roy’s case to me it does not look totally relaxed, I can imagine he does something similar with his wrist.
But I watched some live clips of Teemu this morning and he plays this ridiculous speeds with no visible tension (which does not mean there is no).
To me the main problem in that movement is practice and timing, which makes it hard to integrate it in musical context. It requires effort and can’t be done for a long time, but many players use tension and power in their playing for musical reasons, so I’d say it’s not the missing relaxation that keeps players from using it, it’s the drasically reduced control.
I very much doubt his arm is relaxed when doing this. Whatever his mechanic is, I simply don’t think it’s possible to move the muscles at such a high speed while keeping them relaxed. I think a certain amount of tension is essential for triggering super fast movements. But this is just speculation built from personal experience! Happy to be proved wrong of course!
Thanks for the kind words @theGuyFromGermany!
Thank you. Even when I listen to Roy play it sounds very much like the other hyper-pickers and I’m not just talking about the speed but the overall sound. It has a similar sound as other players who use a lot of tension for their hyper-picking.
Al DiMeola once said about players who use their elbow instead of their wrist - “It usually sounds as bad as it looks.” I don’t agree with him on that, since I liked Vinnie Moore for example, but still he was hearing something when someone who used a different mechanic than wrist movement. It’s kind of similar to a sound I hear when players tense up to hyper-pick. It has a certain sound to it that I think I’m recognizing in Roy’s playing. I’m not saying it’s a bad sound but it’s a different sound.
Thank you also to @theGuyFromGermany for his explanation of his experience using hyper-picking.
Yes, totally agree, which is why I originally thought it was the usual elbow mechanic before he said anything. He’s able to pick far more complex pattern with his technique though. I can’t really change strings, he can do 1 note per string stuff, super accurately at this tempo. My mechanic simply doesn’t have the control for that.
Is that just because he’s a better guitar player than me? Probably! But it doesn’t feel like my technique would EVER be able to do that, not matter how much I practiced it. He also said he thought my raw tremolo picking speed was quicker than his (though my 24 per second spasm is utterly pointless because I can’t do anything more than one note spasms with it!)
As for Al, he’s never a guy who hides what he thinks! If he doesn’t like the sound of those kind of pickers, fair enough! It probably does have a different sound to it.
I wouldn’t say “probably.” I’d say possibly. The reason is that you can play what you play on a regular guitar without having to tie things around the neck to dampen the sound of open strings ringing out and you don’t have to pick right at the bridge which makes it impossible for him to palm mute.
I wouldn’t mind having Roy’s speed but not if it came at the cost that I couldn’t switch anytime I felt like it from playing a lead to playing an open E or open A chord and not if I couldn’t do palm muting if I wanted to.
Besides, you say you can only pick on one string with your hyper speed picking but what about some of the videos you’ve posted such as the one that is titled “A Tasteless Shred Lick” That’s certainly hyper speed picking isn’t it? It’s not relaxed arm picking, right?
Roy has some unorthodox methods of getting his sound, and it works well for him. I do use string dampness from time to time, but only for tapping stuff, because it becomes very difficult to mute when both hands are on the neck. I also couldn’t pick that close to the bridge. Not necessarily because of palm muting, but because I like the warmer sound nearer the neck. But I like what Roy does, he’s got his own style which I really like, but it’s not necessarily a style that would be that useful fore me for the reasons you mentioned.
As for that lick, that feels like a slightly different mechanic to me. If you’ve watched the Martello video he talks about ‘three levels of picking.’ Normal picking, speed picking and hyper picking. This could be seen as overly simplistic but it makes a lot of sense.
I’d say the ‘tasteless’ lick was NOT hyper picking, despite being quite fast. My arm is tense and it’s all elbow movement, but there’s no clenched fist and it’s a little more controlled. So I’d say that lick was in the 'speed picking tier.'
The one note tremolo stuff is where the ‘hyper’ movement takes over. The clenched fist starts happening, and while I guess it is technically the same mechanic, it feels different. Certainly more tense. I appreciate this is hard to explain, so hope I’m making some kind of sense here!
I sent some videos to Troy for the upcoming analysis where I tremolo pick to a metronome from 160 to 400bpm (400 probably falls apart a little but it was included anyway!)
160 to 200 (quarter notes) was the speed picking stuff. Relaxed fingers, slightly tense arm but still elbow. After that we got to the hyper tier where the fist clenched and the arm tensed up even more.
Anyway that was quite a long explanation but I hope that make some sort of sense!
Yes it does! Thank you! BTW, I forgot in which threats "“Tasteless Lick” is posted. Could you tell me where I could find that and other similar licks from you?
You mean sextuplets at 160 BPM to 200 BPM, right? Quarter notes at 160 or even 200 BPM is slow. 16thnotes at 160 is the speed of the open A string riffing in “Hit The Lights.”
Besides being more tense, are there other ways that it feels different from the regular speed picking? Such as, does it feel like a controlled muscle spasm? Is your whole arm vibrating? Sorry, I’m just curious as to f it really is a different mechanic entirely from “speed picking” or just a somewhat more tense form of it. Thank you!!
No, I mean quarter notes. 160 is pretty slow, so can’t do that with the hyper movement. Interestingly, from I’d say 200 to 240, I use the Hyper picking movement, but it feels a little slow for that mechanic. Possible, and could probably be made easier if I practiced it more. It’s not a mechanic that really works a slower tempos, it’s high speed only!
I think it feels like a more tensed for of my usual speed picking movement to be honest. Apart from the difference in hand position (which I think is only done to tense up the correct muscle, bracoradialis I think some people are saying!) but other than that it feels the same. ‘Controlled Muscle Spasm’ is exactly how I’d describe it! And I think my whole forearm is moving, the upper arm is pretty static.
As for ‘Count Licks’ I think that one was posted in the ‘Count’s Hyper Picking’ thread. If you want more, there’s my youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmTGui7BwhA1dEIz4hhha3A?view_as=subscriber
But I havn’t uploaded much for a while since I’ve been focusing on getting the new EP recorded which is taking a while.
I’ve uploaded a few licks to Instagram recently, mostly tapping and hybrid picking stuff since I’ve been focusing on that more recently. https://www.instagram.com/the_countguitar/
Thanks for taking an interest! Much appreciated!
I’m pretty sure that his pick takes some work for him there.
I guess that the round design forces a flat pickstroke go above the strings, without thinking of slanting.
That’s the main reason i play around with getting the wrist relaxed, you can use string dynamics to your advantage.
Quite possibly, he says he can’t play without one. I’ve been tempted to buy one, since he’s mass producing them now, see how much difference it makes. They’re a little pricey, but they are massive, and he hand finishes every one, so it’s fair enough. If I ever pick one up, i’ll be sure to update everyone on how it feels!
That’d be great!
I thought of ordering one too, but then i thought it might by just useful if it really fits to your motions.
I listed him a while ago when there was a thread about whom we want to see next in hope we could get some insights on pick-design, it’d be so cool to have an individual pick.
Short update on recording: my sun had some dirt underneath his eye-lid, needed to get to hospital with him. Everything is fine again, but I need some beer and intense noise on my headphones after seeing some kind of giant q-tip in the eye of him … he’s granted to use the palystation for the rest of the evening 
I’ll try something over the week if I’m not too tired.
I would have also listed Roy as the next guy I want to see interviewed in Masters Of Mechanics. That old man he has interviewing him doesn’t know the correct questions to ask and besides that, I find him very irritating. His mannerisms including the sounds he makes while Roy plays just really bother me.
So while I find his ability to play the things he plays to be fascinating, I have no desire to have an individual pick. I also have no desire to develop a technique where the only way to get an acceptable sound is to tie rags around the neck of the guitar to stop open strings from ringing out. As far as I’m concerned, if you can’t play guitar without using bands to tie around the neck to keep any open strings from ringing out, then you have not mastered the guitar, not by a longshot!
Do you realize with the guitar set up the way he has it with those rags or bands tied around the neck, he couldn’t even play Eruption? When Eruption was released in 1978 it was state of the art virtuoso rock guitar! While it’s still an impressive solo and it still sounds cool, it is certainly not “state of the art” anymore, not even close. Yet Roy couldn’t play it with those bands around the neck of the guitar because he wouldn’t be able to dive bomb the low E string for starters.
I like the ability to be able to hit an open E or open A chord and then play a lead guitar fill like many guitarists including Eddie Van Halen and Randy Rhoads liked to do. Roy can’t do that either because he can’t play an open E or any open chord!
I like having the ability mute like Yngwie Malmsteen does in part of the solo to Kree Nakoorie and like Al Dimeola does in many of his solos. Because he needs to play right at the bridge, Roy can’t do that either!
Don’t get me wrong; Roy plays some licks I enjoy. The best lick I’ve ever heard him play is a lick he played at the end of one of his picking drill videos and the lick was entitled “Wile E Coyote.” It was absolutely amazing! I’ve never heard anything like it!
Yet as much as I like that lick and some of the other things he plays, I would not want to change my technique to his technique even if I could play the Wile E Coyote lick because I don’t want to lose the freedom to mix rhythm and lead guitar playing, I don’t want to lose the ability to do DiMeola style muting, and I don’t want to have to rely on having bands wrapped around the neck of the guitar and needing a special custom made pick just to be able to play a little faster. The trade off would not be worth it to me.
Concerning the pick I’m really just curious, I’ve no idea if there’s really any benefit, just i see the possibility that we miss something in the equation. If I think of the bow for violin or cello, or the mouthpiece (hope that word exists) for sax or oboe, and compare that to the piece of plastic for a buck of less which connects us to our instrument it think it makes sense to have a closer look on that.
For Roy’s playing I can’t reallay say anything to it, I saw just demos of him so far.
But based on that I think we can assume that he has technically the talent to get all the things you mentioned down (if he hasn’t yet), so I’d say he plays the way he likes most, if I like that I can tell after seeing him on stage.
But beside that even if he (or anybody else) would be technically ‘bad’ on his instrument but produces great music, I see no problem there. Mastering the instrument is work, mastering music is art.
The reason (for me) to get all that technical aspects involved is the chance to stumple upon things I can’t play technicalwise, and to be honest it helps me to get in the tunnel when I see that my fingers can do what they do (which unfortunately is not the case actually after a long break).
I agree a little concerning that ‘old man’, but you should give him a try, he can play and I found Roy over his channel … I mean drugs are not good, but hey it’s fun
Hello German Guy, Regarding the interviewer Roy uses, the old man I mentioned, I did give him a try but I just couldn’t take it after a while. I think he’s one of the worst interviewers I’ve ever heard.
To be completely honest, don’t you think Roy would benefit from a better interviewer? He can play a little, sure, but he cannot interview people!
I’m curious about something. Since you are from Germany, English is not your native language. Don’t you find that old man difficult to understand? English is my native language and many times I have trouble understanding what he is saying.
Speaking of Germany, and I know this is off topic but I’m curious, is Accept very popular in germany, or at least were they very popular in Germany in the 1980s? I think Wolf Hoffman had a good guitar tone. Udo’s voice is sometimes grating though. I had never heard the name Udo before I heard of Accept. Are many men in Germany named Udo? I have never even met anyone named Udo.
Do you remember a German band named Warlock? Their vocalist was a woman named Doro Pesch and she was good!
I saw Accept open for Dio on Dio’s Sacred Heart tour with Craig Goldie taking over for Vivian Campbell and I thought Craig Goldie was very good. I loved Dio! Ronnie James Dio was one of my favorite vocalists ever! I was so sad when he died!
For the record, I think Rowan is a legend! I get that his humour isn’t for everyone though. Obviously I’d love to see Roy in a proper MIM interview, but NYC and Scotland aren’t exactly next door. I know he talked about getting some footage for Troy to analyse. Not sure if that’s got any further, I know Roy’s mum has been very unwell so that’s put a hold on things, and Troy has so many things on the go that it may not be any time soon. Who knows? With any luck they’ll be some analysis on him at some point!
That’s good to know. I was never sure if he’s just funny or a little off in general. Probably he’s the scottish version of EytschPi42, he’s german and it seems to me they’re pretty similar
As a german english is an accent in general 
Interviews aren’t too hard, there’s always context from question to answer, so in that case no problem (or not bigger than usual)
I think they were in the 80’s. I listened to Marillion and Springsteen at that time, to be honest i didn’t know they are german until now 
Udo is common (or was some decades ago) but not typical I’d say.
She’s still active and kindof popular, the music is weird now though.