I'm back, and I've got wrists

Technique Critique
#1

So I’ve been playing a lot again, since, (I suspect like many of you) I’ve got not much else to do besides try to force myself to write Fortran code.

My wrist motion is coming along pretty nicely, but I’ve found I can’t consistently nail outside ascending string changes. So I went back to basic roll patterns, dug up some old etudes, and I find they get a bit tiring after a while. Here’s one:

And here’s another, which may sound a bit familiar :wink:

What’s weird is that I have a pretty natural and (I’d like to think) fluid forearm-driven technique from the olden days:

But I can’t seem to merge the two (despite yes, having watched the Crosspicking with the Wrist and Forearm broadcast) and get any speed out of it. Here’s an example of scalar playing (with better light and a lighter pick for contrast):

And an example of the two different tremolos I’ve got, both of which feel pretty smooth (and I think they’re probably fast enough, lol):

The issue I’m having is in merging the rotational mechanic with enough of a DSX motion to play outside ascending string changes without either doing a “DWPS” style swipe (yes, I know that terminology is deprecated) or ghosting the note entirely (the former when I’m using more rotation, and the latter when I’m trying to use a 2-o’clock motion). Any general form hints here? (inb4 “this looks great, what’s the problem?” :wink: ) It seems to me the problem stems partly from having too many different things that “just work.”

Apologies for the lack of amp sound: my tube head is broken so I’m running a Scarlett Solo into Guitarix on my Ubuntu laptop, and have no way of getting the output to my phone right now.

Addendum: One more crosspicking etude, this time from a different angle. I think I’ve clocked myself doing 16ths at 150+ on this one, although the accents make it tricky to tell. The red light syndrome is real on this one.

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#2

Thanks for all the shots! Great playing.

In general these all look like a pretty good starting point. You mentioned watching those lessons, so you probably already know that the motion you’re going for here isn’t specifically the ones we do in those videos, but a general mixture of wrist, forearm, and fingers. I have no problem with that! If it works it works. Those lessons are intended as a general starting point.

However I will say that some of this looks unnecessariliy busy, like you may be trying to “do” too much to “get over” the strings. One of the nice things about wrist motion is how un-dramatic it is. There are not a lot parts moving around. So you don’t get these scenarios where you flop down especially hard on certain notes while missing others entirely. And bits of that are what I’m seeing here, particularly in the roll pattern clips where the motion looks bouncy to me, and some of the scale clips where certain notes are getting hit and others missed.

Still, that ascending scale at around 8 seconds fo the “April 11” video sounds great to me. The time sounds good, the attack sounds good. Whatever you’re doing there, I’d try and do more of that. It’s also cleaner than any of the descending attempts in that video, so again, try to zero in on the feel of that ascending approach and see if you can reproduce that in the other direction.

Re: speed, you’re saying you can’t “get any speed” with this technique. Maybe I’m getting old but I feel like that scale is plenty fast to do all kinds of useful playing. And when you’re still unsure of what motion you’re trying to make, and there’s unwanted variation, you’re probably not near your limit for the technique anyway. So as you smooth things out, I would expect you’ll be able to play faster while still being in a comfort zone.

Obviously the tremolo is very fast, and that’s a completely different motion — likely elbow or elbow plus something else. I can’t see from here but if it’s downstroke escape then it’s elbow. If it’s trapped or USX then it may be elbow plus something else, like rotator cuff. However nothing wrong with elbow motion, and players like Brendon Small get great results with it. I’d put a camera on that closer and see what kind of escape it is, and then try to work on synchronzied phrases with that motion. You may end up with two great tools.

Finally, you might try doing pure wrist, or at least something where the ratio of wrist is higher compared to the forearm and finger components. If only for the learning opportunity. If you find your current technique tries to interfere, give three-finger / Steve Morse mode a shot. It feels different enough that you may be able to get a whole different technique going that way that you can’t with an index grip. Again, you needn’t want to play that way all the time but it might help you learn what “un-dramatic wrist” feels like, if that’s not easy to do otherwise.

Nice work and thanks again for all the details.

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#3

Wow, Troy. Thanks for the detailed reply!

The fingers bit confuses me somewhat, honestly. I don’t feel any finger motion, in fact! And I don’t think I can see any, either.

I would push back on that a bit. I definitely don’t think I’m lacking in raw speed! It’s that using the mechanic that I find the most fluid (the very Yngwie-esque thing) doesn’t seem compatible with any DSX motions that I can find. It’s clearly plenty fast by itself, and honestly gets a bit faster if I’m warmed up and relaxed.

The first half of the tremolo picking clip is definitely DSX. Feels like 2-o’clock wrist motion plus elbow. But again, ascending downstroke escapes seem to be a roadblock.

The second half is USX, and feels extremely smooth. I think it’s forearm + elbow, if that’s even a thing?

I have some pure wrist excursions I’ve been getting into lately. I’ll try to put them up once I have some good representative clips. My problem with pure wrist is that palm muting becomes tricky and uncomfortable, and it doesn’t seem to totally solve the ascending outside issue.

Three-finger mode is something I’ve tried here and there over the years. I find the garage spikes suddenly point both ways!

Thanks again.

#4

The finger thing, I could be imagining that. The sevens thing looks Yngwie-ish, where the thumb looks like it’s pushing through the strings. Not bending at the middle joint, but further up the chain. It could also just be the camera angle.

Sorry, I didn’t watch all the way to the end of the tremolo clip. That’s great! That’s maybe the most consistent sounding motion here. It’s my favorite of all these clips. That looks like USX wrist motion. I’ve definitely seen players do that with a Gypsy style arm position without actually doing forearm. There could be some elbow there, wrist and elbow often move together. But the motion looks like wrist. Doesn’t really matter what it is though, because it’s working. Can you use that for synchronized phrases? I’d totally write something to play with that.

I’ll admit I get a little lost in some of these discussions. I tend to think in terms of big picture playing styles to keep things simple. The forearm-wrist technique is a USX style. I don’t really expect it to do other things. I don’t know how you would go about “adding in” more motions to that. Then it would just become another technique, with probably a slightly different arm position, grip, motion, and so forth.

I think that’s what’s you’re basically doing in these scale clips. You’ve found another way to play lines that require both escapes. It’s a slightly different technique. It seems to be in the early or mid stages of becoming consistent, so it will take more time and more variety of phrases and keeping an ear for when you play something that’s clean and consistent, and trying to replicate that. If you find certain phrases, like the ascending scales, always sound better than others, take those picking sequences and write other stuff that uses it.

Edit: Almost forgot, for these kinds of things a slightly closer camera and definitely, 120fps would make things much sharper and easier to see. We can sort of guess with normal speed video but a lot of images are missing. If you can do higher frame rate, definitely give that a shot.

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Flexing wrist is it required?
#5

I promised wrist excursions. I (think I) have delivered. I can’t really do 120fps right now, sadly, and this is as close as I think I can get my camera with my limited space :expressionless:

I think this is still what you called “busy.” Problem is that if I try to flatten this motion out at all it tends to start hitting unwanted strings even more.

The irony is that while this setup makes ascending outside changes a breeze, suddenly descending inside changes are nigh-impossible :rofl:

(Actually, I’m going to post this anyway for posterity but on examining these clips in slow-motion in Youtube: it looks to me like I’m using wrist extension on both the downstroke and the upstroke. Hmm. Hopefully it’s okay for me to use this thread as a progress log. :slight_smile: )

(Note [to self]: I think that if you can’t palm mute, it means your approach angle is wrong and that screws up the whole motion)

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#6

Quick update for my own benefit:

I’ve given the wrist-mostly thing another go, and it’s working pretty well. A combination of too much pick on string (seriously, I tend to dig in pretty deep) and too aggressive of a downward pickslant was holding me back before, I think. Wrapping the thumb slightly to achieve a more neutral slant and making sure to rest the thumb heel on the strings helps with the latter, and just lightening up a bit helps with the former.

I think I’m in the “drilling in a bunch of licks” stage now. This is a strange experience, because my “just go for it” internal metronome speed tends to be way too high. I know “start slow and use less pick” is very, uh, traditional advice that goes very much against CTC principles, but since my tendencies are “start much too fast and dig in much too hard,” this seems to be helping me. I just have to be careful to keep my old, recurring left-wrist RSI from coming back, and I’m always on the edge of that.

#7

Two years later…

So as not to create another thread, I thought I’d post a very quick clip of what my own right hand looks like right now. This feels pretty much effortless, though I do know there’s some swiping and ghosting in there. The inside Gilberts are actually much easier than outside, and I’m pretty sure there’s no ghosting on those.

Excuse the harsh as hell tone, this guitar’s got Black Winters and they’re, uh, a bit on the “whoa wtf that’s really hot” side.

This is mostly for posterity’s sake, so I can be reminded next time I come back to the guitar that these things are at least within my reach :smiley:

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#8

So I’ve been trying to embrace a bit of forearm rotation when it pops up in my playing – I’d been treating it as a mistake before, but @Tom_Gilroy 's excellent post on Oparin’s form made me reconsider. The results feel dramatic. There’s still some long-tail accuracy to work out (bizarrely, more for the outside version than the inside) but this feels extremely repeatable and smooth.

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#9

Oh, and a disclaimer: I’m not “trying to play like Anton,” nor do I think “alternate picking everything with no swiping ever” is the goal for me. This just seems to be a form that feels very smooth and repeatable to me, with an attack that sounds good to my ears.

#10

This is the inside version, right? Sounds great. I’ve only skimmed the other thread so I can’t comment, but what you’re doing here is the very common “classic two-way pickslanting” approach, i.e. wrist most of the time with forearm helper motion during certain (usually ascending inside) string changes. It’s basically what you will see in Antigravity when I demonstrate these types of phrases.

It feels good when you only have one of these motions in a phrase separated by other notes. But: the attack on the note that comes after the swivel can be a little overcooked. Sounds great for high gain rock/metal, isn’t always what you want, especially clean tone where notes tend to pop out a lot. It can be harder to be even. Two, when you need to do continuous inside picking, or continuous 1nps arpeggio stuff, it can feel awkward. Your entire picking motion needs to basically become continous forearm, or continuous wrist-forearm, i.e. a different motion.

When you look at players who can really do things like continuous roll playing in bluegrass, the wrist-only crowd are the most capable. The “classic 2wps” crowd tend to avoid high speed roll playing, or they do only a single-rep (three notes) instance inside a scalar line because it incurs only one swivel.

TLDR if you can verify (film) that your smoothest / best motion has mostly no forearm when going fast, but you see and feel twisting during certain inside picking sequences inside fast phrases, that might be more “classic 2wps”. And you might get the best results by trying to minimize that element to allow the wrist to be the driver and learn to do the inside trick with the two complementary wrist motions. Any minimal forearm is fine so long as it “feels” like wrist to you.

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#11

Hey Troy! Thanks for the response. So yes, you’re right, of course: this does look like “classic 2WPS.” I do remember the Antigravity Pack, I rushed out and bought that as soon as it was available!

The weird thing about it is this:

I can play some fairly big string-skipping rolls with no problem, and there’s clearly a bit of forearm in there too (though I realize the roll speed is nothing to write home about).

But my trem has zero forearm, as far as I can tell, and I think it actually goes back and forth between 2 o’clock and 9 o’clock depending on the line (and I’ve got pretty much endless speed on tap for this one with pretty much zero fatigue issues):

So I don’t know. What I’m doing is working okay for me right now, but I think I must have developed completely different techniques for different lines, heh. One of the big things that confuses me these days is that while I can do pretty smooth wrist-only lines with a trigger grip (which seems to activate the “no forearm” mode for me), it causes my right wrist to fatigue pretty fast.

Thanks again for the feedback! I feel like I’m making pretty good progress on “actually playing some cool lines” so I’m not too worried about how I’m playing things, but I am pretty curious about what’s going on :sweat_smile:

#12

Awesome playing! If it ain’t broke don’t fix it, obviously. I suspect the forearm element will get smaller / less obvious the better you get at this, and if so, there’s probably some qualitative difference between the kind of forearm involvement that feels awkward or causes smoothness issues, and the kind that is merely an assist to the escape. Keep us posted as you work on it.

Re: the tremolo, sounds great and speed is killer. When you say moving “back and forth” from 9 to 2, that would be a curved wrist motion. Is that what you mean? Because I have no evidence that this type of compound wrist motion actually goes that fast.

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#13

Nope! I mean that I can switch from what looks like a downstroke escape trem to one that’s definitely upstroke-escape: the second half of that trem video has a bit of string switching after upstrokes that feels pretty smooth (not easily replicable, but at those speeds for trem lines I’m not super worried right now). I definitely don’t think I’m doing a compound movement at 12+ NPS :laughing:

#14

Meaning you have two versions of the tremolo that you’re doing, and each one is wrist-only, except one is DSX and the other is USX? And these are different wrist motions and not an arm position adjustment?

#15

Correct. I can’t seem to activate that “mode” for scalar lines in the “practice range” of 10NPS (16ths 150), but it’s definitely there. Or rather, I can activate it using trigger grip, but something about the hand setup (which I’m fairly sure is straightforward Wrist Motion Checklist from the Primer) causes discomfort.

Also, string tracking using trigger grip doesn’t feel great either – I think the extra “range” from angle-pad (which doesn’t let me get the sort of attack I like without doing the middle-finger brace thing) helps with wrist tracking quite a bit.

#16

Which mode, the DSX one or the USX one? Or is that not what you mean by mode?

#17

Sorry! I mean “the mode where I can do DSX or USX trem from the same hand position.”

#18

Aha, interesting. What do you mean you can’t activate this for practice range, you’re saying you can only do it really fast? And if you use trigger grip you can do it more slowly but it’s uncomfortable?

Btw that checklist thing, that’s not really a thing to be followed. The more recent stuff in the “identifying your motion” section of the Primer are much clearer on the (three, mainly) different forms for wrist motion. I don’t remember why we created that, I think it was mainly for USX motion since the form for something like Molly Tuttle’s technique is completely different. We’ll probably ditch that page at some point. We’re just swamped with other stuff at the moment.

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#19

More or less! Though my main warmup routine is to try to force myself to play as sloppily as I have to in that speed range, to try to “re-unlock” that motion using a more extended grip. It works sometimes, but is really inconsistent with any grip that isn’t trigger (and again, trigger seems to disagree with my hands).

I’ve got one last clip uploading to demonstrate what I mean.

And honestly, I wound up condensing what I found useful from that checklist to be “put your hand on the bridge like a gunslinger,” which is a really useful “here’s how to play from the wrist” mnemonic for me.

#20

Here we go. Hopefully this either demonstrates that I’m not confabulating this, or (possibly even better?) proves that I am – learning opportunities :smiley: