Is it worth moving past Testing your Motions if you don’t have a fast tremolo technique?

Masters in Mechanics
#1

This is kind of a general question, but I’ll try and relate it to my personal experience. I’ve been playing for 20 years, so I have a pretty well formed picking technique. I’ve spent a lot of time trying different pick grips and wrist motions, mostly from the perspective of timbre over speed, which is a big reason I pulled the trigger on this site.

I can play from the elbow in a trem as fast as I think I’d ever need to, trapping the pick on both down and up strokes (figured that one out when covering Miserlou). Every other motion I’ve tried with guitar is topping out about 130bpm 16ths or slower. I suppose I could go all in elbow, but it’s always a bit sloppy, and hand synchronization and string changing are a bear.

The other motions I typically use I’m pretty sure would fall in to the categories of ‘plausible’ picking techniques, and I feel like my hand is capable of more, but it’s almost like the resistance of the pick on the string is catching up the whole thing.

Instead of looking for a critique, I’m wondering how students should proceed from that point if they feel like they aren’t up to par on the tremolo test? How fast would you want to be to proceed?

OT, but I’m also about ready to give up playing after watching the first timer hitting 180 on day one. I’m not sure my ego can recover from that one!

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#2

I’m honestly right here with you, from the elbow to the wrist speed. My most frustrating aspect is that I’d love to have a nice radial deviation wrist technique and the “trying out the motion” thing on a flat table shows that I can get reasonable speeds… but applying it to the guitar escapes me. I’ll be curious what the collective wisdom says about the topic.

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#3

Hi @DiJiSza!

From your post I gather that you DO have at least one fast motion - the elbow one that you use for Misirlou. It’s hard to give suggestions without video, but if it feels fully trapped, maybe it’s not pure elbow as you think. You could try to pronate the arm a bit more to see if you finally achieve downstroke escape.

Our suggestion in these cases is to get started by using the one motion that is currently working — you can gradually try to add other motions later.

But it is very important to start by practicing the phrases that work with your current motion and bring them up to speed. This way, you’ll have a strong reference for what “correct” feels like. And you’ll have of course some cool fast licks :slight_smile:

Regarding the other motions, there is basically no point in practicing them if they are not correct. If for example you took one of the “wrist” table tap tests and you reached 220bpm, but with a guitar you find that your wrist tremolo is limited to 120bpm, it’s a strong indication that you are doing it wrong. Keep experimenting until your “guitar speed” and your “table tapping speed” are similar.

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