Is this 2WPS or Hopping?

Hey everyone on the Forum!

I want to 2WPS burn like @Troy was doing here

I want to stop any bad habits now while alternate picking is new to me, before the bad habits get into muscle memory.

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Nice playing Hank. These posts that you and others are making are all really instructive. Basically, it looks like a certain number of players have internalized two-way pickslanting movements without first internalizing the picking motion itself to where it is fast and effortless on a single string.

We’ll take the blame for this, since it was the opposite for me — my picking motion was comfortable, I just couldn’t get across the strings without sloppiness. Pickslanting movements were the breakthrough that allowed me to be clean while maintaining fluidity I already had. They will not help you if you haven’t yet figured out how to pick smoothly to begin with.

TLDR my recommendation here is the same as for @aliendough in this thread:

Use the rest stroke technique and show us fluid alternate picking on a single string with downward pickslanting. I’m not looking for ultimate speed, just ultimate fluidity at a moderately fast speed or better. Don’t worry too much about how you’re generating the movement, just try and rest stroke the next higher string with every pickstroke. If you feel too much resistance, back off the force, or the amount of pick on the string, or both, until it feels easy.

You can do this with a single note, but I’d recommend using a phrase like the Yngwie six-note pattern so you’re learning hand sychronization at the same time.

Get this happening on a single string to where it is easy and we’ll go from there.

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Just to add further to what @Troy said about practicing on one string, I found the tab for Vinnie Moore’s Speed, Accuracy and Articulation on Ultimate Guitar and it has some nice ideas for one string licks.

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AAAA haaaaaa! Resting on the other string! Ok, I’ll work on this like you explain. Then post video of that.

We have a hurricane coming through now, so I may be MIA for a bit. Hey, what does TLDR mean?

Thank you @Troy :hugs: lol

Thanks @aliendough ! I’ll check it out!

Too long, didn’t read. People use it before writing a short summary of a longer text.

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Warehouse Metal


-Pookie Bear Out!

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Hi Hank! Thanks for posting this and sorry for the delay in responding. This is a good starting point. What I’m seeing here is that it looks like you’re flip flopping between two different ‘motion mechanics’, i.e. types of picking motion. The first half of this clip is the finger-centric motion we talked about previously. Around the 10 second mark we get a good look at that. To me it looks a little awkward, like it’s a movement that maybe works for you for sweeping / economy, but is less smooth when it comes to playing single-string stuff with consistency.

Around the 1 minute mark, when you switch to a closed grip, that’s when things start to look a lot more like wrist or forearm motion, and a lot less like finger motion. Around 1:15 mark - this approach seems faster and more confident, and it’s the one I’d work on.

So! First question, can you feel the difference between these two methods, and do you know when you’re using one versus the other? I went through a similar phase where my form would drift, even over the course of one practice session, exactly like we’re seeing here. Sometimes it was intentional, sometimes it wasn’t. Even when it was intentional, it was confusing. This was before I looked at things in an analytical / anatomical way, so I didn’t know what I was seeing, and certainly didn’t know how to reproduce the movements the next time I sat down to practice.

Second question, do you normally play with a closed grip or an open one? If you normally play open, then I’d try to recreate movement 2 with an open grip, so you can have the best of both worlds. Whichever grip style you choose, you want to get to a point where you can produce a smooth, consistent stream of picked notes on command, as you’re doing here, without the distraction of other methods creeping in.

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You’re not alone Hanky, I have a similar volume knob issue with anchoring my pinky on my strat. My pinky likes to curl right near/around it and little by little turns the volume down. On a Les Paul my pinky anchors in about the same position on the bottom of the humbucker mounting piece. I want to keep a consistent hand position across different guitars so I ended up taking off the knob and putting a little rubber nub on it so it won’t tear up the palm by accident when strumming. My Kramer & Charvel have the volume knob positioned a little lower so it’s not an issue with them.

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Same here man! The volume is in a different spot on my Kramers. But I guess my hands are so big they smack the volume no matter what I’m playing.

I always felt like the strat volume knob has been placed there by a sadic :smiley:

I love strats, but they do everything they can to be unplayable!

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That’s funny man. lmao.

Never Die!!! :slightly_smiling_face::upside_down_face::rofl::slightly_smiling_face::upside_down_face::slightly_smiling_face:

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