Hey folks,
just wanted to ask for some opinions: do you think this is fundamentally bad technique?
I’m really at my limit with stuff like this and I suspect I’m a strong elbow-driven player with some wrist mixed in. To me it looks and feels pretty tense and inefficient.
I’m starting to think I need to learn how to properly anchor/stabilize my arm and clean up the motion.
What do you think?
Cheers!
1 Like
Hi Marco.
The short answer is no, I don’t think your technique is fundamentally bad.
If you’d like a longer answer, then here it is.
What is good or bad is a matter of values. What is right or wrong is a matter of morality. It has been my experience as a player and as a teacher that it is much more beneficial to think in terms of cause and effect.
Assess your movements on how effectively and efficiently they allow you to achieve your objectives relative to your individual contraints.
You are feeling that your movements are overly tense and fatiguing for the music you want to play, so they are. That’s all there is to it. No good or bad, no right or wrong.
You can explore approaches to reducing your background tension and/or find more efficient movements.
6 Likes
Let me take a step back:
The motion I’m using doesn’t feel bad to me, but when you look at my arm and shoulder, it clearly looks inefficient, and more importantly: I cannot play the song, no matter how much work I put in, or other material comfortably, without fatigueing after short ti
me.
For me that’s a simple conclusion:
even if a technique isn’t “bad” in general, it’s the wrong technique for the music I want to play.
So my question is very practical:
what should be the actual starting point in this case?
Do I stop trying to learn the song and practice technique for now and focus purely on finding a different picking mechanic?
Also, from what I can tell, the original Soreption guitarist seems to play with a very finger-dominant motion (it looks “finger-driven”, though I assume it’s not literally fingers, maybe forearm as primary motion?.
( 05:33-05:39; 05:54-06:03; 06:30-06:34; 06:56-07:02)
Is that a reasonable direction to investigate for this style?
Thanks a lot for your input!
It does look like the technique is finger-driven.
Speaking as someone who uses this motion, your best place to start is trying to get a fast tremolo right away. There is a definite knack to it.
I agree with this assessment.
Here again, I agree. You clearly feel that your current technique is too tense and fatiguing for this music, so it is.
There are many guitarists who would be happy with the technique that you currently have. In another context it, it may be totally adequate.
This would be what I would advise. More practice on this song with the technique you have isn’t likely to give dramatically different results. Even if you do manage to get through the full song, it could feasibly result in repetitive stress injuries.
I’d recommend some general exploration and experimentation with different picking movements. There are also some strategies to reduce habitual tension that are genuinely effective, too.
Come back to the song again after you’ve found something new. Think of it like a video game, sometimes you have to back track, level up and learn a new skill before you can defeat a boss.
I’m a big believer that if you can imitate somebody’s methods, you can imitate their results. If you know something works for somebody else, it’s highly probable that it will work for you, too.
That said, you don’t necessarily need to imitate this method, you may find something else which works just as well for you.
2 Likes
Thinking out loud: if I were to try out another picking technique because mine doesn’t work my instant go-to – especially if you’re into tech death – would be to look what guys like Kevin Heiderich or Rafael Trujillo are doing. Those two belong (at least for me) currently to the absolute top guitarists in terms of picking technique, especially for that genre.
Both super wrist heavy aren’t they? Kevin’s technique doesn’t look too far from mine, except the Trempicking, he does them with wrist, which I really can’t do without excessive elbow usage…
Others here can probably give a better assessment but yeah they look to me like wrist RDT. And yes, it looks like you’re incorporating more elbow. I actually have/had the same issue, at a certain tempo my wrist somewhat locked up and the movement became more elbow. I wanted to get rid of that (also because I felt some strain) so I started working on really focusing on not using the elbow, especially looking at Kevin’s and Rafael’s playing and trying to somehow copy that. I’m still working on that, I think I had some success so far but again there are probably people here who can give better advice.
1 Like
Is the fatigue you are experiencing in the fretting hand or the picking hand?
Dude, big thanks, that’s very helpful!
1 Like