Is this DWPS correctly please?

Your DIY magnet is so cool, I would love a video and parts list of how you did it!

3 Likes

I agree with PickingApprentice, the downstrokes seem to have wristflexion which causes the curve.
That’s just fine it’s just on downstrokes and shouldn’t slow you down. Even more with enough escape that should be Troy’s crosspicking approach.
For the DWPS, the upstroke seems to be fine to me, it escapes fine and the motion is even wide enough to skip a string.
So if it feels good for you I’d say you have it. :grinning:

2 Likes

Thanks, I am on vacation just now with the family. When I get back to the U.K. I will make a post as it is very cheap and works a treat. If it can help other forum members get a better shot of their technique then that would be great.

1 Like

My motion feels pretty forced when I pick the way I do in the last video. My natural tendency when I speed up is picking in plane with the strings, which does not work for string changes. I can DWPS if I concentrate but as soon as I speed up it gets tense and the motion ends up in plane with the strings.

1 Like

The movement seems fine to me as well!
I also had/have similar tendencies (wanting to go back to the string plane when picking fast), and perhaps it may be just a matter of getting used to it. You can also try different degrees of edge picking, and perhaps start alternating between two strings, so that the DWPS becomes necessary and if you are not doing it as you speed up you’ll feel it straight away.

2 Likes

I agree with this, it is surprising how much edgepicking can determine not only the tone, but the feel.

It will feel a bit strange at first, keep going and I am sure it will feel natural after a while. When you have a breakthrough and play something well with it, your brain will recognise it as a success and help you do it again as habit.

I’m not sure whether it is something that others would advise, but I found that experimenting with UWPS helped my DWPS. I even practiced switching slants in a single string. After messing around with it, my level of tactile awareness improved so that I could feel the range of rotation that my hand could do and make adjustments much more easily -the DWPS felt less forced.

Sometimes things are more psychological the physical!

2 Likes

This might be related to the escape curve on the downstroke.
Technically that’s no problem, as I mentioned before that is what Troy does when he’s crosspicking.
Anyway it’s wrist flexion (the same motion as stringhopping) and may be flagged as ‘bad’ by your brain.
If you’re aiming pure DWPS you could give it a try and remove it, just don’t blame me if you have to relearn it when starting with crosspicking :wink:
My impression is that the reason for that curve is more to avoid unwanted noise and not the escape motion.
So doing restrokes would do the same wothout the curve.
But again technically I see no problem there, just getting used to it seems to be a valid option too.

2 Likes

Have you tried uwps wrist? Uwps elbow? Methods involving blends of forearm rotation and wrist? There is no need to force yourself to do dwps using this particular movement if for whatever reason you haven’t figured out how to do it yet. My standard advice, which I’ve been a little bit on a loop about repeating lately (for which I apologize!), is to try all the picking motions and start with whichever one works best. The sooner you learn what it feels like to play fluid lines with any movement, the sooner you’ll be able to learn any others you might like.

So far this is our best introduction to the subject:

https://troygrady.com/channels/talking-the-code/introduction-to-picking-motion/

1 Like

Thanks @tommo it sounds a great idea switching strings as then I will feel when it is not correct as I won’t clear the strings. I will definitely try this and see what improvements I get. Thanks again for your input it is greatly appreciated :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

Yes I think I am probably overthinking instead of playing and feeling. Less brain more feel. I hope alternating between 2 strings will help with this.

Thanks @PickingApprentice your input is much appreciated.

Thanks @theGuyFromGermany using the extension/flexion is probably engraved in my muscle memory as I have been in plane picking for years. As far as I can tell Picking in plane requires extend/flex motion if I have a supinated forearm position.

I think it is going to take time to re-learn it all.

Hi @troy I know you stated this already in this post but as I am having to re-learn all of my motions due to years of wrong (in plane), I thought it best to pick one and learn it.

My UWPS position does not escape the strings by very much as I tend to pick in plane. Therefore as none of my motions are correct I planned on starting with DWPS. This is because at slower speeds 80bpm 16th notes I get a better clearance of the adjacent escaped string using DWPS than I do with my attempts at UWPS.

As I have bought the Yngwie seminar and the MAB seminar I thought I would work through them in order. DWPS then UWPS to learn 2WPS. Most of the rock/metal songs I like require 2WPS so I will need to work up both pick slants eventually. Currently both suck and don’t feel natural so I decided to start with DWPS.

Thanks again for your input @Troy it is always appreciated. Also I greatly enjoyed the interview with Andy Wood, this is an amazing place you have set up. If only it was here 15years ago when I started out playing :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes: I don’t even listen to mandolin music but now after seeing Andy Wood I want to learn! Haha one step at a time though as I suck at guitar!!! Thanks again

1 Like

The motion for plane picking is already there just you combine it with flexion, without that the plane motion is what remains.
On the other hand getting rid of habits can be a pain in the ass.
Just to make sure we talk abiut the same thing. With plane i just mean a straight line, you do that perfectly on the upstroke, the down stroke ends with a slight curve. The curve is unneeded for DWPS. Technically it should not cause any problems, but if yo say you feel some tension there’s one ingredient that could be removed.

I totally agree with Troy when he says there’s no need to focus on this specfic motion, just from watching, it looks good enough to stick with it, so if the other options feel worse or same, I’d say you still have this one as promising fallback.

2 Likes

My only observation here is that you’re learning DWPSing but from the camera angle it looks like your right forearm is pressed up against the body of the guitar, as would be an UWPSing positioning. I can see that you have a somewhat supinated stance with the right arm but perhaps if you tried adding a little wrist flexion you might achieve a more natural picking angle.

2 Likes

When you have “the right forearm” pressed against the guitar, that’s supination, and that is the most common downward pickslanting orientation. So what we are seeing here is what we would expect.

Forearm orientation is a complex topic. It is possible to play uwps lines with both supinated and pronated setups, and I know that you use a supinated approach. However downward pickslanting is more lopsided. Most players I can think of who play this way do it with a supinated setup. The Gypsy players like Joscho Stephan are classic examples, as are Mike Stern, Albert Lee, and others.

There is no ‘order’ to the way we learn things. It’s unpredictable. My best advice is to forget about trying to do things in a sequence because that puts up roadblocks when you can’t get past a certain point. Massive time is wasted on trying to get past those roadblocks.

Instead, a better method is a kind of ‘strategic’ variety. Try lots of things, see which works best, do more of it, see if it improves. If not, change something and try again. If still no improvement, try another approach entirely. Rinse, repeat. The most important thing you can do is to get one of these movements to click, and click well. It really doesn’t matter which movement it is right now, and definitely not whether it is ‘uwps’, ‘dwps’, ‘2wps’, and so on.

1 Like

I thought supinated meant an upward turning of the forearm…as in “supplication”?
What I think I meant to say was that even though his forearm is pressed up against the guitar it still looks like a slight supination since you can see the inner wrist. I was under the impression that a DWPing stance typically had a small space between the guitar and wrist due to a wrist flexion, which I wasn’t seeing here.

Maybe I’m mixing the terms up? Probably wouldn’t hurt for me to review the primer again!!!

That’s correct! He’s doing that, so he’s supinated.

This is a good observation!

I see what you’re getting at. I think it was just the phrasing of what you originally wrote made it sound like you were saying supinated was not a ‘dwps orientation’. But I see you were referring to the air gap with the guitar body.

So, yes, many dwps players use a wrist flex, and that creates either a little or a lot of that ‘arched forearm’ type look depending on how much of it they use. It also affects the way the movement works. Those methods are all great and definitely on the list of things someone should experiment with when trying to do the “survey them all, choose what works” approach.

In general, I don’t think wrist flexion is technically necessary for downward pickslanting to work. Mike Stern doesn’t have much of it, for example. It just makes the movement flatter and more deviational without it, since you’re pretty much right up on that guitar at that point.

Anyway, good catch and yes something @weealf can experiment with if he likes.

2 Likes

Hello
In your first post you say

It sounds to me like you think you shouldn’t use forearm rotation as you dwps and now you try to do it with only wrist deviation and it feels tense.
As far as I know some forearm rotation is totally normal while dwps’ing, I do it too, combined with some wrist deviation and it feels relaxed to me.
Maybe your natural way of dwps’ing is with the forearm rotation included but now you are suppressing the forearm rotation?

A post was merged into an existing topic: Avoiding Downstrokes