Is This Wrist Motion?

Technique Critique
#1

Hey, just wondering if what I’m doing here is wrist motion, because it sort of feels a bit like a bit of forearm is involved, even though I’m using DSX. Bit of background on me: I joined up here a couple of years ago but flounced and returned to fingerstyle classical. Now I’m back on the plectrum, and have been for about five months now - can’t see myself giving up on it this time, even though I have switched between fingerstyle classical and plectrum-based jazz a lot, my heart lies with the latter. Anyway, I recently purchased the pickslanting primer and noticed the videos about forearm-wrist motion seem to suggest that it is an USX technique, though I can’t seem to do a ‘purely’ wrist-based motion, my forearm seems to move as well. Not that this is really problematic as such, I am just curious what people might say. The following video has the metronome at 160 BPM.

[Tremolo - YouTube]

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#2

I’d say your spot on, definitely looks like some forearm is involved. Personally I’d suggest bumping the metronome up to 173bpm and seeing if you can sustain a wrist based motion for 30 plus secs without tension build up, seems to be a great litmus test for seeing if you have an efficient motion :slight_smile:

This is also true, it can be difficult to stop the forearm wiggle, I’ve experienced the same problem. Your wrist seems to start planted on the strings and lift as you speed up, I’d try and keep it in that planted position as that was something that really helped me eliminate my own forearm wiggle. Keep experimenting with different positions and see if you can get something that feels effortless, good luck!

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#3

Hey, thanks for the reply, Jack. Where I am right now sustaining a tremolo for 30 plus seconds is somewhat ambitious to say the least! - it’s a bit above my capabilities at the moment. I don’t necessarily see the forearm wiggle as a problem but I will keep experimenting and trying to improve my tremolo (and by extension, whole picking-hand technique). I do find that I have to adopt a looser forearm/wrist when I speed up, I struggle to speed up otherwise.
I think my point was that in the pickslanting primer it seems to suggest that a forearm-wrist blend is therefore USX, whereas it appears to not necessarily be the case, for me at least…

#4

I think it’s just covering that particular type of forearm/wrist blend as it’s the most common that you’ll see. I don’t think it says that you can’t use the forearm differently, like for dsx. I think Paul Gilbert sometimes uses a bit of forearm roatation in his mechanics.

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#5

I use to think this but I’m more skeptical now, I think he sometimes uses forearm rotation as a helper motion (as well as having a separate wrist helper motion) but on a single string it always looks like wrist.

On odd occasion I have seen him switch to an USX floating forearm motion mimicking EVH when playing the tremolo part of Eruption but it looks a little different to Eddie’s pure forearm motion :slight_smile:

I don’t think your motion is currently fast enough or being used long enough to decisively say so, though if someone could do DSX wrist/forearm I’d be really interested to see! Again, in my own experience I could tremolo at 160bpm with my old painful tense motion, showcased in the first post of my thread here:

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#6

Thanks for the link. If you’re interested in seeing DSX forearm-wrist you can watch my video again - 160 isn’t my top speed, I can go over in short bursts. It’s not painful for me to do that, but obviously there are aspects that need working on like being able to do it for longer etc. It may not be a decisive technique whatever that means but I can feel the rest stroke against the string above.