Is upward pickslanting faster/easier than downward?

[AGTG]

I have a natural tendency to downard pickslant, so that’s what I’ve focused on the last year after finding out about this stuff.

But then I noticed Troy mention in a video that upward pickslanting requires less of an angle of the wrist to make the escape than downward. That got me thinking: Is upward pickslanting inherently more efficient than downard?

I just started to spend some time traversing pentatonic scales with an upward pickslant and I can definitely see it’s a bit easier than downard.

I will need to put some time into this to see if it pays off, but I was curious if anyone out there noticed this phenomenon.

[Andjoy]

The muting of the higher strings is my problem with upward slanting, that is so easy to do with downward slanting.
Lately i am trying to have a more neutral position i combination with crosspicking, like Martin Miller does.
Still a lot of work to do because i am naturaly a downward slanter, but it starting to work.

[Davidlambo]

Hey, I’m a natural upward pickslanter so I think I can answer this question… after finding out about all this pickslant thing with Troy Grady I been working like crazy for the past 6 month with my downward pickslant to even that up with my upward pickslant technique that I naturally do and this is what I got so far… upward pickslant requires to put the wrist closer to the strings so that actually makes it easier to mute the strings(since you have your wrist already on the top of the strings) but, it requires more movement… downward pickslanting requires to angle slightly the wrist away from the strings so it’s harder to mute the strings but, it requires way less movement from the wrist so it can be faster and you can keep it for longer time(stamina) so they are two different way of doing the same thing that you should have under your picking technique… that’s my experience so far and hopefully this would help… best regards

[Andjoy]

@Davidlambo. That is very strange!
With downward slanting you can very easy mute all the strings opposed to upward slanting where you can only mute the lower strings.

Here’s a picture of downward slanting with all the 6 strings muted which is very easy to do.

[Andjoy]

I think you are doing this (see pic), which is the gypsy way. Martie Friedman also does this very extreme. You have to bring your hand down and let the side of the palm rest near the bridge, now you mute all the strings.

[Davidlambo]

Correct… that’s what I’m doing… as I said I’m new with these downward pickslanting thing and I’m learning I just learned that the I’m doing the gipsy way… I’ll upload some videos and thanks for your response…

[Andjoy]

The Gypsy way is limited. Especially on el guitar with distortion you have to bring your hand down, works great with downward pickslant.

[Davidlambo]

Thanks for your advice

[JonJon]

one small advantage to upward…though it may seem a bit silly

if we are talking ascending 3 note per string stuff (assuming starting with downstroke). We can play 6 notes ascending without doing ANY manipulations. Whereas with downward slanting, if we go DUD then we are going to have to do some sort of rotate or else do economy or something

of course one could always start on an upstroke but some simply dont want to do that

6 notes in a row without manipulation may not seem like much but when you think about easy ways to sequence stuff it can be stretched to more notes and still remain an easy 1 way slanting lick

Like I said, no huge deal but its nice to have that easy way to run off a quick ascending run without much hassle

[Davidlambo]

that’s my downward pickslanting… my wrist away from the strings…

[Davidlambo]

upward force my wrist to be on the top of strings… that was my point on the top comment… sorry if I’m wrong

[Troy]

The short answer is no there is no difference in speed of a ‘pickslant’ - that’s just the orientation of the pick against the string. But when you change your setup in the ways you are seeing here - great photos everyone! - then you might also be changing your picking motion. So what you are really asking is whether there are differences in speed between different picking motions.

And the answer to that is yes probably. Elbow motion is the fastest we have measured. Some people think forearm is also faster than wrist. Is it as fast as elbow motion? Don’t know.

And also keep in mind lots of players use combination motions which blend wrist and forearm, or wrist and other motions.

So to summarize, what you are changing here in these pictures is what I call the ‘setup’. The setup doesn’t have a Speed because it’s not a motion. But if you use different motions, they might have diffeeent speeds. But… they can all be done fast enough for most people!

[Andjoy]

Yes, this is a bit more like the Gypsy way.
It works allright but as i said it is limited for some stuff and on el with distortion you would have to bring the hand down to avoid noise; you can still have the downward pickslant though.
But you are not to far away with your hand so you would have to do just a bit of adjusting.

[AGTG]

One thing I’m noticing is that I can have a lighter touch with upward pickslanting when I ascend, and that’s an awesome feeling. I want to flutter across the strings fast and light, and downard pickslanting seems to be harder work.

[Davidlambo]

What are you referring to is know as the orientation of the wrist “supinated” and the gibsy technique requires to have the wrist more supinaded than the pic that I uploaded… and actually it’s something that I do as well… is just a bit harder to mute the strings so the left hand have to be spot when it comes to muting the strings… and that’s my point… when I do downward pickslanting… as you see in the pic I tend to orientate the wrist slightly away from the strings (supinated) only leaving one side of my wrist for muting. On the contrary, with upward pickslanting I tend to “pronate” the wrist to the guitar therefore, there is more string contact in my opinion… and it’s easier to mute the strings because, I am just slightly lifting the ulnar side of the wrist… anyway, best regards

[Davidlambo]

Thanks for your explanation! it’s seems that there is a relationship between the set up of the wrist and the slanting of the pick… Downward pickslanting seems to require to hit the outside of the strings therefore, the more “supinated” your wrist is… the more you are hitting the outside of the string allowing your upstrokes to break away farder from the strings therefore the switch of the strings get easier in faster speed . Upward pickslanting requires the wrist to be “pronated” so you hit the inside of the strings allowing you to get out of the strings with downstroke easier… the more pronated your wrist is, the farder your away downstrokes are from the strings… it would it be awesome to hear any comments from you about this!! I don’t wanna start preaching wrong staments to my students

[Cherphas]

Hey everyone… I had an “aha!” moment reading through this thread. I’ve been trying to learn DWPS pentatonic licks ala Eric Johnson and Zakk Wylde for months now and I’m having a hard time performing it smooth and clean. Now I think I know why - I’m using a Gypsy style picking when I try to play faster.

I try to keep my palm anchored on the bridge, but my wrist angles and my arm lifts up in the air but as I try to push my picking, making it hard for me to mute the lower E and a strings. Could be tension as well. Any suggestions on how to fix this? Anchor my hand on the bridge and play the licks slowly?

I noticed that I have no problem (or less problems) performing descending 2nps using UWPS. Seems more intuitive to me, like I can use the weight of my hand or gravity to make my hand track to the next string. That’s how it feels but it could just be because I practiced certain licks that way for so long, unconsciously.

[Andjoy]

As i said, you can have a downward slant with muting all the strings at once with the outside palm (pinky side) of your hand very easy; you don’t need to lift your hand away from the strings. With upward slanting you can only mute the lower strings.
So my suggestion to you (if you want to play with a downward pick slant) would still be to lower your hand near/on the bridge for having more overall control.

I believe the Gypsy way of doing this has also to do with geting more volume. They mostly play acoustic without amplification.
On electric you don’t need to do this and you have far more control by resting the outside palm on or near the bridge.

[Andjoy]

I made a little vid.

I am, not so good in playing when not resting the palm, for showing what i mean it is good enough.
You can see that when i am resting my palm the downward slant does not change, i can mute all the strings very easy and have good control.

[Cherphas]

Cool, thanks! Yeah, I get what you are saying. I guess my problem is that I can’t stay in that position, my hand/arm defaults to gypsy style if I don’t pay attention. I am thinking positioning my hand properly and playing the pentatonic patterns slow until my arm learns to stay on the bridge. Maybe I am using too much forearm rotation vs wrist?