Issue with the opposite of string hopping

Playing Technique
#1

This is for straight tremolo picking. I was wondering if this issue I’m about to descirbe is covered anywhere by Troy Grady as I can’t be the only one who has had this problem. It’s worse than driving with the handbrake on. After decades of just not quite realizing what was wrong, I’ve finally seemed to have identified the issue and figured out some exercises to begin to counteract it.

My issue is the pick once it gets through the string on both the up stroke and the down stroke drops way down below the optimal picking depth. To counteract it, you develop this wrist popping motion where you lift up the pick to a workable depth when you turn around to go through the string again only to have it fall back down on the other side. So it’s this upside down U path.

Basically it seems there is a spectrum for a pick to get through the string. At one end is the pick getting pushed up over the string, and the other the string getting pushed down around the pick. Seems the best way to mitigate that is a loose grip and a soft touch. That allows 1) the pick to roll back a bit as you go through, effectively raising your picking depth without having to raise your wrist. 2) your thumb and index to function like a shock absorber where they can move up and down ever so slightly independent of the wrest of your hand.

What seems to have occurred for me is that I first started out playing guitar gripping the pick way too tightly like most of us did. Without those mitigating effects, the only way you can get through and to still keep your wrist down is to exert downpressure as the string tension fights you pushing up…and when you snap through and the resistance of the string pushing up is suddenly gone, your pick (and wrist) walk off a cliff.

For me it seems what’s helped to keep planar (other than of course loosening my grip which I have now pretty ingrained at any speed) is to practice rest strokes. I’m not sure why that seems to help. Perhaps with that extra distance you’ve got enough movement going when you get back that to the string you’re picking that it makes it easier to get through.

The other method I’ve tried is the ultra minimal pick movement where you are tickling the
string and your pick doesn’t leave it. How to reconcile those two I have no
idea.

I’m just rambling and maybe my theory is way off, but has anyone else had this issue? What’s the fastest and most effective way to incorporate into your picking to get rid of it? It seems any method I play, as long as there’s a bit of that side to side deviation, this wrist popping nonsense can rear its head.

#2

counting the seconds until someone writes that it would be best to post a video…

:wink:

Tom

#3

“The other method I’ve tried is the ultra minimal pick movement where you are tickling the
string and your pick doesn’t leave it.”

This is how I do it, but I can still increase the pressure and dig in if I want to. Doesn’t have to be all tickly, but I keep very close to the string. I use medium picks so I don’t get a lot of noise.

Try playing short bursts of notes, like 5, 9, 13 & 17 (starting and ending on a beat). I often practice one bar of 8-notes and one bar of 16-notes, repeating 4 times and stopping on a long note.

#4

This FTW!!!

@muttonbuster, I tried reading the opening post a few times and I’m none the wiser of what you are describing. Video is a must - then we stand a chance of helping.

1 Like
#5

I participated in a couple of critiques recently where we saw what I think he is describing. Tommo said he thought it was sort of a natural thing to happen, physics-wise (and we all know Tommo knows his physics! lol) when the pick is interrupted by the string. It glides right over it. So if it starts with a little depth, when it hits the string it gets briefly stuck, climbs over top of it and resumes its depth on the other side. Hence the “C” or upside down “U” (depending on your perspective/view angle). Pretty much the default in trapped picking.

But yeah let’s see some videos! I’ll tell you what I think, then we’ll get some others who actually know what they’re talking about, how what I’m seeing isn’t really what’s happening and we’ll both learn something :wink: lol!

In all seriousness, let’s remember the requests for video come from Troy himself. He’s mentioned countless times he’s gotten into long discussions with people about issues they are having and when a video gets posted, a lot of times what they were describing wasn’t happening at all. I’m definitely a guilty party too. One of these days, I’ll get better at sensory perception. Long road though.

#6

Hehe thanks for the mention! Yes I do Physics as a job but that does not mean that I really I know it, or that I am always right when I apply it - so you should all be skeptical of everything I say :smiley:

But in this case yes, my intuition is that the pick “climbs over” the string and then back down. This is easier to see on fully trapped strokes, as you say.
Sure the string moves as well, but I think the pick moves more. Also, we have video evidence that this happens even at speed (say 180bpm 16th notes) in players like Jorge Strunz and… myself :slight_smile:

This may not be true with ultra-light strings like 0.08s or 0.07s - in the sense that the pick might have negligible deviation in its trajectory and the string does all the moving around - I don’t know. Someone with 0.07s could do the test for us, would be interesting to see!

More practically, this may not be a problem at all. Or it might be if the “up & down” motion is too extreme. We could probably get a better idea if … wait for it … you post a video showing the “problem”!

1 Like
#7

Thanks for everyone’s input. It will be a few days, but I’ll definitely upload some video.