I made a topic a while back about elbow motion and the strain in my arm while I was using it. That strain has mostly dissipated and it seems to have only been a result of going at super-fast speeds. When I slow it down to even just 180 BPM 16ths, I barely feel anything. I still want to move away from it in the future but in the meantime, as per Troy’s advice, I just need to have a fast motion that I can do relatively well so that I can actually learn the other parts of playing fast. You can read the old topic here if you want to get up to speed, no pun intended.
I’ve been practicing on getting the elbow motion under control and I’ve gotten a pretty good handle on it on the higher strings (G, B, high E), but I run into issues when I try and go lower than that. Sometimes I can keep a steady beat on the D string, sometimes I can’t, and it’s difficult for me to keep steady on the A string and impossible on the low E string. From some self-analysis, I’m guessing it’s because on the higher strings, I kind of anchor my palm on the bridge and other strings and shift the pick across them, but on the lower strings, particularly low E, I have nothing to anchor the palm on. I’m aiming to be able to put pick to guitar willy-nilly and play 180 BPM 16ths consistently on any string with any fretted note for about 10 seconds with ease. I’ve reached that mark on the higher strings, but not the lower ones. Below is a video showcasing the typical motions I make for every string:
What am I doing wrong? Is this something that happens a lot with elbow motion?
