Jim's baseline techniques

Technique Critique
#1

[Edit- hi-rate vids posted to Youtube]

Many mistakes included.
The DWPS vid shows the kind of technique I’ve used for decades. I’ve done more with sweeping in the last few years, especially on the upstrokes. The upstroke sweeps cause elbow pain if I do it very much, because I tense up my arm when I’m doing it. I change the shape of my thumb-index loop more than I realized.

DWPS with sweep:

The DBX vid shows where I’m at after three days of working on [Dashboard] > [Cracking the Code Channels] > [Talking the Code]> Crosspicking With The Wrist And Forearm, specifically the Motorcycle clips. This is the first time I’m looking at my own motion, and it seems I’m changing the shape of my thumb-index loop to change the pick path. Maybe some motorcycle too.

DBX:

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#2

Are links to .mov files supposed to work here? The hi-rate clips are .mov.

[Edit- changed links to point to YouTube]

#3

Only the first clip works for me! I think the recommended way is to upload to YouTube and embed the video here.

#4

Cool yep just confirming direct video uploads don’t work, and links to files hosted in arbitrary locations I’m not sure but likely don’t work well. Links to videos on YouTube or Vimeo auto embed best!

#5

Trivia:
When I upload photos from my iPhone X to my Win10 PC, using icloud.com, the 30fps clip came over as a .mp4 file, and the higher rate ones came across as .mov files.

  • When I placed these files in the Public folder on my pcloud.com storage, and linked them into the original post, the .mp4 file appeared to work fine, but not the.mov files.
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#6

Hey @jllewi thanks for posting!

Of the two videos, I think the first one shows the most promising motions: this setup should work well for USX-only playing, it looks similar to a Gipsy Jazz setup. Hence the last note on each string should be an upstroke (unless you are doing downstroke sweeps). Great news is that this is the technique used by Joe Pass & Django Reinhardt among others, so all their vocabulary should be accessible to you. This section of the Primer seems relevant to what you are doing:

As an additional observation you seem to have a DWPS pick orientation, so any upstroke sweep might feel “grabby” - is that how it feels?

#7

Yes, the upstroke sweeps can feel grabby. I think that’s why I clench the muscles in my forearm on the up-sweeps, which leads to elbow pain. I’m trying to use brute force to overcome the “grab”.
I’ve tried to mindfully relax my forearm, but I can’t seem to do that.

#8

Have you tried changing your pick orientation into a neutral or upward pickslant for those upstroke sweeps?

The whole Gambale series (free on YT!) is well worth a watch if you are interested in sweeping comfortably in both directions:

#9

I have not tried changing pick orientation much, except for descending arpeggios, such as the ones in Stiff Neck, one of the tunes I have worked on as an exercise. After viewing the CtC videos, I can see that there are a lot more possibilities than I knew about.