Joe Bonamassa and Wrist Flexion with Wrist/Forearm Movement

Playing Technique
#1

Hey Everyone,

I’m making good progress with the above picking movement thanks to Troy’s excellent instructional videos, and I understand why Troy mentions it’s slightly easier to do when using large flexion like in the gypsy technique.

I’m a massive Bonamassa fan, and he definitely appears to use the wrist/forearm technique - but with hardly any wrist flexion at all or even much supination. (see video below at 4:15).

Does anyone have any different thoughts on what picking movement he’s using here?

He is also able to do the 5’s pattern using pure alternate picking, any advice on how to quickly switch between USX and DSX in the space of just one note? Lots of examples in the video below around 5:45.

Kind regards,

Jonny

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#2

I love Bonamassa’s playing as well!

I suspect the idea is to choose a hand setup where both USX/DSX motions are accessible and quite similar to each other. Bonamassa appears to use almost only wrist motions for this (with perhaps a tiny bit of forearm involvement?). Still it’s a nontrivial task, and indeed the speed here appears lower than, for example, what Eric Johnson achieves with his “USX-economy” strategy.

The “wrist” section of the Pickslanting Primer could be a useful reference for this:

I think this old lesson of Troy may be also relevant (but beware of the “older” DWPS/UWPS terminology) - it deals with fours but it also involves changing escapes within the space of one note.

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#3

Hey Tommo,

Thanks for your reply. I’ve always wondered how he keeps his picking arm and wrist so still with respect to the body when picking, mine seems to just flail around a little bit.

I agree sometimes he appears to use just wrist and other times a blend. It seems to be wrist/forearm wiith his USX motion and wrist only with DSX.

I’m struggling a little with the consistency of my wrist/forearm movement, are you supposed to lay the actual side of the hand (karate chop part) on the bridge, and use a more bent index finger to reach the strings, or slightly more towards the palm on the more fleshy part of your hand? Sorry for the slight tangent!

Kind regards,

Jonny

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#4

Hi Jonny, the short answer is that I believe you can achieve this with a wide variety of pick grips and anchor points.

The longer one is that I think here we are entering into “it would be better to see a video of your playing” territory - for me it’s pretty hard to think about this level of detail without a practical example :slight_smile:

Do you feel like sharing a short video for more in-depth advice? If so, let me be a bit lazy and copy a link to the filming guidelines here :slight_smile:

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