But once you recognize that limitation, what’s wrong with simply starting on an upstroke?
Starting on an upstroke is difficult to wrap your head around if you have that upstroke be the downbeat… but if you imagine the downstroke is still the downbeat, and you’re just coming in 1 16th note early, voila, problem solved. Even better, skip the first upstroke, and just start on the second note of the 4 note pattern on the first string, and then all the rest of the strings you cna play 4 notes.
You need even number of notes per string for both dsx and usx… its just that for usx the FIRST string has to have an odd number of notes,
These are both good points:
Back when I was 17 (cough cough 20 years ago) and playing the JP chromatic exercise, if I knew then what I know now this would have been an option. Heck, JP himself, in the same Rock Discipline video this exercise comes from jokes about being ambi-picktrous and having the ability to start any phrase on an up or down stroke. So, nothing wrong with starting on an upstroke, if it doesn’t mess with your rhythm too much. I do feel like for me, it would always feel a little weird.
Yep.
But, I do want to see how we can pull together and get @JustDave70 some good feedback
Maybe so. I can’t really see the path his pick is traveling in these clips. It’s definitely possible to use his grip and still do USX. If he is indeed doing DSX, then he’d have a much easier time either flipping to USX, or starting on an upstroke.
@jpsychc your idea of playing 3 notes on the first string is cool and creative for chromatic lines in general. I can’t figure out how to do it and play the JP exercise @JustDave70 is doing here though.
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Oh cool. In another thread that just posted, someone is doing trailing edge with USX SDCrites -Trying Out USX with Trailing Edge
But if someone wants to learn a lot of repertoire using DSX, won’t it be useful to get used to playing upstrokes on the downbeat?
in my opinion no. Part of the essence of many dsx players’ vocab (well at least in bluegrass which is my area of expertese) is the sound of changing strings on the off beat. they all maintain the old rule of alternate picking where downstrokes are on downbeats, 100% of the time. if you want nice and neat string changes on down beats, then just use usx. putting upstrokes on the downbeat i guess works if you want to play a bunch of usx vocab using dsx, but why would someone want to do that? Also, maybe crazy electric players who utilize economy picking know how to get upstrokes on the down beat, but i won’t even bother, i know i couldn’t do it lol .
I’m totally hearing you, @jpsychc . That’s the thing that has been frustrating me the most. When I slow down in order to sync up, my motion changes to the less efficient one, and I get stuck at 120. I cannot for the life of me make my slow picking motion go faster, nor my fast motion slow down, and it is infuriating at times.
(okay, Dave, take a deep breath, chill out , go to your happy place) lol.
This is exactly the thing I wanna figure out. I know I can pick fast, and I know I can fret fairly fast, but getting the two hands together is the trick.
I guess what was at the top of my head was someone comfortable with DSX but not USX wanting to take something like Yngwie Malmsteen six-note patterns and adapt them for DSX.
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Between this and the video in your first thread, I think you’re picking close to parallel to the plane of the strings, and not escaping as reliably as you want.
What sounds and looks the best to my ears in this video is the bit starting at 46 seconds, where you have a wrist-oriented thing happening that looks a little like Andy Wood style DSX. But based on the closeups from your original video the other day, it seems like you often have the pick angled blunt end toward the floor (orientation of the pick in space described as “downward pickslant”), which is more compatible with USX.
In the other “fast mode” for the chromatic thing near the beginning, your motion is coming mainly from the elbow, which is really only compatible with DSX, not USX.
If I were you, I’d pick whichever of those two motions you feel more comfortable with, and experiment with your pick grip so that the pick is angled more perpendicular to the direction of the picking motion. That will help keep the attack and feeling of resistance even for downstrokes and upstrokes. Between that and the tendency for elbow motion to create DSX, that might allow you to quickly get some fast DSX picking happening. Or if you feel better with your wrist motion, experiment with variations of pick grip and arm positioning to try to get even, smooth, escaping pickstrokes happening with the foundation of the motion that’s already there.
Another possible path forward might be to take the wrist-oriented technique from your original thread, keep the pick grip pretty similar to what it already is, and just experiment with your arm position to try to get a little bit more supination in your arm setup to try and get USX happening.
I’d experiment with all three of those (DSX elbow, DSX wrist, USX wrist) and figure out which feels best and/or seems to give you reliable escapes. Or if you favor one of them already, just pick that one and try variations of pick grip and arm setup until you find something that feels like its working. And for figuring out whether you’re escaping, just try something like 12 or 24 notes on one string, then 12 or 24 notes on an adjacent string (even with a static fretting hand), and just go back and forth between the strings and see if you can make the change cleanly.
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bulls-eye! That was my thought at first. I’m neither upslanting nor downslanting.
As soon as I started experimenting with all this, my motion has become almost random, like my hands are confused as to whether they should do the new thing or revert to the old thing. If I made 10 videos today, they would all be different. Perhaps a common theme would emerge with a larger sample size. Honestly, I really don’t know what I normally used to do any more, and the inconsistency from one minute to the next makes it hard to know what to try to do to fix it.
There’s so much good observation and advice from this thread, I appreciate it all. But some of it is conflicting. I am at a loss to know where to start. Maybe I will just lay off trying to do any licks for now, and just figure out what my fastest motion is. Then, figure out how to change strings with that motion - create some kind of escaping motion as you advise at the end of your post.
So, is it safe to say that escaping is my biggest challenge, followed by synchronization, then probably some sort of strategizing - planning my passages to change strings at the right time? It seems the one is vital to the other. Can’t sync if I’m not escaping cleanly.
This seems like a big ask. But I’m willing to take a step or three backwards for a few months, if it means I can get a running jump on playing that much better. Faster. Cleaner. In control.
I just want to encourage you, my friend. I’ve started from what I felt like was back at the beginning in January. I want to play USX. That petrucci chromatic scale is a GREAT exercise for hand sync and USX if you start on a downstroke. I’ve seen good results in my own playing. Some days it’s a couple steps back, but as the weeks go by, it’s just as you say. Faster. Cleaner. In control.
I think you’re on the right track with getting a fast motion you are comfortable with. USX/DSX it doesn’t matter. Just make sure if feels smooth and that your pick is burying into either the string above or below your tremolo (depending on whether you choose USX or DSX of course). That way you can work on the speed and the escape at the same time 
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Thanks, @joebegly, it is definitely encouraging. I started my most recent quest for speed at the end of September, beginning of October last year. So, Oct 1 is the point at which I will truly evaluate whether any of this is working or not. In these past few months, I have seen little improvements here and there. Maybe not as big as I had hoped, but certainly enough moments of success to keep the hope of mastery alive. 
Firstly, sorry if my previous reply confused you more.
The key starting point is finding a motion that you can do fast and smooth on a single note. That provides a point of reference for what “fast and smooth” should feel like. As you incrementally attempt more complex things, you can test whether they still feel as “fast and smooth” as that fundamental baseline. For synchronizing with the fretting hand, you’ll probably need to do some slower work while the fretting hand learns what it needs to do, but you want what your picking hand does during that slower work to be informed by what you learned in the previous step about how to make a motion that feels fast and smooth. The work you do at various tempos to build synchronization should all be done with the picking motion you’ve previously proved to yourself can work at higher speeds.
The timeline below doesn’t mean to exclusively do dogmatic practice on these concepts. You should try to play songs and licks that you want to play. But to the extent that there are conceptual milestones you’ll want to build on (and maybe with a little bit of “exercising” along the way, but not to excess), here’s what I think the basic milestones are:
(I’ll defer to @tommo and @Troy on any of this stuff, and note in particualr that @Troy specifically cautions against being overly “exercise” focused):
- Tremolo on one string, any way you can get it. Find a picking motion you can do fast and smooth, with an attack that sounds good to you.
- Make sure your tremolo can either escape the plane of the strings on upstrokes, or escape the plane of the strings on downstrokes (one simple way to test this is to move your tremolo from string to string on the “escape” stroke without complicating the problem with fretting patterns). Nailing this down might entail some experimentation with pick grip and/or arm setup. Once you have a fast, smooth tremolo that escapes in one direction, use it as the basis for the steps below.
- Get your fretting hand synchronized to your picking hand with cyclic patterns on a single string, such as Yngwie sixes in one position. The pattern should be an even number of pickstrokes, where the last pickstroke of the pattern escapes (so if you have a USX motion, the last stroke of the pattern should be an upstroke (i.e. start the pattern with a downstroke). If you have a DSX motion, the last stroke of the pattern should be a downstroke (i.e. start the pattern with an upstroke)).
- Get your fretting hand synchronized to your picking hand with cyclic patterns moving between different positions on one string.
- Add string changes to step 3.
- Add string changes to step 4.
That’s not the end of the road, but it provides a really solid foundation for fast, synchronized single-escaped picking at multiple locations on the neck. There are other nuances (e.g. the “escape hatches” of the Yngwie system), but I think the list above gives a pretty good overall roadmap for single-escaped picking.
Open to corrections, additions, contradictions, etc. from @tommo and @Troy.
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Cool. I think we’re on the same page now. In the past hour, I have been coming up with a progressive regimen over a period of weeks that looks a lot like what you are recommending.
Start with 5 minutes tremolo a day, getting either usx or dsx working at a good speed - solidify the motion we are working with. - try both, if one starts proving easier, that’s the one I go with. Balance of practice time doing fun stuff, learning songs, writing riffs, etc…
Week 2, 10 min/day, add fret hand. simple chromatic at first. watch escape motion.
Week 3, 15 min/day add more complex fretting patterns, in place.
and so on . . .
I must say, this forum - specifically the folks on it - are proving very helpful and encouraging. I like this place. =)
“Regimen” can have scary connotations, and I want to be sure I’m not steering you wrong.
The key steps are step 1 and 2 (which for many people, will really be one step). You seem like you’ve got a couple of different solutions for step 1, and now you need to tweak one of them to get step 2 covered. Finding your step 1/2 solution is a process of experimentation and discovery, and I’m worried you may be thinking of it as something you “grind out”, which I think would be a mistake. It’s a trial and error process of adjusting variables in movement, grip, and arm position until something feels so fast, clean, and smooth, that you immediately recognize it as something to strive to reproduce.
I know I described my numbered list as a “timeline”, but you could think of it more as a sequence of “self tests”. Any item in the list that is currently out if your reach will probably become easier once you can “pass” the items that precede it. Item 3 has perhaps the greatest potential to be time consuming, but once you have it, it’s entirely possible that items 4, 5 and 6 might click for you very quickly. The main thing is not to put in significant time “grinding” on item 3 or higher until you’ve got a handle on item 1/2.
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So, if I’m reading you right, don’t stick to a week one, week two, kind of deal. More like, do step one for as long as it takes to get comfortable, then move on to step two. Get step two happening before moving on to step three. No mater if it takes two days, two weeks, two months. Just do it until it works, then move on.
Okay, I’m with you. I just find that putting a deadline out there keeps me disciplined and motivated. Knowing there is a deadline does two things: it helps me focus on the step at hand, and it builds anticipation and excitement for the next step.
But, for now, I will try it your way, with no time constraints.
Man there is just so much conflicting information out there. I tried a speed building course a few months ago that said follow the steps as directed every week for eight weeks, work up to 14 different licks for two minutes each every day, and be amazed at your progress. Well, I did it, and saw a bit of progress, but I am already advanced in a lot of areas (not speed) so I imagine the course was aimed at folks who are not as far along in their development. I thought, “Maybe with a different set of exercises, I would have got more out of it.” There was very little attention paid to the pick hand, mind you. I imagine he’s one of many folks who don’t even know what pickslanting is, or realizes that they are doing it. His description of the motion was not what his hand was actually doing. I only noticed that thanks to watching the Cracking the Code videos. =)
Then, I see another guy who says that method doesn’t work because you’re splitting your focus, trying to do too much at once and making only minimal progress with each thing. He says choose one or two short licks you want to work on, loop them, and do thousands of repetitions at a slow pace, and the speed will come. Well, I tried that and found I got really good at playing really slow, but never built any speed.
So, third guy comes along, and says bone-headed, mindless repetition is useless, because you never think about technique and doing it properly. You miss opportunities to tweak the motion and get it right. Start slowly, yes, make sure it is smooth and accurate, then build speed right away. Even try going “too fast” at times to tell your brain how you want to do it. Again, minimal progress. All because none of these methods are addressing deficiencies in pick hand technique. It works as long as there is time enough between notes to make up for your poor technique. But as soon as I hit 110, 120 bpm, 16th notes, the wheels fall off and I crash and burn.
Except for the tremolo and the chromatic run. I made great strides in that one exercise, and until I came to CtC, I felt it was almost worthless and unmusical. I now see the value in it. But no-one previously showed me that that motion could become the basis of some impressive speed.
I hope this communicates my frustration and desperation adequately. I have wanted to play fast for decades, and every failure to cross that speed barrier is just another kick in the nuts. It’s getting harder and harder to muster up the determination and discipline to keep trying something new.
I’m kind of at the point of saying, this time, it better f*&$%@%^ work. lol.
Like I said in an earlier post, I am willing to take a few steps back if it means I will finally be able to move forward.
thanks again, and cheers!
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Pretty much. Though you can still try the higher items sparingly as you go. Just don’t devote big chunks of time to them until you’ve mastered the preceding items. And I think Troy generally suggests once you have a single-escape motion that’s fast and smooth, feed it musical licks that you know should work with that motion.
And I’ve made an edit to item 3. The pattern should be an even number of pickstrokes, where the last pickstroke of the pattern escapes (so if you have a USX motion, the last stroke of the pattern should be an upstroke (i.e. start the pattern with a downstroke). If you have a DSX motion, the last stroke of the pattern should be a downstroke (i.e. start the pattern with an upstroke)).
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this is the problem that seems impossible to solve though. I have a fast and smooth single escape motion, but it’s only fast and smooth on one string. When i try to change strings, i’m forced to change the motion, and the result is that i get stuck, sloppy, miss stsrings, hit to many strings, just all around awful ness. I know it’s not hand sync because my hand sync is fine at the speed that i am screwing up at here. i just can’t find a motion that moves smoothly across the strings. I can do it and maybe 1/15 times it will not sound awful, but theres no control there whatsoever. No way to be accurate. I would never be able to actually play guitar that way. MAYBE i can memorize some “ascending patterns” and record it 100 times and one time i will hit the notes, but i can’t actually play the guitar that way. There’s zero accuracy or control. So i still can’t find a motion that escapes the strings and moves smoothly across the strings.
I replied back in your thread:
thanks, changing strings just once every 16 notes or whatever actually does work, so maybe there is hope!
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