Kenny Smith - what say you of these movements?

Playing Technique
#1

Really nice player I had not heard of before today.

On instagram I came across someone (Ella Korth) covering this tune Studebaker:

I don’t have the sharpest eye yet for all the anatomical subtleties, so can’t quite say which muscles/joints are allowing for the escaped downstrokes vs the escaped upstrokes. On the latter, it’s looking like some finger movement is helping? Otherwise, it seems like a downstroke-escape friendly set-up, and I may have even caught a few consecutive downstrokes in there.

Interested in any impressions.

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#2

That’s the Yngwie/Joe Stump index thumb movement. It’s actually coming from where the thumb meets the wrist and not the first joint of the thumb and index. If he were to lay off the planted hand a little it would look more like wrist deviation. But since his hand is fairly planted in place you see most of the free movement between his index and thumb.

#3

Looks mostly like motion from the thumb joint as mentioned and also not strict alternate picking.

You don’t see much, if any motion from the wrist joint which is interesting to me as I don’t know a lot about finger and thumb motion works.

Would have to watch a few times to pick the details as to when he’s doing consecutive or directional downstrokes and upstrokes.

#4

Thumb/finger motion is a little tricky because it can happen in a couple of ways and they can be somewhat distinct from each other although looking similar. It’s best to think of it in most contexts as a helper, or that last squirt of lighter fluid.

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#5

Interesting, thanks folks.