Learning how to pick like Anton Oparin using CtC

Playing Technique
#61

I don’t think he uses his elbow on nuclear bleed. I think at his highest speeds, due to inertia and him being very balanced/controlled in whatever tension is necessary, it will look like his elbow moves. It’s not the same as Rusty Cooley style elbow. Basically his wrist is driving but the elbow comes along for the ride, as opposed to the “stiff arm” classic elbow motion.

Here’s a still image from nuclear bleed. His frame rate is low so we see blurring, but notice how only his hand is blurred. If this were true elbow motion, we’d see that same blur on the whole forearm I think.

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#62

Correct, I guess should have clarified that I think it’s a ‘combined movement’ rather than a ‘stiff arm’ approach.

My main point was that I am yet to see really fast motions that are exclusively ‘wrist’ therefore making the ‘wrist dance’ an oversimplification of what’s really going on.

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#63

Could someone please explain to me what the fuck the “wrist dance” even is? Is it a slight rotational motion of the forearm as a side effect of using wrist deviation or RDT to pick?

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#64

Does the wrist dance function something like the swivel technique for bass drumming?

In that case once the main motion has increased in frequency to the point that there’s no longer enough range available you introduce a perpendicular motion to regain some range.

It probably also reduces fatigue by varying the movement.

(This post may well contain misunderstandings of both guitar AND drum technique)

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#65

@Tom_Gilroy gave the best explanation of it above. The “wrist dance” is an incidental movement of the forearm that occurs during wrist motion at slow speeds. “At slow speeds” is an important caveat here because Anton’s wrist dance (and those of other RDT players) disappears when playing fast. In other words, it’s not essential for fast playing and not worth worrying about.

I also agree with @Pepepicks66 that Anton’s wrist movement is RDT and not pure deviation.

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#66

I am deviating from the “wrist dance” with this post, but there´s one statement by Anton that really baffles me. (I already posted a link to the following videos above, but I´d really like to know if I am not getting this right.)

At 05:15 Anton says “It is the string that must avoid the pick, and not opposite.”
At 06:45, he says “The string avoids the pick, but the pick is always at the same depth.”

The quesion I have: is that even possible?

In this video here, you can clearly see how the pick moves the string to the side before then passing OVER the string. The string does not move “down”, or in Anton´s words: the string does not “avoid the pick”.

What you can also see is that the pick depth before and after going over each string is actually the same - so the fact that the “string is moving the pick” and “the pick stays at the same height” are not contradictory statements.

Finally, to add to my confusion, his student Dima here demonstrates how it´s done. I don´t see any wiggle room for the tip of the pick to move to the side before passing the string. Is that because the movement of the pick is too fast, or is it actually possible for the pick to stay unimpeded and move the pick “down and under, out of the way”?

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#67

That video is interesting but also not how everyone picks. For example, there is a lot of pick exposure and also it is a pick that has some flexibility in it. Those 2 things will make it more challenging for the pick to move through the string (i.e. pick displaces string rather than vice versa). A stable grip with a pick that has decent stiffness and not tons of pick exposure should make what he says in the other video easily possible.

It’s no secret Anton likes a firm pick hold.

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#68

My understanding is that Anton is saying, “pretend the hand is on rails and it smashes the string out of the way.” This means that he has a firm grip on the pick and that his fingers won’t collapse or change shape over the impact, etc.

So it’s easy to do what Anton says at 0.3mm deep, but another thing entirely at 4mm.

I suspect he is OK if the pick bends in the collision, but he likely will not permit the hand to leave its pre-planned path.

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