Looking for Wrist USX Critique (Tremolo/6NP)

Technique Critique
#1

Hey guys! I recently picked up CtC subscription and have been practicing for about a month now. I’m looking to get some feedback on my Wrist USX motion. I want to check that I’m doing the motion correctly. I’m having a difficult time syncing my hands at high speeds and I want to make sure that my picking hand isn’t the problem. I’ve posted some examples below using an audience and a down view. Each video example contains a normal and half-speed example. Thanks!

Tremolo (~160bpm)

Audience View


Down View

Yngwie Descending 6NP (~100bpm sextuplets)

Audience View


Down View
#2

Overall, picking hand looks good to me.

On the tremolo clip, it wasn’t clear whether your upstrokes would actually escape, but on the example with the string switching, you definitely have an upstroke escape happening. On the string switching example, your trajectory seems to get flatter as you descend into the bass strings, but as long as you’re still clearing the strings, that’s all that matters.

I’d just be mindful that if you decide to put in much time doing single string stuff as you work on synchronization, be sure you still have an escape trajectory like you have when you want to do string switching.

1 Like
#3

Thanks for posting, and thanks for including both camera views, and in slow motion. Somebody read the instructions! Makes our job easier.

Agree with @Frylock, picking motion looks fine. Synchronization actually looks fine, too — you’re hitting the first note of the pattern with a downstroke, and it’s locked up for the most part.

This is actually a fretting problem — you’re not fretting all the notes in the pattern. If we imagine the fingering for the six-note sequence is 412-421, you’re actually fretting 412-441. In other words, you’re just leaving out the middle note, and instead picking the pinky note twice.

Perhaps being more aware this might be enough of a trigger. Or, you could try other patterns. 4321 and 1234 done in sixteenth notes. Or you could try 4121, or even 4020, where 0 is an open string, if that makes it easier.

Try as many variations as you can until you find one you can nail. Everything you complete makes it easier to get the next one.

Good work so far here. Did you have this picking motion before, or did you build this from scratch in the last couple months?

2 Likes
#4

Hey @Troy, appreciate the response. I actually had to build up the wrist motion from scratch over these past two months because it initially didn’t feel natural at all.

I was able to immediately get the wrist-forearm motion pretty fast and smooth because I first subbed to CtC when you called it DWPS. However, I wanted to build up the wrist motion instead for its versatility in both DSX and USX.

I wanted to ask: any more videos on chunking coming soon? I’m trying to learn the Pickslanting Primer Intro Lick and feel that my inability to chunk it is preventing me from playing it at high speeds.