Mancuso and stringhopping, aka technique and creativity

Playing Technique
#1

For everyone who thinks picking technique is not that big of a deal, here’s video of a guy who many consider one of the best living guitar players very clearly demonstrating that he got stuck at the same point as everyone else — stringhopping:

Not a comment on Matteo, obviously. He’s a great player, and his technique is awesome. This is just a very clear demonstration of why the problems we address are non-trivial, and present real roadblocks to making music, even for people who appear to have all the aptitude in the world.

And that’s the bigger point:

When you give people the tools to make music, you get more great musicians and more great music in the end. These tools could be clearer teaching like what we provide, i.e. to get past the roadblocks. Or they could be other techniques which present less of a mystery to figure out in the early stages.

This is why economy picking was and continues to be such a big deal. Not because it’s “economical”. It’s because people can do it even when they can’t figure out alternate at all. Once Frank released his instructional stuff, people who had struggled for years suddenly began doing the kind of lines they could previously only have imagined but not actually played.

Do these types of advances lead to more music in total, not all of it great? Yes. But they also lead to more great music as well. That’s just what happens when you increase the amount of music being made.

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#2

I’ve got a question which is related to my first use of your site last October and can link in here nicely.

If you look at this video when he goes fast with his fingers his dart thrower hand position is plugged over to his right, on the 3 o clock of the clock face.

I didn’t see on your site whether you looked at this when using a pick. Players generally seem to put their dart thrower hand position either to the left or to the right so its up against a physical limit. I’ve noticed wrist players and forearm wrist blend who use finger motion seem to hold their dart thrower position to their left (for right handed players) whereas players who don’t use finger motion hold it to the right. Mancuso above is holding his to the right but of course is not using a pick.

Is this a thing you have thought about? Martin Miller holds his picking hand to the left on your clips, fixed at the 9 o’clock position, as does Eric Johnson and Malmsteen. I like to hold my hand at the 3 o’clock position.

#3

Matteo’s hand is mostly stationary when he plays — there’s not really any wrist motion in his technique. So he’s not a reverse dart player / isn’t using reverse dart technique. I wouldn’t worry too much about what he looks like compared to what a wrist player would look like.

If your question is really about what overall posture you should use for reverse dart wrist motion, this is easy to achieve with a few hands-on steps:

If you can rest on the guitar in this way, and the range of motion feels comfortable, then you’re good. You can move on to doing the motion.

Just make sure you’re getting good results on the reverse dart motion tests first. If you can do it on the table, you can do it on a guitar — the form is the same. If you can’t do it on the table yet, then I’d start there.

When in doubt, make a TC on the platform and show us video of the tests. Maybe we can spot something!

#4

Miscommunication. I think I’ve learnt things here with some of your help and with some of my own input. It’s been useful.